TN 034: Using Dream Report with Rockwell Software Products

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Last updated: Aug 21, 2023
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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:
    https://dreamreport.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DreamReport/pages/2087387137

  • 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”: