FactoryTalk Historian ME Lab

For Classroom Use Only!

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MI07 FactoryTalk Historian ME Lab

Contents
Before you begin ......................................................................................................................................... 5
About this lab ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Tools & prerequisites .................................................................................................................................... 5
Lab Setup and Initialization ........................................................................................................................... 7
Section 1: Introduction to Historian ........................................................................................................ 11
About This Section ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Historian applications .................................................................................................................................. 12
Historian Architectures / Distributed Historian ............................................................................................ 13
Capturing Time-series data vs. Relational data .......................................................................................... 14
Filtering and Compression .......................................................................................................................... 14
Section 2: Configuration and Setup of the FTHME module................................................................. 17
Section 3: Integrating the FTHME into an existing FT Directory (FTD) .............................................. 31
Using DataLink ............................................................................................................................................ 42
Section 4: Aggregating data (Data Transfer) from FTHME to FTHSE ................................................. 51
Using Trend ................................................................................................................................................. 61
Creating a Basic Excel Report .................................................................................................................... 67
Section 5: FactoryTalk Historian Discovery Rule Editor Utility .......................................................... 75
Section 6: RSLogix5000 Add On Profile: ............................................................................................... 81

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Before you begin

The following steps must be completed before starting the lab exercise:
1. Start the VMware image. The image is configured for auto logon. Should the auto logon fail and you
receive the logon screen, log on with the following credentials:

Username: Labuser
Password: rockwell

About this lab

Welcome to the FactoryTalk Historian Machine Edition Lab. This session provides you with an
opportunity to explore the new FactoryTalk Historian ME module. The following sections explain what
youll be doing in this lab session, and what you will need to do to complete the hands-on exercises.

Tools & prerequisites

Software programs required:
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Standard (x64bit)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 (compatibility mode)
FactoryTalk Historian Site Edition v3.00 (PreRelease bld1060)
FactoryTalk Historian DataLink v4.2.0*
FactoryTalk VantagePoint v4.0.0
FTSP CPR9 SR5 (FactoryTalk Administration Console, FactoryTalk Directory, FactoryTalk Activation
Server, FactoryTalk Diagnostics)
FactoryTalk Historian Machine Edition Client Tools 2.20* (Management/RuleEditor/AOP)
RSLogix5000 v20

- NOT OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED ON THIS OPERATING SYSTEM

RSLinx Classic 2.59 (SR5)

RSLinx Enterprise 5.50 (SR5)
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 (Excel 2010)

*FactoryTalk Historian Clients are not officially supported running on the FTHistorian Server.

Hardware:
1756-EN2TR Ethernet module

(slot0)

1756-L75 Controller

(slot1)

1756-HIST1G (FTHME) v2.2

(slot2)

Chassis, Power Supply, Ethernet Switch

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Files Required:
FTHDemo.ACD
Tank Temperatures.xls

MYVMDATA VMWare image: A Windows 2008 R2 SP1 (x64bit OS) Server computer to act as a
Centralized FactoryTalk Historian SE Server, FactoryTalk Directory (IIS), FactoryTalk Activation
Server, Workstation (RSLogix5000/FTAdministration Console) using FTSP CPR9 SR5.

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Lab Setup and Initialization

Before you Begin
1. Before you can begin any of the lab exercise, we must ensure the lab hardware has been reset to the
default startup state.
2. Open the file FTHDemo.ACD located on the desktop. The file will be opened in RSLogix5000. We
are going to download this file to the controller to ensure a proper startup state.
3. From the menu in RSLogix500, select Communication > Who Active. Expand the AB_ETHIP-1
node and let in auto populate with EthernetIP devices that RSLinx Classic recognizes. Look at the
front LENS display on your 1756-ENBT Ethernet module in the ControlLogix chassis to determine its
IP address. Match this up with the IP address in the Who Active window and expand this node.
Continue to expand the sub-nodes until you can select the controller in the chassis.

4. Press the Download button to load the program in the controller. When the download is finished, you
will be prompted to return the controller to Remote Run mode. Press the Yes button.

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5. In the RSLogix5000 project window, select the folder Controller FTHDemo, right mouse click and
select Properties from the menu. On the Properties dialog, switch to the Date/Time tab and press
the Set Date, Time and Zone from Workstation button. This will synchronize the controller date and
time to the computer running the VMWare images. Press the OK button when you are finished.

6. Under the I/O Configuration folder, in slot 2, the FTHME is currently registered via the Add On Profile.
Right- click and select Properties. Select the Internet Protocol tab so we can configure the IP
address for the FTHME module. Select the Manually configure IP settings radio button. Under IP
Settings Configuration section, type in the IP addresses as shown below:

Physical Module IP Address: 192.168.1.115

Subnet Mask:

255.255.255.0

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7. Press the Set button to write the IP information to the FTHME module. Also press the Yes button to
apply the changes. You will notice that this IP address begins scrolling across the LENS of the
FTHME module.
8. You can minimize the RSLogix 5000 application
9. At this point, we are ready to begin the lab.

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Section 1: Introduction to Historian

Historians are a widely used tool for gathering large amounts of historical data, primarily based on timeseries data. This data is stored in large archives, and retrieved for reporting, analysis and for general realtime and historical trending.
We will in this section get introduced to Historians in general and the new FactoryTalk Historian ME. We
will look at the advantages of the new Historian compared to previous and older technologies.

About This Section

In this section, we will introduce you to the new FactoryTalk Historian. In this section you will:
What is a Historian and what is it used for
Where does a Historian fit within the Enterprise IT solution
What is time-series data
What is the difference between time series data and relational data
What are some of the advanced features of a Historian

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Historian applications
Historians are utilized across many industries and applications including, Consumer Products, Food and
Beverage, Automotive, Life Sciences, Packaging, Water/Waste Water and Material Routing.
The main application is to capture process data at high speeds and at low intervals to be able to display
trends and graphs of the data, and to be able to perform advanced analysis of the data, and to report
based on the data.
Those time-series data can then be used as a basis for various calculations, estimations, statistical
processes, quality controls, etc., throughout the processes and applications in the enterprise.
The typical Historians are Plant historians capturing data from all the equipment in a plant, and that data
is then used in mostly other specialized applications such as MES, ERP, Reporting, Visualization, Quality
and Assurance applications etc.

