Software Toolbox Technical Blog

With DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) fast becoming obsolete technology (Microsoft superseded DDE with OLE years ago), OPC DA and, more recently, OPC UA data sources have become the primary go-to for process data integration.  Recently, Microsoft even disabled certain DDE functionality in MS Office applications due to security concerns and malware exploitation targeting the DDE interface.

But the usefulness of MS Excel for data analysis across many industries even today is still undeniable and the primary mechanism for MS Excel to connect to a data source is via DDE.  So what do you do if you're still using MS Excel for process data analysis and reporting via DDE?  What's the alternative?

The following short video blog demonstrates step-by-step how to easily read/write data from process data sources (OPC DA and OPC UA Servers) using MS Excel (without DDE) with the Cogent DataHub.

OmniServer Plug-ins (or Wedges), which are included with OmniServer Professional Edition, are built-in components that provide powerful, supplemental capabilities that expand the functionality of OmniServer beyond its core connectivity and data parsing abilities for non-standard devices.

The OmniServer Email Plug-in / Wedge allows you to send your device data as an email message or text in a highly configurable format with configurable conditions.  And it provides this ability built into OmniServer, eliminating the need for separate external components.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using the OmniServer Email Plug-in / Wedge to send timely email or text notifications to your key personnel based on specified conditions, allowing those individuals to quickly take the appropriate action to minimize any related loss or downtime that might occur. This includes configuring secure SSL or TLS encryption with a configurable port, as well as, a new test function for confirming email server settings work correctly.

The Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) standard is a lightweight publish/subscribe model communications protocol used widely for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) integration of edge devices across a wide variety of industries around the world.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our MQTT Client driver to interface to an MQTT broker or server (including devices acting as a broker or server) to integrate data from your IIoT data into Wonderware applications.

If you’ve worked with OmniServer to connect your non-standard devices in the past, you may be aware of the large number of pre-defined Error Detection Codes (EDC, also known as CRC, LRC and Checksums) available.  However, as is the nature of custom protocols out there, it’s not uncommon to find an EDC that isn’t pre-defined due to some specialized handling by the device manufacturer.

To that end, OmniServer provides the flexibility to define your own custom EDCs in an OmniServer protocol.  This post, the first of three on custom Error Detection Codes, will cover the basics of creating a simple custom checksum in OmniServer.

Knowledge is power and knowing the current state of your underlying server hardware for your process can be very powerful indeed.  Keeping a pulse on information like CPU usage, available memory, memory consumption by a process and whether or not critical process are still running can be the difference between hours of downtime with thousands of dollars in lost production and being able to proactively avoid any downtime.

The following short video blog demonstrates step-by-step how easy it is to use the Cogent DataHub to monitor vital system statistics on your servers that can be shared in real-time via supported client interfaces such as OPC DA and OPC UA or even send email/SMS notifications.

When you live in a remote region that is one of the most arid places on earth, you import your raw materials, and you’re making millions of hectoliters of beer a year, you have to make the most of all the resources you have and leverage what is in abundance in your location.  Namibia Breweries Ltd. (NBL) has a long history of success in a tough environment at their Windhoek site. They have received numerous awards for their innovative approaches to meeting their information system needs.

In this blog post, we’ll share their look into how they use off-the-shelf software and their teams' intellectual know-how and creativity to empower their manufacturing success.  If you read the stories in Automation World or Pro Food World you learned about how Andre Engelbrecht, manager of industrial control systems at NBL, and his teammates Annemarie Kruger, Rolando du Pisani and others unlocked data sources and built a digital smart manufacturing platform across the entire facility.  In this article, we’re going to share the rest of the story of NBL’s integration points, problems solved, and how they leveraged Software Toolbox’s full value proposition as part of their team effort.

Software Toolbox has worked with integrators, users, OEMS and distributors of Wonderware Software products since 1997.  At a Schneider Electric Software conference in 2017, they met a hardware supplier new to the Wonderware user community, , also known as TPI.  It turns out TPI is not new to the vibration monitoring space, though, and has a long history of providing handheld test and measurement equipment. In this video blog...

Our latest release of the OPC Data Client development toolkit provides some exciting new features for leveraging powerful OPC UA technology features including OPC UA complex data support.

In this post, we will cover some of the key reasons the OPC Data Client 2018.1 is an easy, effective method for bringing the power of OPC UA to your custom client applications.