Blog from June, 2014

You may think a report is a static document that is defined and run on time or event.

Yes, inferior solutions work that way. But Dream Report is a superior solution. When you create a Dream Report, you automatically get lots of flexibility, with no extra effort at all. For example, you may set up a Dream Report for automatic triggering, on any combination of time, event, day of the week, etc. And, you may select to have that report delivered as a PDF file, Excel or CSV file, attached to an email or dropped in a directory. Easy enough, but that’s to be expected, and is just the beginning.

With one click of a button, you can also deliver that file to the Dream Report Web Portal. That is where the fun really begins. The Portal will give you a view of your reports (under complete security – of course). You can see your reports, and you can review past reports. But, you can also interact with your reports and trigger them for different periods, and even different uses.

Suppose you created a daily report. In other systems, that is all you get. With Dream Report, that daily report can be triggered with an external date and time picker, enabling you to take that daily report and generate it over the past week, month, year or completely custom period. No report alteration is necessary. Dream Report delivers “Dynamic Generation”, the ability to select a report and change its period on-the–fly. You get Dynamic Generation in the Dream Report Web Portal, but you also get it in the stand alone “Runtime Management Console” and in the RMC Active-X Control – integrated right in your HMI/SCADA or other container solution.

Dream Report understands relative times very well. Want a report to date for the current month – then that’s what you ask for. Want it for the last complete month? That is what “Last” means – the last complete period – Hour, Day, Month, Year, Batch, etc. And of course you can specify an absolute period for the report.

Perhaps you want to select a different set of tags for this custom generation. You may have a report to document the status of a pump, with all the statistics that make sense for a discrete variable – runtime, cycles, max on-time, max off-time, etc. and you want to apply your analysis to another pump, or similarly operating discrete variable. Simple enough, select your Pump Report and “Select a List of Tags for Replacement”. That one report can now be re-applied to another variable, like a valve, motor, compressor, without any formal report customization. If you find that report useful, then set up a “Virtual Instance”, replacing the tags for that new use, and start generating it automatically. It is really that simple.

That’s Dream Report and Ocean Data System’s idea of productivity.

It’s not just about getting the Reports you need. It’s about getting the reports you want!

1. Automated Report Generation is Hard
2. Not Flexible Enough to be an All Encompassing Solution
3. Not Reliable Enough for Automated 24x7x365 Operation
4. They Don’t Integrate with Existing Automation Systems
5. Report Generators are Not Event or Batch Aware

Let’s take these one at a time.  The world of report generation has changed drastically and there is a new option to give you reports that you’ve only dreamed of.  But let’s explore the past, and the myths that are wide spread.

Report Generation is Hard

That was so true.  Hard means labor intensive, with programming intensive tools.  Not the sort of thing you want to be digging into at the end of a project cycle.  And that’s usually when you are digging into reports, once you have your system running and are generating the data to create and test your report.  Funds have run low and System Integration hours are getting scarce.  So what do you do?  Well, if you are like most, you start scaling back, and only generate the reports you absolutely must have.

Now imagine if reports were easy to create.  No programming.  An easy to use tool, empowering anyone on your staff to create a report.  You can have your critical reports AND you can have any other report that you might consider.  Reports are the best way to drive continuous improvement.  They can be easily shared throughout your organization and they can be saved for future comparisons.  We’re talking about Dream Report of course.  Only Dream Report makes reporting so easy, you can have all the reports you want, and not just the reports you absolutely need.

Report Tools are Not Flexible Enough to be an All Encompassing Solution

This has also been very true.  Report Generation tools are available from many vendors, and only enable reports from their products.  And even at that, they are typically in the form of an Excel Add-in, certainly not a solution delivering reliability or scalability.

Dream Report is a vendor neutral offering, designed to work with them all.  With over 65 data interfaces including proprietary drivers, industry standards and business standards, Dream Report will connect to every database you have, from any automation or business system.  Moreover, Dream Report will perform calculations across data sets and deliver reports that integrate all your data sources.

Not Reliable Enough for Automated 24x7x365 Operation

This stems from a combination of poor tools to choose from, lots of customization and code development to craft a solution and a long list of missing features.  Vendor specific products, or products (business tools like Crystal Reports or Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)) just don’t cut it in industrial applications.

Dream Report delivers on many fronts.  First, for the most demanding applications, Dream Report will operate in a redundant fashion.  Two nodes that talk with each other and coordinate fail-over for continued operation.  But in simpler applications, redundant printers may be all that is required.  Dream Report is designed for 24x7x365 operation and just naturally gets the job done, without any custom code or user planning.  Worried about performance?  Tell Dream Report which processors to use, or how many reports to archive, or how large a database to create.  Want to avoid tampering with the report database?  Dream Report includes powerful security that controls access and actions based on roles.  And if you want enterprise security, Dream Report delivers Windows Active Directory integration.  It’s all just a few clicks in a configuration window.  Version management?  Audit Trails? Yes indeed.

They Don’t Integrate with Existing Automation Systems

Integration means more than pulling data from automation system databases.  It means integrating for the triggering of reports, or adding controls to operator HMI displays to show report generation status and give operators the opportunity to interact with the reporting software, with controls they are expecting and able to work with.

Dream Report accomplished automation system integration in several ways.  First, variables in the automation system can define report naming and report triggering.  Operator displays can integrate buttons that will command Dream Report to perform functions like generating a report.  A specialized Dream Report Run-time Management Console Active-X Control can be embedded right into an HMI display to give the operator a powerful report generator control interface.

And there’s more.  Dream Report delivers a leading edge Web Portal.  This can be embedded into an HMI display to enable manual data entry for reporting.  It also enables the triggering and viewing of reports.  Finally, if files are all you need, Dream Report neatly generates files and directories that are easily integrated with your existing automation system.

Report Generators are Not Event or Batch Aware

Back to the issues with minimal products or products from other markets, trying to play in the complex world of industrial automation.  They have been made to work, with lots of custom code and long hours, but they suffer in areas of reliability and their total cost of ownership.  An again, we’re back to doing the least, because it’s so hard to do.

Dream Report is both event and batch aware.  That means Dream Report will track variables and perform actions accordingly.  Over 5000 hours on a motor?  Generate a service report automatically that summarizes its term of operation, comparing it to the last, and including instructions on what to do.  Maybe you have a variable that denotes a Batch ID.  Dream Report can use that to coordinate data from other sources.  Requesting a report on Batch X can trigger the proper historian time-based queries, automatically.  Skipping a phase in the process?  That can trigger a portion of the report to be omitted, automatically.  Need manual data entry, or an approval process?  Yes, those features exist too in Dream Report.

There are many other myths.  This could easily have been the 10 Myths of report generation, but the ones above are the most compelling and highlight why Dream Report is the most popular automated report generation solution specifically developed for Industry.

It’s been a great few days at the American Water Works Association’s ACE (Annual Conference and Expo) in Boston.

Dream Report is prominently exhibited in the Schneider booth as the solution for water and wastewater compliance reporting.

In talking with attendees, it’s clear that they are extremely impressed with Dream Report capabilities, and especially its ease of use.  We’re able to build a complex report and generate it in under ten minutes.  In fact, the most compelling argument for Dream Report has become “So easy to use, that you can have all the reports you want, not just the reports you need.”

While Monthly Operating Reports are the mainstay of compliance reporting in this market, users are also looking to run their process more efficiently, thus saving money and potentially freeing up revenue for improvements and expansions.  We are often asked in there is a way to create a real-time dashboard in Dream Report and we are happy to report that version 4.6, delivers just that!  Town officials can now have a dashboard of their expenses, with comparisons to previous years.  Costs for water treatment or wastewater treatment can be normalized to cost per gallons and displayed as a KPI dashboard, trended over time.

Thanks to our OEM partner Schneider Electric for letting us support them at ACE14!

AWWA ACE14 Expo is in Boston June 8-11 and Dream Report will be there.

Look for us in the Invensys/Wonderware booth,#2121.  Roy Kok, VP of Sales and Marketing will be exhibiting Dream Report version 4.6 and will be happy to discuss Dream Report for all reporting related to Water, Wastewater and other applications.

For more information

Preliminary Schedule

TestStand™ is a solution by National Instruments for Report Generation in Test Stand applications.

While it will certainly get the job done, it is a great example of what we see across industry, solutions developed to solve individual problems, that are just good enough to get the job done. But customers are demanding more today:

• Customers want a reporting solution that is able to adapt to all their reporting needs and not just address one of them.
• Customers want ease of use for cost effectiveness.  The time of calling IT or product experts for reporting is over.
• Customers want to integrate data from multiple sources – Data from a test stand, customer information from the CRM or corporate database, and LIMS, etc.
• Customers want reports in more than one format – Printed for in-shipment delivery, PDF for long term archiving, Web Portal for visibility and regeneration anywhere and at any time.

Dream Report delivers on all fronts

Dream Report is a great alternative to NI TestStand.  It starts by offering over 65 connectors to industry data sources.  These include specialized connectors to proprietary interfaces, automation industry standards such as Modbus, BACnet, and OPC, and business level connectors such as ODBC, OLE-DB, CSV or Excel Files. Dream Report includes a wide range of reporting functionality, with the ability to beautifully display data in the form of values, tables, charts, pie charts, bar charts and specialized wizards.  See our Report Gallery for a few examples. Dream Report will deliver information in all required formats.

National Instruments Connectivity

Connectivity with National Instruments product will vary.  Dream Report offers OPC DA, OPC AE, and OPC HDA.  OPC would likely be the ideal connector to most National Instruments products.  However, many national Instruments products can store data in an Access database file, a SQL Database, or simple CSV or Excel files.  Dream Report offers connectivity through all these mechanisms.   Read more about National Instruments TestStand. More about National Instruments products, that Dream Report can add value to:

• Programming Environments

  • NI LabVIEW
  • NI LabWindows/CVI
  • NI Measurement Studio
  • Lookout HMI/SCADA

• Application Software

  • NI TestStand
  • NI DIAdem
  • NI VeriStand
  • NI Multisim
  • NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection
  • NI LabVIEW SignalExpress
  • NI Switch Executive
  • NI Requirements Gateway

• Server Software

  • NI DataFinder

Dream Report supports a variety of output styles.

You can generate reports in HTML5 for use in the Dream Report Web Portal.

You can generate output in an Excel file format.

You can generate output in a CSV file format.

You can generate output in a PDF (Portable Document Format) file format.

Actually, you can do these in any combination.  It is just a simple checkbox configuration.  And, if you select a file format output, you can save then in a directory, FTP them to a secure location, and email them to interested parties, all automatically.

PDF isn’t just a simple output storage format any more.  With Dream Report, you have the ability to encrypt the document to protect it from edits.  You can password protect the document and you can define it’s use (print, extract data, etc.)

In our latest version, 4.6, you can generate reports with electronic signatures.  That is a great value for the Life Sciences industry.

But did you know what you can do with other PDF tools?

Today, many PDF viewers enable highlighting and commenting, routing and electronic signatures.  Dream Report outputs in PDF are now a tool your teams can use for collaboration.  PDF files are not just a static output to take up disk space.

You have the ability to add text to PDF Documents.  You can use a highlighter to mark report contents for others to view. You can add sticky notes in the document to provide additional information that may be relevant to additional viewers or to yourself, as you refer back to earlier documents.

With tools available from Adobe (EchoSign), you have the ability to route a report for electronic signatures.

Once uploaded for EchoSign, the document is delivered to remote parties for additional viewing, comments and electronic signatures.

In this example, I’m using Gmail as the recipient account and as you can see, EchoSign is clearly asking for additional signatures and follow through in the review of this report.

When it comes to sharing information, it’s nice to know that the simple selection of an output format, such as PDF (Portable Document Format) can bring with it so many additional and beneficial features.

Just one more of the many ways Dream Report will add value to any existing HMI/SCADA, Historian, DCS or MES application.

Here is a link to the final PDF Document containing comments, highlights and EchoSign electronic signatures.

Setpoint-Analysis_Commented_Reviewed-signed Final