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Historian Architectures / Distributed Historian

Because data becomes more and more important, it is essential that systems will allow for data capture at
all levels of the Plant floor and at optimal capture rates, and it is also essential that this data becomes
available at all levels of the enterprise. This is the basic concept of Rockwells Distributed Historian
Strategy.
The Distributed Strategy extends the traditional Site/Plant Historian, with a Machine Level device
Historian to allow for fast and reliable data capture at the controller level, and with an Enterprise Level
Historian to aggregate all Enterprise data to a central repository making the data available at all levels of
the Enterprise.

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Capturing Time-series data vs. Relational data

Time-series data is largely unstructured, and is therefore not the optimal candidate for being stored in a
relational database such as Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle. First of all the data will require a lot of space,
given that typical technologies make every data point a record in the database, and secondly retrieving
that data given the system needs to select a lot of records for a simple trend, will take more time than
traditional relational lookups.
So in order store more data in the same space and in order to allow for very fast data capture and
retrieval, the more advanced Historians today are utilizing time-series optimized data stores, that allow for
a very fast capture rate and storage, a space optimized storage, and a very fast data retrieval rate.

Filtering and Compression

On top of the optimized storage the new FactoryTalk Historian also has an advanced filtering and
compression algorithm that further optimizes the storage capability

Exception Test
Data compression is an optional two-step process to report changes by exception and store only what
is necessary to reproduce as close to the actual raw data trend.

The first step is the Exception test. This test filters all values out that only differ slightly from the
previous value.

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When a value passes this test, that value and the previous value are reported.

Compression Test
The second step is the compression test. This test filters values out that only differ slightly from the
slope between the previous and the next value.

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When a value passes this test, the first value for the slope section and the last value are reported.
This system is also used to retrieve non archived values by interpolation between the archived start
and ending point of the slope section.

In the following sections, we will explore the FactoryTalk Historian Machine Edition (FTHME) module.
This 1756 based Historian collects data from its local chassis and archives it locally on the module.
This data can be accessed by the new Web Browser Application and any of the existing FactoryTalk
Historian Clients such as FTH DataLink, FTH ProcessBook, or FT VantagePoint. This rack based
Historian stores data at the source and is not susceptible to data loss due to a down PC or network.
It is also able to collect data at higher collection rates. For long term data storage, the data from the
FTHME would be configured to automatically transfer to the centralized FactoryTalk Historian Site
Edition (FTHSE) Server.

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Section 2: Configuration and Setup of the FTHME

module
In this section, we will start with a FTHME module in its factory default settings. You will configure the
modules settings, configure data collection and verify the logged data all through the Web Browser.
There is no Rockwell Automation software required to accomplish these tasks, everything is done through
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The configuration settings for IE8 have been done for you and are:
Tools > Compatibility View
Tools > Internet Options > Security > Local intranet > Sites > Advanced > Add (IP of FTHME)
Tools > Internet Options > Security > Local intranet > Custom Level >
Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked s safe for scripting > Enable

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1. The module has been placed in the chassis and typically needs a DHCP server to serve it an IP
address. Instead, we manually set a static IP address previously using the Add on Profile (AOP) in
RSLogix5000.
2. From the desktop of your image, launch the Internet Explorer shortcut.

Note: The My Computer icon on the desktop has been renamed to MYFTH2012.
3. Type in the IP address of your FTHME module, it should be scrolling across the LENs display of
the module. http://Your ME IP Address (Example: http://192.168.1.115) and press Go. This will
display the FTHME web browser login page.

4. For the User ID, type in piadmin and leave the password blank, press the Login button to complete
the login process.

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5. You will be at the Home > Status overview screen. For navigation through the web browser, there
are 5 tabs across the top (Home, View Data, Manage Points, Configure Historian, Advanced) to
select from. As you select a different tab, the menu options in the left hand vertical pane change to
provide menu specific options to select from. The statistics on the left hand pane update every 30
seconds, the information on the main portion (white background in below picture) only update once
when displayed.

6. We will now begin to configure the module. Navigate to the Advanced >System Settings page.
You do this by clicking on the Advanced Tab on the horizontal and clicking the System Settings
option that appears on the left vertical pane.
7. The first step is to assign a name to your FTHME module. By default, the module name is unique. It
uses the serial number of the module as the prefix to -FTHME. (Example: A00059D1-FTHME).
This module name will be used when data from FTHME is transferred to FTHSE/PI Server. The
module name will be appended as a prefix to the name of the FTHME data point and that will be its
name in FTHSE/PI. This module name will add context at the FTHSE/PI Server in case you have
multiple FTHME modules transferring to the same Historian Server. For this lab, we will leave the
Module Name as is.

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9. On the same page under the Network Settings, is the configuration for the Ethernet port and DNS
settings. For this lab, we are not going to change the network settings.
10. To configure the time options for the module, navigate to the Advanced >Time Management page.
There are several options available for setting the modules time source. For this lab we will
synchronize the FTHME time with the controller time. Select Controller Time in the Time
Synchronization section, verify you have selected FTHDemo_1_1 and then press the Save button to
commit this change. The module will reboot for this change to take effect (it will take approx 5 minutes
for the module to synchronize and reboot).

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While the module is rebooting, lets review the importance of Time Management within your Historian
System. Ideally, you should implement your Time Management strategy prior to configuring the
FTHME for data collection. The Historian system is made up of the Controllers, the FTHME modules,
the FTHSE/PI Server and FT Historian client PCs. All of these devices should have their clocks
synchronized by your master time source.
A typical approach is the Domain Controller has its clock synchronized by an NTP Server. The
Domain Controller synchronizes the PCs (FTHSE and FTHistorian client PCs) that are a part of the
Domain. The RSLogix Clock Sync Tool is then run from one of these PCs and configured to
synchronize the Controllers clock at some periodic rate. The FTHME module can then synchronize
its clock to a controller in the local chassis.
Several other solutions exist that could include using CIPSync devices or GPS Time modules.
Bottom line is, for your Historian data to be useful for analysis, the clocks within the system
must be synchronized from one master time source.

11. Once the module has completed rebooting, the Web Browser will reset and return you back to the
login page. You will know that the module is fully initialized when the middle STS LED is either
flashing green or solid green. This typically takes several minutes (approx 5 minutes). Type the User
ID of piadmin with no password then press the Login button.

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12. The next step is to configure the security mode for the module, navigate to the Configure Historian >
System Security page. There are two types of security for the FTHME, Native Security and
FTSecurity. Native Security is a self contained security system that requires all security configuration
to be done through this Web Browser for each individual FTHME module. FTSecurity allows
centralized security administration through the FactoryTalk Administration Console (FTAC), we will
look at this later in the lab. In addition to the security mode, you can also configure whether you want
the data to be encrypted (HTTPS) for added security. For this portion of the lab, we will leave the
configuration at the Native setting and use the HTTP (unsecured) protocol.

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13. It is a best practice to change the default password on the module. This is done by navigating to the
Configure Historian > User Management page. Highlight the user piadmin and select the Change
Password button. Leave the Old Password blank, type in piadmin for the New Password,
Confirm Password and press the Save button. You are then required to login to the module, this
time using the new password.

14. To login again, for the User ID field, type in piadmin and for the Password, type in piadmin.
Press the Login button to complete the login process.

15. At this point we are ready to add points to the Historian module to log. Select the Manage Points >
Add Points Wizard page. For this portion of the lab, we will use the Default Rule file (ADDefault.xml)
and the Default Tag File (FTHMETagDefault.xml) to find tag matches from the Controller and
configure the tags. You can view the contents of these default files by selecting the expand button to
the right of the drop down option.

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16. The FTHME reads data from controllers in the local chassis. If the chassis contains multiple
controllers, you could read data from all of them (maximum of 4 controllers) or just the ones you have
selected. In this lab, we have just one controller in the chassis. The detected controllers from the
local chassis are listed under the Start Search In section of the page, the controller is named
FTHDemo_1_1. Select the box to the left of FTHDemo_1_1 and Click the Show Tags button.

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17. The FTHME module communicates to the controller across the backplane and lists any tags that
match the Default Rule File from the selected controller. By default, all the matching tags are
selected in the table. The user could unselect all tags by clicking the All/None checkbox, select only
a subset of tags or modify the scan rate from the default 1 second. Leave all items selected and click
the Create button to auto create the data points. Press the OK button on the popup dialog to
continue.

It will take approximately 30 seconds to create these 1361 points.

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18. The attributes for these newly created data points come from the Default Tag File. The third step
(Review Results) of the wizard gives an overview of the results. Notice that these points begin
immediately logging data as shown from Data Collection Status is Running.

There were 1361 points created. The module comes with 4 system tags which are automatically
created. These system tags should never be edited or deleted.
You will notice the information at the top of the screen that recommends stopping and restarting Data
Collection after adding points to the system. Doing this will ensure that the communications are
optimized fully between the FTHME and CLX. It is not necessary in this case, since all these points
were added at one time. It becomes more important if you are adding points to your module at
multiple different times.

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19. We now want to verify that the points were created. Click the Manage Points > Edit Points, and
click the Search button. Click on one tag to highlight it then press the Edit button. These are a
subset of the Point Properties of the point you just created. It used the Default Tag file to set these
point attributes like the Exception Filtering, Compression Filtering, Scan Rate and Scan Type.

20. To verify that these newly created points are logging data, click on View Data > Current Data. For
the Point Name, type in *demo_temp* then press the Search button. In the bottom menu line, it
states there was 18 items. Click on Name to sort the column alphabetically. This table lists the
current value and timestamp for the matching points.

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In the bottom left corner of the screen are statistics that update every 30 seconds. You will notice
that the collection rate and archive rate are now updating because of the newly configured points.
The archive rate is less than the collection rate due to the exception and compression algorithm that
discards non essential data. The collection rate is the rate the Interface is receiving data. The
Archive rate is after the exception and compression algorithm is applied, this is the rate the data is
being written to the archive files. It is the data from the archive files that the client applications
visualize.

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21. In the previous step we looked at the current value of the points, now we will look at the archived
(historical) values in columnar format. Click the View Data > Archive Data. For the Point Name,
type in *temp.pv*, then press the Search button. Select the tag to highlight (make sure the line stays
highlighted in blue) the line and press the View button. By default the last 2 minutes (*-2m) of data
are displayed.

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22. We can look at the same data by using a trend. Click the View Data > Trends. Type in *temp.pv*
and press Search. Check the Select box for the point FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV.
Press the green triangle (Start) within the Trend Chart. Press the ^ button in the upper right
corner in the Points list to minimize the display to allow more viewing of the trend. By default, the
trend displays the past 2 minutes of data and refreshes every second.

You can stop the trend by clicking on the Red square (Stop Button).
23. Weve installed and configured the FTHME module, configured data collection and viewed the logged
data through the Web Browser. This was all accomplished using only the Microsoft Internet Explorer
Web Browser, there was no additional software needed. The Web Browser allows you to do all the
configuration of the FTHME module. It also allows you to perform some basic visualization, yet in
depth analysis of the data would require other clients like FactoryTalk VantagePoint, FactoryTalk
Historian DataLink or FactoryTalk ProcessBook.

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Section 3: Integrating the FTHME into an existing FT

Directory (FTD)
We are now going to integrate the stand alone FTHME module into an existing FactoryTalk System. This
will allow you to perform centralized security administration and allow existing FactoryTalk clients to
connect to the FTHME module to visualize data.
In order to register the FTHME, you must install FTSP (FactoryTalk Services Platform) with web services.
These are found on the FactoryTalk Historian ME Client Tools DVD. To visualize the logged data, you
need to have Excel and FactoryTalk Historian DataLink installed. All of the necessary software has been
preinstalled for you.

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1. From the Web Browser, navigate to Configure Historian > System Security. Under the Security
Mode section, select the FTSecurity option. Type in the IP address of the FTDirectory
(192.168.1.112). Press the Save button. For the security mode change to take effect, the module
needs to reboot. Minimize the Web Browser window, it will take approx 5 minutes to reboot and fully
initialize.

Once the Save button is pressed, the entered IP address is verified to determine that it is a valid
FTDirectory computer. The FTDirectory computer must have both FactoryTalk Services Platform
(CPR9 SR2 or newer) installed and IIS installed and configured. FTSP has an optional installation
component (under custom install) called Web Services that is necessary to authenticate the security
calls from the FTHME module. Also, when the FTD is installed on an x64 OS, IIS needs to have the
defaultAppPool enabled for 32-bit applications (explained in FactoryTalk Help).
2

While the module is rebooting, we will create a FactoryTalk user and will then register the FTHME
module within the FTAdministration Console.

3. Launch the FactoryTalk Administration Console (FTAC). Navigate to Start > All Programs
>Rockwell Software > FactoryTalk Administration Console. Select OK to use the Network
directory.
Both the FTHSE and FTHME only support the Network scoped Directory, not the Local Scope.

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4. Under System > Users and Groups, take a look at the preconfigured User Groups specific to
FactoryTalk Historian. These User Groups are automatically created when installing the FactoryTalk
Historian Management Tools. There are four groups (FTHAdministrators, FTHEngineers,
FTHOperators, FTHSupervisors). Each group represents a different level of security to restrict
access as required for a given user.

5. To be able to log into the FTHME module using FactoryTalk Security, we need to create a new FT
User. To create a new User, right-click on Users > New > User

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6. For User name:, Password: and Confirm: type in ftadmin.

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7. Select the Group Membership tab and press the Add Button. Select FTHAdministrators from the
list then press the OK button twice.

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8. You can now view your newly created FactoryTalk User in FTHAdministrators User Group by doubleclicking on the FTHAdministrators node under User Groups.

9. We will now register the module within the FactoryTalk Directory, you must create a Server
Connection first.

10. Navigate on the Start menu to Start > All Programs > Rockwell Software > FactoryTalk Historian
SE > System Management Tools

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11. Click on the File > Connections to open the PI Connection Manager.

12. From the menu, select Server > Add Server. In the Network Node field type in the IP address of the
FTHME module, then press the OK button.

NOTE: If a connection was successfully established, the IP address will appear on the left side. If an
error occurs, it is probably due to the module still rebooting. Wait a little bit then try again. When the
STS LED on the module goes to solid green or flashing green, it is fully initialized and a connection
can be established.

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13. You should now have two Server connections defined, one for the FTHME connection you just
created and one for the FactoryTalk Historian SE server.

14. Close the About PI-SDK dialog.

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15. Within the FTAdministration Console, navigate to System > Connections. Under the Historical
Data node you will see the FactoryTalk Historian SE server (Production Historian) registered. In a
similar fashion, the FactoryTalk Historian ME modules will also be registered. To register a
FactoryTalk Historian ME server, right-click on the node Historical Data ME and select New
Historian ME Server Connection from the menu.

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16. From the pull down option under Server or Collective Name, select your FTHME IP address (this
comes from the Server Connection we previously configured) and click the Test Server Connection
button. You should receive a Server found message. Press the OK button to continue.

17. Once the module is registered within the FTDirectory, the module will show up under the Historical
Data ME folder. Expand the folder to show your registered module.

You have now registered the FTHME module within the FTDirectory and created a new FactoryTalk
User in the Administration Console.
You can now exit the FactoryTalk Administration Console.

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18. Maximize the Web Browser window (or re-open Internet Explorer and type in http://<FTHME module
address>. First attempt to login with your previous Native security credentials with User ID: piadmin
and Password: piadmin. Notice the following error when you press the Login button:

Only one security mode can be active at one time. Since we previously modified the security mode
from Native to FTSecurity, the Native security will not authenticate the user credentials and only
FactoryTalk User accounts can be used with FTSecurity.
19. Using the newly created FactoryTalk User credentials (ftadmin, ftadmin) , log into the Web Browser.
Notice in the upper right hand corner of the web browser the current user and their highest privileged
group is displayed.

20. In addition to using the Web Browser to visualize the logged data from the FTHME module, you can
also use all the other FactoryTalk Historian Clients (FTVantagePoint, Historian Process Book and
Historian DataLink) to visualize the data.

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Using DataLink
In this section, you will explore many of the features available in DataLink.
1. We will now use Historian DataLink to retrieve data from FTHME in both tabular format and in a trend.
We will be looking at the tag T100_Demo_Temp.PV for a particular time span to do this.
2. Minimize the web browser. From the Windows Start menu, select Start>All Programs>Microsoft
Office>Microsoft Excel 2010. This will launch EXCEL 2010 where Historian DataLink is registered
as an Add-In.
3. Select the PI ribbon and observe the various functions available for use with the Historian data. With
this menu it is possible to extract data points to Excel for calculations, displaying trends, etc:

4. In order for the PI ribbon to display in EXCEL, you must first install the DataLink Client from the
FactoryTalk Historian CD. In this lab, these steps have been performed for you in the interest of
saving time.
5. Select the File > Recent to open the existing Excel report template we want to start working with.
Select the Tank Temperatures.xls file.

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6. We will create a Summary Report for the Tank Temperatures. The report template is pre-populated
with logo and text, but does not have any data yet. We will add a data point and a trend.

7. Select cell B5 in the worksheet then select Compressed Data > Values for today for the PI ribbon:

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8. In the Compressed Data dialog, enter/select the following (as shown below):

Time Range
PI Server
Start Time to *-1m
End Time to *
Select hide count
Select show timestamps

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9. Make sure the PI Server selected is the FTHME (IP address). Next, click the Tagnames(s) button to
open the Tag Search dialog.

10. In the Tag Search dialog, in the Tag Mask field, type *temp.pv* and click the Search button. Select
the FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV tag (as shown below) and click the OK button:

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11. Click the Compressed Data dialog OK button, to export the data into Excel.

The data for Tank 100 is always changing in the controller, however, DataLink only shows you a
point-in-time snapshot of the data that was stored in the FTHME. To refresh the Tank 100 data,
select the toolbar Update button (the default is every 5 seconds).

12. Select cell K5 in the worksheets open space to the right and select Insert Trend from the PI ribbon
within the Tools section:

13. In the Trend Wizard, select Data from PI, Verify the IP address (FTHME) is selected for the Server
name and click the button to select the tags.

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14. In the Tag Search dialog, select Favorites > Last Search:

15. Select the FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV point and Click OK.

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16. Select the Markers box for the point as shown below and click the Next button:

When the Marker field is checked, a data event is indicated with a Marker on the trend.

17. Set the StartTime to *-2m, the End Time to *, and check Enable Updates (as shown below)
then click Next

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18 Change the Trend Title to Temperature Trend (as shown below) and click Finish to add the trend
to the report.

19. The report is now finished with actual data and a trend:

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This data is from the FT Historian ME archive. Each data event in the archive is indicated with a
marker on the trace. For more information, right-click on the trend, select Define Trend and click
Help.
This concludes this section on integrating the FTHME into an existing FactoryTalk Directory using
FTSecurity and FT DataLink to analyze data from the module. Close out of excel without saving
the changes.

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Section 4: Aggregating data (Data Transfer) from

FTHME to FTHSE
The FTHME module uses a Compaq Flash card to hold its logged data. The FTHME has two sizes
available, either a 1GB or 2GB module. Once the memory of the module becomes full of logged
data, it will automatically begin overwriting the oldest data (circular set of archive files). For data that
needs to be preserved for long term storage, you would need to upload the data to a FactoryTalk
Historian SE /PI Server. In this lab, the FTHME module will transfer its logged data to the Historian
SE Server running on your VMWare Image.
In order for the FactoryTalk Historian SE Server to be able to receive data from FTHME modules, the
necessary license must be installed and assigned on the server computer. This FTActivation
configuration has been completed for you. Also, two trusts were configured to allow data transfer and
webs (web browser application) access to the FTHSE Server.
Note: The 1GB module has approximately 500MB for the Operating System, configuration data and
log files. It also has approximately 500MB for the archived data.
The 2GB module can store approximately 3 times more archived data than the 1GB module. This is
because the additional 1GB is used all for archived data.

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1. Within the Web Browser, you are logged in using your FTSecurity user with administrator privileges.
Click on Configure Historian > Data Transfer. For the Host Server name, enter the IP address of
the FTHSE Server computer (192.168.1.100). Press the Test Connection button to validate the
address and if correct press the Save button.

After the Save has completed, a value appears in the Licensed Points and FTMS Points Available
fields. The Licensed Points value is being read from the FTHSE Server. This is the maximum
number of points that have been assigned within that FTHSE Server for FTHME points. The
assigning of the license was completed for you. The FTMS Points Available, is the remainder of the
Licensed Points that can still be configured for data transfer. In the example above, a 5000 tag
license has been assigned within the FTHSE Server for FTHME points. We will use 1361 points
against that license. Therefore, another 3649 points could be configured to be transferred from
FTHMEs to that one FTHSE Server.

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2. By default, the Enable Auto Transfer option was checked in FTHME 2.1 (the first release). That
means that any data point configured for data collection in the FTHME server will automatically get
transferred to the centralized FTHSE/PI Server. The new default for FTHME 2.2 is not checked and
the user can either select a subset of configured points (Configure Historian>Data Transfer Points) or
check the Enable Auto Transfer to automatically transfer all configured points.

3. To start the transfer of data to the FTHSE/PI Server, Check the Enable Auto Transfer and press
the Start button located under the Data Transfer Parameter section on the Configure Historian >
Data Transfer page. You will see the Status change to Running. Behind the scenes, the FTHME
server is checking the license in FTHSE, auto-creating the points in FTHSE and then transferring the
logged data. It takes about 3 minutes to create the 1352 points on the FTHSE Server.

For this lab, we configured data collection approximately 45 minutes ago. For the points configured
to be transferred, all of their previously logged data will also be transferred. If the FTHSE/PI Server
becomes unavailable, the data will continue to be stored on the FTHME module and once the
FTHSE/PI Server becomes available again, will be automatically reconnected and the data transfers
will continue. The data transfer process is making a copy of the data, it still exists on the FTHME
module and also now exists on the FTHSE, for centrally accessed data and long term storage.

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4. Minimize the Web Browser.

5. In this portion of the lab, we will use another FactoryTalk Client called FactoryTalk VantagePoint to
visualize data from the FTHME module.
FactoryTalk VantagePoint provides unified access to virtually all manufacturing/plant data sources,
and produces web-based reports, such as dashboards, trends, X-Y plots, Microsoft Excel reports and
more that can be used by manufacturing operators, engineers, supervisors, management and
executives throughout the plant -- to manage cost, quality, production, assets and resources more
effectively. FactoryTalk VantagePoint is configured to connect to Logix and FactoryTalk Historian
(both ME and SE) so users can begin producing meaningful, pre-configured reports almost
immediately.
6.

We will first create an instance of the production line and Tank. Launch VantagePoint Manager
(Start > All Programs > Rockwell Software > FactoryTalk VantagePoint > Manager).

7.

The left hand pane displays the VantagePoint model (tree-like structure). Select MyEnterprise.

8.

Right-click on MyEnterprise and select New > Folder. Name the folder InstaCorp

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9.

Right-click on InstaCorp and select New > Folder. Name the folder Reports.

Later in the lab, well place the newly created reports within this folder.
10. Next we will create a FactoryTalk connector for our Historian data. In the VantagePoint model,
navigate to System.Sources.FactoryTalk.

Under the Sources folder, there are two connectors that could be used with FTHistorians, the
FactoryTalk Integrated connector or the FactoryTalkHistorian standalone connector.
The FactoryTalk connector is used when both the VantagePoint Server and Historian Server are part
of the same FactoryTalk Directory (as in this lab).
The FactoryTalk Historian connector is used when the Historian is in a different FactoryTalk Directory
than the VantagePoint Server. This is considered a Standalone FactoryTalk Historian connector. We
will be creating a FactoryTalk connector, not a FactoryTalkHistorian Connector.

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11. Right-click on the FactoryTalk node and select New > Item.

12. In the User name field, enter ftadmin. In the Password field, enter ftadmin. Check the checkbox
that states This is an existing account. Use it as the FactoryTalk user instead as shown below:

13. Click Next.

14. Select the option Yes, please and click the Finish button.

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In the background, the VantagePoint Server is querying the FactoryTalk Directory to find all
FactoryTalk LiveData Servers and all FactoryTalk Historians (both SE and ME) registered within the
Directory.
15. Select the option I would like to import FactoryTalk Historian tags and click the Next button.

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16. It has found both FTHistorians that were registered within the FactoryTalk Directory. (These were
manually registered within the FactoryTalk Administration Console earlier in the lab). Check both
boxes to import all the points from both the FTHME module and the FTHSE Server and press the
Next button.

17. To allow VantagePoint to create correlations between Live Data tags and Historian ME tags, select
the configuration data as shown below. Click the Finish button.

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18. After about 2 minutes, you will see a dialog box when the import is completed, click the OK button.
That represents the completion of the first Historian import, it then begins importing the points from the
other Historian. Upon completion of the second Historian, click the OK button.

19. Expand the localhost item and Historians item and notice that both Historians are displayed as part
of the model.

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20. Continue to navigate to Systems.Sources.FactoryTalk.localhost.Historians.Production Historian

ME.Tags, and you will see all of the imported Historian tags in lower left hand pane.

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Using Trend
In this section, you will explore some of the features available in VantagePoint Trend to visualize data
from the FTHME module
Start Trend
1. Launch VantagePoint Trend (Start > All Programs > Rockwell Software> FactoryTalk
VantagePoint > Trend)

2. Navigate to System.Sources.FactoryTalk.localhost.Historians.Production Historian ME.Tags as

shown below:

3. Select the Filter Item icon:

4. Expand the Filter by clicking the down arrow:

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5. Enter Demo_Temp.pv in the Name field as shown below and click Apply.

6. The list of tags is filtered to only show tags that contain Demo_Temp.pv in the tag name. Dragand-drop the FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV tag and the
FTHDemo_1_1.T200_Demo_Temp.PV tag to the trend.

FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV
FTHDemo_1_1.T200_Demo_Temp.PV
FTHDemo_1_1.T300_Demo_Temp.PV

The screen should look similar to the one below:

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By default, the trend displays the Last 5 minutes, this can be modified through the pull down.

7. On the Trend tool bar, select Live Mode

live mode will update every 1 second.

to get the live/refreshing trend data. By default, the

8. On the Trend tool bar, enable the X/Y cursors to perform trace analysis.
9. On the Trend tool bar, enable the stacking option to display the trend
10. On the Trend tool bar, zoom in and out.

11. On the Trend tool bar, de-select Live Mode

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Publish a Trend
Publishing is used to make your trend report visible to any licensed FT VantagePoint user through a
browser. It facilitates process analysis by allowing users to share trends.
13. Using the trace from the previous section, select File > Publish.
14. Select the MyEnterprise.InstaCorp.Reports folder.
15. In the Name field, enter Mixing Tank Temperatures Trend and then click the Publish button (as
shown below):

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16. Launch VantagePoint Portal (Start > All Programs > Rockwell Software> FactoryTalk
VantagePoint > Portal).

The VantagePoint Portal works with Internet Explorer and is used on client computers where only
viewing of reports is required.

17. On the Portal menu, select Reports > MyEnterprise.

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18. Browse the tree to MyEnterprise.InstaCorp.Reports and select Mixing Tank Temperatures Trend.

19. The Trend is generated and displayed in the pane on the right.

20. When finished, Close VantagePoint Portal (Internet Explorer). Close VantagePoint Trend (if still
open).

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Creating a Basic Excel Report

In this section, you will use the VantagePoint Excel Add-in wizard to create a simple report. The wizard
will guide you through the steps necessary to bring VantagePoints rich data into Excel where it can be
formatted to create powerful reports.
1. Return to VantagePoint Manager.
2. Navigate to System.Sources.FactoryTalk.localhost.Historians.Production Historian ME.Tags as
show below:

As done previously, select the filter icon and filter on the points that contains temp.pv.

3. Drag and drop FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV into the recently created Reports folder. Click
on Tank100 and ensure that the tag appears in the Item Name area as shown below:

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4. Navigate again to System.Sources.FactoryTalk.localhost.Historians.Production Historian

ME.Tags
5. Drag and drop FTHDemo_1_1.T200_Demo_Temp.PV into the recently created Reports folder.
6. Navigate again to System.Sources.FactoryTalk.localhost.Historians.Production Historian
ME.Tags
7. Drag and drop FTHDemo_1_1.T300_Demo_Temp.PV into the recently created Reports folder.
8. Close VantagePoint Manager.

