Part 4: Introduction to the Historian and Trends

Introduction

The free Fernhill SCADA runtime has a built-in historian.

You can record the value of any Data Point Tag in the historian simply by enabling the historic storage option on the tag properties.

In this part of the getting started guide you will try out the following tasks:

Turn on historic storage for some tags.
View a temporary trend plot of a data point tag.
Create a trend tag.
Create a link to the trend tag from a graphic page.
Open a trend by clicking a link on a graphic page.

Introduction to the Historian and Trends

In the Tag Window select the Motor Current tag. In the Properties Window set these property values:

Property Value

MaxScale 20

HistoricEnable True

HistoricSignificantChange 0.1

TemporaryTrendInterval 5m

When you set the HistoricEnable property to True, Fernhill SCADA will start recording the value in the historian.
In the Tag Window right-click the Motor Current tag then select View Trend. A trend of the Motor Current value is displayed:

Note: This is a temporary trend plot that is configured from properties of the Analog Data Point Tag. The MinScale and MaxScale properties define the Y Axis scale. The TemporaryTrendInterval property defines the X Axis interval.
Close the Trend Window. In the Tag Window select the Pump State tag. In the Properties Window set these property values:

Property Value

HistoricEnable True

TemporaryTrendInterval 5m
In the Tag Window right-click the Pump State tag then select View Trend. A trend of the Pump State value is displayed:
Close the Trend Window. In the Tag Window right-click the Getting Started folder then select Add new tag then Core then Trend. Press Return to accept the default name of Trend:

Note: The Trend Plot Tag stores the definition of a trend in a tag. This tag supports multiple pens.
Double-click the Trend Plot tag to open the Plot Editor:
Click the X Axis of the trend to select the X Axis and main area of the trend:
In the Properties Window, set these property values:

Property Value

Title Pump Monitor

XAxisInterval 5m

XAxisOffset 30s
In the Tag Window drag the Pump State tag onto the trend. Then drag the Motor Current tag onto the trend:
Click the Save icon in the toolbar to save your work.
Close the Trend Window.
In the Tag Window, double-click the Graphic tag to open the graphic page. Drag the Trend tag onto the graphic page just below the status monitor text.
Select Link to Trend from the menu. Adjust the FontSize to 24 points. Drag the text to align with other items on the page. Press CTRL+SHIFT+A to cancel the selection. The graphic page should now look like this:
Click the Save icon in the toolbar to save your work.
On the toolbar, select Run Mode icon.

Note: In run mode, the animations and operator actions are active.
On the Graphic Page click the link Getting Started.Trend to open the trend.

Note: In the Configuration Tool clicking a navigation link opens the target in a new tab. In the Operator Interface clicking a navigation link changes to the new page.