Q-mation Informer

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In many applications, it is important to monitor the status of the connection to the IO Controller Device (i.e. PLC) from the HMI. The InTouch Users guide presents methods to monitor communication from InTouch to the IO Server and monitor from the IO Server to the Controller device.

Another method is to use an InTouch IO tag to set a bit in the Controller to, for example, a value of one, and have the controller logic reset the bit to zero. If the HMI does not see this bit reset in a timely manner, it signals a loss of communications to the HMI.

One of the simplest ways to monitor communications between InTouch and the IO Controller is to make use of the QualityStatusString dotfield. Any InTouch IO tag can be selected. For example, if the application has a tag called MyIOTag that is an IO Integer tag, the result of MyIOTag.QualityStatusString will be a string “GOOD” when communication are fine and “BAD” when there is a loss of communication. Typically an On True Condition Script can be used based on MyIOTag.QualityStatusString == “BAD”; as a trigger (i.e. a warning popup or flashing light).

For InTouch versions 9.0 and older, this method could also be used for a failover plan in conjunction with the IOSetAccessName script function. InTouch 9.5 has a built in failover feature in the Access Name configuration for redundancy.