Software Toolbox Technical Blog

For the past few releases, OmniServer has had a powerful usability enhancement that you may not be aware of - a Topic Wizard – which was designed to increase your efficiency and the ease of getting started when you're working with OmniServer to integrate your non-standard process devices.

For new users, the new Topic Wizard in OmniServer Version 3 and above should feel very intuitive and lessen the learning curve if you've never touched an OmniServer before. Even for existing users, the wizard is very user-friendly and users will likely appreciate the time-savings made possible by being able to step through a wizard to configure your communications.

In this video, I step you through the very easy process to configure your OmniServer to communicate with your non-standard devices using the Topic Wizard.

If you’ve been following our blog series on custom error detection, you’ll remember that OmniServer provides a large number of pre-defined Error Detection Codes (EDC) for use in different protocols for non-standard device communication.  And, again, it’s not uncommon to find an EDC from a vendor that is not pre-defined due to some specialized handling by the device manufacturer.

As we covered in our previous posts on creating a custom checksum and LRC, OmniServer gives you the ability to build custom EDCs in an OmniServer protocol to handle these situations.  This post, the final of three on custom Error Detection Codes, covers the basics steps to creating a custom CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) in an OmniServer protocol.

Common in the oil and gas industry, flow computers and devices store historical EFM (Electronic Flow Measurement) data used for analysis, custody transfer and production optimization.  Enron Modbus, which is a version of the open Modbus protocol, is a frequently used communication protocol by many EFM devices including but not limited to Schneider SCADAPack, ThermoScientific AutoPilot, Cameron NuFlo Scanners and many others.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our Enron Modbus driver to connect and gather real-time and EFM data from Enron Modbus devices from Wonderware applications.

You may be aware that OmniServer provides a wide variety of pre-defined Error Detection Codes (EDC, also known as CRC, LRC and Checksums) for use in protocols for non-standard device communication.  However, it’s not uncommon to find an EDC that isn’t pre-defined due to some specialized handling by the device manufacturer.

To handle such situations, OmniServer provides the ability to build your own custom EDCs in an OmniServer protocol.  This post, the second of three on custom Error Detection Codes, will cover the basics of creating a custom LRC (Longitudinal Redundancy Check) in OmniServer.

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.

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.

Timely notifications about abnormal conditions in your process are vital to minimizing downtime and the costs associated with it.  Automating the process based on the condition of specific process variables gets you the information you need for making decisions as quickly as possible.

The following short video blog demonstrates step-by-step how easy it is to use the Cogent DataHub to establish a connection to an OPC data source and then define various flexible conditions for triggering email and/or SMS text notifications based on values collected from that OPC server.

So remember in  where you just have a protocol document from the manufacturer for a device you need to integrate with your control system?  And for this new device, there is no existing, off-the-shelf connectivity driver or server available.

And remember asking yourself, “How do I connect to this non-standard device?”  With custom software development being very expensive and time-consuming, we discussed a better way using .

This post, the second of three, goes beyond the protocol details we gathered from the document in  to provide the basics on how to actually use those details to build a working protocol in OmniServer without custom code for a fast, affordable solution with industry-standard client interfaces including as OPC DA and UA.