Create a Tank Temperature Report

1. Launch Excel.
2. Select VantagePoint on the ribbon menu.
3. Select Insert Function as shown below:

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4. Select the History option and click Next.

5. Navigate to MyEnterprise.InstaCorp.Reports folder.
6. Select the FTHDemo_1_1.T100_Demo_Temp.PV tag and move it to the right pane using the >
button as shown below:

7. Repeat Step 6 for FTHDemo_1_1.T200_Demo_Temp.PV tag and

FTHDemo_1_1.T300_Demo_Temp.PV.
8. Click Next.

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9. In the Time Selection dialog, select the Last minute from the drop down time selector and click Next.

10. Check the Skip advanced options and click the Next button.

11. Click Next.

12. In the Function Options dialog, retain all the default settings and click Finish.

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13. Your Excel work sheet should look very similar to the one below:

Format the Report

1. Right-click on the tab Sheet2 and select Delete. Repeat for tab Sheet3.
2. Right-click on the sheet named Parameters and select Hide.
3. Right-click on Sheet1, select Rename and enter Mixing Tank Temperatures.

4. Save the Excel file with the name Mixing Tank Temperatures Report.xlsx in your My Documents
folder.

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Publish the Report

1. From the Add-Ins tab in the ribbon, select VantagePoint > Publish.

2. In the Report Type Selection dialog, accept the default A report with parameters and click Next:

3. In the External Parameters dialog, select Tags and click Next:

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4. In the Report Folder Selection dialog, select MyEnterprise.InstaCorp.Reports as the location to

publish and accept Mixing Tank Temperatures Report as the name and click Next:

5. In the Summary dialog, select Browse to published report and click Finish. Your published report
should be displayed in the VantagePoint Portal. Click Generate Report to refresh the report.
This report is now available to any licensed VantagePoint client with a browser. Excel is not needed
on the client computer to view the report.
6. On the Portal menu, Reports > MyEnterprise.
7. Navigate to MyEnterprise.InstaCorp.Reports. Your published Mixing Tank Temperatures Report
should be located there (in addition to the Mixing Tank Temperatures Trend created earlier).

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8. That concludes this portion of the lab. We successfully integrated the FTHME module to our
centralized FTHSE Server, transferred data to it and viewed data from the FTHME module using
FactoryTalk Vantage Point.

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Section 5: FactoryTalk Historian Discovery Rule

Editor Utility
In the previous section, we used the Add Points Wizard to auto-discover all tags that matched the
default rule file (ADDefault.xml) and those tags were automatically created using the default tag file
(FTHMETagDefault.xml). This was done from Manage Points > Add Points Wizard.
There is an application called FactoryTalk Historian Rule Editor that allows you to create your own
custom rule files and attribute files to auto-discover tags that are specific to your application. You use this
utility to create the .xml files you want to use, then upload those .xml files to the FTHME module. In the
Add Points Wizard, you select your custom files to perform the auto-discovery and creation of data
points.

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1. This application has been installed for you on the image. Launch the Rule Editor by navigating to
Start>All Programs > Rockwell Software >FactoryTalk Historian ME > Rule Editor > Launch
Rule Editor :

2. Press the Rule File Management button to create and manage your rule files. A rule file can contain
one or more rule files.
3. To create a rule file, press the New button and name the rule file MyExampleRuleFile Press the OK
button. Highlight the row and press the Open button.

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4. In the middle of the dialog under Current Rule File section you will notice that the field
Rule_MyExampleRuleFile has been created and is opened. Press the New button to create a
custom rule. This Rule Editor application is used with both FTHSE and FTHME, so it contains some
configuration information that doesnt apply directly to FTHME (like LinxEnterprise, AB-PLC).

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5. We will create a rule that finds all tags whose Name contains highspeed. Change the filtering criteria
by selecting the drop down button and changing the value from starts with to contains then in the
next field enter the value highspeed (see picture below).

6. We also want to create a customized Tag Attribute file. To do this, select the drop down button under
the Use this configuration heading and select <New Configuration...>.

6. The Tag Attribute file allows you to create custom attributes for the tags that match your custom rule
set. Example attributes for a tag are the scan rate, the data collection mode, engineering units,
exception and compression deviations. A pressure tag would have different attributes than a flow
type tag. This file can then be associated with one or many different custom rules.

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7. For the File Name field, type in MyHighSpeedAttrib. Change the Scan Class to (3) 0.1 seconds
and the Data Collection mode from Advised to High Speed. We will leave the other values at their
default values (Settings on the Archive Tab allow you to customize the other exposed attributes).
Click OK to save the file.

NOTE: A rule of thumb for data collection is to use the Advised and Polled options when the scan
rate is 500 msec or greater. Use the High Speed data collection when the scan rate is between 10
msec and 500 msec.
8. Press OK to save the custom rule then press the Save button to save the rule file. We created one
simple rule file that searches based on tag name. You could also create rule files that search based
on data type and members (for identifying UDTs). Press the Close button to exit the Discovery Rule
Editor.
9. Weve created our custom rule and attribute file and now need to upload these xml files to the
FTHME module. Open the FTHME web interface and log in again if previous session timed out.
(ftadmin/ftadmin)
10. Navigate to the Advanced > Upload Management page. Click the Browse button and browse to
c:\Program Files (x86)\Rockwell Software\FactoryTalk Historian ME\ME Rule Editor\. Select the
file Rule_MyExampleRuleFile.xml. Press the Upload To Module button. This will copy the rule file
to the FTHME module.
11. Press the Browse button and select the file TCFG_MyHighSpeedAttrib. Change the File Type
selection from AutoDiscoveryRuleFile to TagAttributeFile then press the Upload To Module
button.

