There are several ways in Dream Report® to communicate with the Rockwell Software FactoryTalk®, legacy HMI products, and Rockwell PLCs. These methods either use Dream Report product-specific communication drivers, or open communication protocols, such as OPC or ODBC.
The native Rockwell Automation communication drivers included in Dream Report (as of ver. 2020 R2) are as follows:
These drivers are used as in the following scenarios:
Driver Name | For Use with Rockwell Product(s): |
FactoryTalk historical alarms | FactoryTalk historical alarms and event logs |
FactoryTalk historical values | FactoryTalk historian historical data |
FactoryTalk real-time values | FactoryTalk real-time values from FT View HMI tags |
FactoryTalk View SE Historical Alarms and Events | Historical alarms and events logged in the (SQL-based) FactoryTalk Alarm & Events History Database |
FactoryTalk View SE Historical Values DB | Historical data logged to the SQL-based (“ODBC database”) Data Log Models |
Rockwell PLC real-time values | Direct connectivity to real-time values in popular Rockwell PLCs (Logix, PLC5, SLC500 models) |
RSView Historical Values | Historical log files (.dbf format) from legacy RSView32 applications |
Additionally, these other drivers (open protocol, and native) can be used with Rockwell Automation products:
Driver Name | For Use with Rockwell Product(s): |
OPC > OPC HDA | Connect to FT Historian historical values using the OPC historical data access (HDA) protocol |
OPC > DA | Connection to Rockwell PLCs for real-time values through an appropriate 3rd-party OPC server |
OSISoft PI Asset Framework historical values | Used for accessing historical data from the OSI PI-based FT Historian with Asset Framework configured |
OSISoft PI Asset Framework real-time values | Used for accessing real-time data from the OSI PI-based FT Historian with Asset Framework configured |
CSV/Test > Tag Values in CSV files | For accessing CSV log files generated from FactoryTalk ME HMI’s |
Additional details for these drivers are as follows:
FactoryTalk Historical Alarms, FactoryTalk Historical Values, FactoryTalk Real-time Values drivers (Rockwell Automation folder)
These drivers are available in Dream Report These drivers use Rockwell Automation’s Data Agent SDK. As the SDK works in the FactoryTalk View Client environment only, ensure that FactoryTalk View SE is installed, and that the HMI Server is running. Please refer to Rockwell Automation’s Product Compatibility for hardware/software requirements.
Additionally, the Rockwell Automation SDK must be installed on the FactoryTalk server. The install can be found in the Utilities folder of Dream Report -
\ODs\Dream Report\Utilities\FactoryTalk View Data Agent SDK.msi
Note, the Data Agent SDK is only applicable for network distributed applications, so the drivers will not work with other types of applications.
Note, the “Factory Talk real-time values” driver can only work in read-only mode, without write-back functionality.
If Dream Report is installed on a separate machine than FactoryTalk Server, please refer to Appendix A at the end of this tech note.
OSISoft PI Asset Framework historical values, OSISoft PI Asset Framework real-time values drivers (OSIsoft folder)
These drivers are used for OSI PI-based FT Historian with Asset Framework.
Please refer to the following tech note on the Dream Report:
TN 033: How to Configure OSIsoft PI Drivers in Dream Report
FactoryTalk View SE Historical Alarms and Events, FactoryTalk View SE Historical Values DB drivers (Rockwell Automation folder)
The drivers expose historical values as well as historical alarms and events logged to the FactoryTalk SQL databases.
Please refer to the Dream Report User Manual, section “Communication Drivers/Rockwell” for more information on the driver.
OPC HDA driver (Open communications protocols/OPC folder)
This driver can be used to connect to FT Historian using the OPC protocol. For the driver to function, the corresponding feature (OPC HDA) must be enabled on the FT Historian side to use this driver.
Please refer to the Dream Report User Manual, section “Communication Drivers/Open Communication Protocols/OPC Drivers” for more information on the driver.
Rockwell PLC Real-Time Values driver (Rockwell Automation folder)
The Rockwell PLC real-time values driver provides connectivity directly to Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley controllers.
Please refer to the Dream Report User Manual, section “Communication Drivers/Rockwell” for more information on this driver.
RSView Historical Values driver (Rockwell Automation folder)
The driver allows Dream Report to access RSView32 internal proprietary history archives (.DBF files only), and generate reports directly from that archive, without the necessity of first exporting data into an open database or other format.
NOTE: For detailed configuration information on each driver, please refer to the Dream Report User Manual or Help file (press [F1] in Dream Report Studio) under the Communication Drivers section, and then the following sub-sections:
/Rockwell
/Open Communication Protocol
/OSISoft
Appendix A
If Dream Report is installed on a separate machine from the FactoryTalk Server, the remote connection requires manual configuration of the SDK service configuration file, where you can change web address and listen port specified in the file.
In Notepad, edit the file RA.DataAgent.SDK.Service.Host.exe.config (found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockwell Software\RSView Enterprise\Data Agent SDK). The localhost must be replaced with the IP address of the FactoryTalk server:
Finally, it is necessary to restart the “Rockwell Data Agent Service”:
