Software Toolbox Technical Blog

As a continuation of our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post will look at how to set up a query in LGH File Inspector, how to export LGH data, and some of the configurable options available in LGH File Inspector. 

Having expectations, for both oneself and others, plays a vast role in motivation, success and the overall experience one has in virtually any situation. As can be expected, when you're reaching out to the technical support team of any company, there's a good chance you're already in a state of some distress, potentially. As such, an empathetic ear and technically proficient hand on the other end of the line can go a long way to making your day better.

Software Toolbox takes great measures to ensure that all employees are equipped to provide exceptional support and we hold ourselves to a high expectation when delivering solutions to your technical problems. We put ourselves in your shoes wherever possible to understand the stressors motivating your call so we can do our best to deliver. This blog post will highlight some key benefits of working with Software Toolbox.

Firstly, Happy Belated Earth Day to all that celebrated on Saturday!

Currently, renewable energy generates around 20% of all electricity in the US. This percentage increases daily - you may have seen more solar panels popping up around your neighborhood! This allows us greater potential to modernize the grid through renewable energy within our communities.  As the potential for more energy generation increases, the need for more jobs within this sector increases as well.  In fact, with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), the more than $50 billion in clean manufacturing investments in the law will create an estimated 900,000 jobs over the next decade.  These strong investments will initiate a manufacturing revitalization and help to move clean manufacturing to center stage within the US.

In this fourth and final installment of our Environmental Sustainability blog series, we are going to take a look at commonly used software solutions that our clients in the Renewable Energy sector have implemented to assist with sustainable energy production.

When people think of environmental sustainability, in general, they often do not think of the oil and gas industry. But the fact of the matter is that oil, natural gas and other hydrocarbons are a large part of our global energy supply and chemical production. There are many environmentally-focused regulations that these industries must meet. Even with these regulations, the industry has begun to exceed these expectations through technology such as carbon capture as a method of reducing one’s ecological footprint.

In this third installment of our Environmental Sustainability blog series, we are discussing oil & gas industry regulatory requirements and how industrial automation software solutions empower organizations in the industry with monitoring of critical data so they can act on potential issues before they become problems, and support their reporting to meet such requirements and also with monitoring such that those requirements can be more easily achieved.

Environmental sustainability is built on the principle that everything humans need for both survival and our well-being triggers a reaction in the environment. The pillars of sustainability are based upon the interdependent relationships of the environment, the economy, and our society. Because many of the goods and services that are required for human survival are either traded for or purchased monetarily, this inherently creates an impact on the environment. So, what is the economic impact of environmental sustainability?

In this second installment of our Environmental Sustainability blog series, we are exploring just that – how investing in the sustainability of your product line can have positive impacts on the environment.

Here at Software Toolbox, we strive to be the “One Responsible Partner” for our clients - a motto we see as soon as we enter the door every morning. That extends beyond just our amazing sales and support teams. It also means being the One Responsible Partner for our Earth.

With Earth Day coming up, our team has decided to take this month to focus on the different ways our products help users achieve their own environmental sustainability goals and the conservation of natural resources in general. In this first blog post, we will take a look at how OmniServer helped a food and beverage user improve efficiency and reduce waste in a “sweet” way.

It's common for members of the Software Toolbox Technical Team to encounter instances where users need to configure thousands of static tags for the devices in their TOP Server projects. We have even supported implementations with over a million tags.

In such situations, it would be inefficient to manually add each individual tag to TOP Server. There are several better alternatives for adding large quantities of static tags to a TOP Server project: Automation Tag Generation (ATG), Bulk Tag Creation, and/or CSV Import/Export.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this post covers what methods you have available to mass create large quantities of static TOP Server tags and how to use them for greater efficiency.

A common misconception about TOP Server as an OPC server is that TOP Server will poll your device/devices automatically with no OPC client connected. So, when you are getting started with TOP Server, it is good to have an accurate understanding of how interactions occur between each node of a basic OPC architecture— client-server and server-device— to ensure that the configuration meets your needs and can be scalable to more demanding projects.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, in this blog post, we will discuss some basics of the interactions between an OPC client and server, including different types of reads and the expected behavior that you'll see as a result of those interactions.