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12. Navigate in the web browser to Manage Points > Add Points Wizard. From the drop down list for
the Rule File, select Rule_MyExampleRuleFile.xml. It will then auto-populate the Tag File with the
attribute file that was configured with the rule file. Change the Scan Rate from 1 to default so that
the scan rate in the attribute file will be used for this point discovery selection. Select the processor
that you want to autodiscover against (FTHDemo_1_1) and press the Show Tags button.

13. It should find one matching tag. Press the Create button.

14. You can go to Manage Points > Edit Points and query for this newly created data point and view its
attributes. You will notice that the attributes that we defined in our custom attribute file (Scan Type =
High Speed, Scan Rate = 0.1) were used to create this tag.
We have reviewed how to create custom Rule Files and attribute files to be used for auto-discovery of
tags that are meaningful to your specific application and tag naming conventions. Minimize the FTHME
web browser.

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Section 6: RSLogix5000 Add On Profile:

The FactoryTalk Historian ME Add on Profile allows one controller in the local chassis to monitor key
FTHME statistics in the form of input tags and exposes output tags that can control the starting and
stopping of data collection. This tight integration between the controller and FTHME module allows the
controls engineer to write logic by monitoring these key statistics (15 input tags) of FTHME and make
control decisions (6 output tags) like whether to allow the next batch to start or stop data collection in the
module, so that data is not overwritten.
The Add On Profile has been pre-installed onto the image, and it is part of the FTHME Client Tools install
CD.

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1. Open the file FTHDemo.acd located on the desktop. This will launch RSLogix 5000. Make sure you
are in offline mode if the window was previously minimized.

2. In the project browser window, navigate to the I/O Configuration folder. Expand the folder and rightclick on the [2] 1756-HIST1G module and select Delete. Select Yes to confirm the deletion.

Now we will have you configure the Add On Profile from scratch.
3. In the project browser window, navigate to the I/O Configuration folder. Right click and select New
Module from the menu. In the Select Module Type dialog, select the Specialty option and select
the Allen-Bradley option, lastly select 1756-HIST1G. Check the Close on Create option. Press the
Create button to configure the module.

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4. On the General Tab, fill in the Name field. This name does not have to be the same as the module
name configured previously in the Web Interface. For this example, use the name MyFTHME.
5.

For the Ethernet Address field, enter the IP (192.168.1.115) address for your FTHME module. The
entry is strictly for display purposes only, it does not actually set the IP address. Setting the IP
address is done on the Internet Protocol tab.

6. Use the drop down selection next to Slot to specify which chassis slot the FTHME module is in (for
our lab, the FTHME module is located in slot 2).

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7. Click the OK button to save the changes you made to the offline file. Next we need to download the
program to the controller.
8. From the RSLogix5000 menu select Communications > Who Active. Expand the node AB_ETHIP1 and let it auto populate with devices it finds on the network. Find the IP address that corresponds to
the Ethernet module that is in the chassis (you can confirm this by reading the IP address of the
module as it scrolls across the LENS display).
9. Expand the node that corresponds to your Ethernet module and keep drilling in until you can select
the controller (controller should be in slot 1). Press the Download button.

9. After the download is complete, place the controller in Remote Run mode.

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10. Under the Controller FTHDemo folder, double click on the Controller Tags to display the controller
scoped tags. Scroll down to find the tags Local:2:I and Local:2:O.

11. For this lab the FTHME is in slot 2 so its Input/Output tags appear under the folders Local:2:I and
Local:2:O.

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12. Review the list of Input tags and their status. As an example, we will use the AOP output tags to stop
and restart Data Collection. Set the value for StopDataCollection to 1 and press Enter. Notice that the
DataCollectionActive Input status tag will change from 1 to 0 and the TagsActive tag will change from
1362 to 0, since all points are taken off of scan.
Note: The output tags are edge triggered. So once a tag is set to a one it will not be recognized again
until it is reset to zero then set to one again.

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12. Set the StartDataCollection value to 1 and press ENTER. After a couple of seconds, the
TagsActive will be up to 1362, the DataCollectionActive value will be 1 and the
DataCollectionRate, DataTransferRate and ArchiveRate tags will begin to update.

13. Ladder can be written to monitor these statistics and programmatically start/stop data collection
and/or datatransfer, and/or stop and start batches depending on the status of the FTHME module.
You must write ladder logic (or manually set to 0) to reset the Output tags back to 0.

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14. In the left hand pane, select the 1756-HIST module under the I/O Configuration folder, right mouse
click and select Properties from the menu.

15. Select the Configuration tab and view the 4 built in functions that can be invoked.

15. The functions from this page require user intervention to initiate the function.
Restore Defaults will completely reset the module back to the factory defaults. All configuration
data, archives and logs are deleted and reset.
Reset Security is used to reset the security back to Native mode and set the PiAdmin user password
to blank (default setting).

Additional Notes specific to the new ME firmware:

With FTHME2.2, the Restore Defaults and Reset Security buttons have been enhanced to only
execute if the user has physical access to the Module. Once either of the buttons are clicked, the
user has 5 minutes to cycle power (remove/reinsert module or cycle power) to the module, otherwise
those commands will be discarded. Therefore, if resetting through the AOP, the user must have
physical access to the module.
With FTHME2.2, two additional outputs have been added to the Modules output tags, there are
StartDataTransfer and StopDataTransfer. Due to this change, the Module Definition revision has
been increased from 2.1 to 3.1:

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16. Last step of the lab, resetting your FTHME module back to factory defaults without needing physical
access to the module. In the Web Interface, click the button in Advanced>Restore
Defaults>Restore Defaults. This will remove all archived data, logs and configuration data to be
ready for the next class, thanks.

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Publication XXXX-XX###X-EN-P Month Year

Supersedes Publication XXXX-XX###X-EN-P Month Year

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Copyright 2011 Rockwell Automation, Inc. All rights reserved.