Software Toolbox Technical Blog

Video Tutorial: Getting Started with OPC Router Project Development

1 min read

By Nicole Knox on Feb 22, 2024 2:00:00 PM

OPC Router is a powerful tool that can be used to easily integrate large quantities of data from a variety of sources using its modular configuration, adding value to a variety of industrial, business (ERP/SAP), and IoT data systems. It's drag and drop visual workflows result in reduced engineering time and risk in Industry 4.0, IIoT, and Digital Transformation applications. When combined with Software Toolbox's OPC server offerings and other automation software, plus decades of expertise in automation, the results are rapid time-to-value solutions.

In the following video, we'll walk through a simple example to show you the fundamentals of developing a project in OPC Router. You'll learn how to comfortably navigate the interface and how to verify that your setup is functioning properly. This process will also give insight into the building blocks that make the product so malleable and adaptable to many different use cases.

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Data Exchange File Formats: Exploring ETL Tools with OPC Router

3 min read

By Nicole Knox on Dec 21, 2023 2:00:00 PM

To achieve operational and business goals, many industrial automation system architectures are designed to push and pull data from a multitude of sources and destinations that come with a variety of formats. Bridging the gap between systems that use distinct standards and protocols can be challenging if the right tools aren't properly selected, and too often users resort to custom software. This is where users can leverage OPC Router’s ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Tools—a valuable solution for seamlessly repackaging data across processes that use distinct standards or protocols.

In this article, we will briefly introduce the power of OPC Router’s ETL Tools, exploring a few use cases that highlight their role in structuring data into popular file formats. If you are not already familiar with what OPC Router is and what it can do for your particular process, you can visit the OPC Router website or the OPC Router Technical Guides with a Quick Start for New Users.

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Using OPC Router to Log OPC Data to JSON Files Without Code

9 min read

By Jessica Dillon on Nov 2, 2023 2:00:00 PM

In today's business landscape, the exchange and storage of data plays a pivotal role in ensuring efficient and robust operations. Whether operating in sectors like Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, Power, or related industries, the exchange of data between services and applications has become standard practice, often an imperative. Consequently, many organizations leverage resources such as databases and historians to archive their invaluable data. However, there are instances where the need for simpler storage methods or direct interchange of data via Webservices is required to maximize application interoperability. Unfortunately, this solution area is often one filled with custom software applications. In this blog, we'll show you how to eliminate custom code and build sustainable solutions.

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Video Blog: OT Data Integration to/from InfluxDB

2 min read

By Dawid Sadie on Sep 7, 2023 2:00:00 PM

Round-trip InfluxDB Integration using OPC Router

Software Toolbox offers a variety of tools for integrating with InfluxDB.  Today we focus on OPC Router, a solution that enables visual workflow integration of traditional OT data sources with time-series databases such as InfluxDB.  The InfluxDB connector provides for reading and writing to InfluxDB (local or cloud-based). OPC Router's workflow engine provides visual data mapping, for ultimately extracting analytics and results from InfluxdB and making them available to the plant floor in OPC UA (or other) format.

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OPC Router Configuration Management Overview, Methods & Tips

7 min read

By Nicole Knox on Jul 20, 2023 2:00:00 PM

When working with OPC Router, especially as you build larger and more powerful projects to integrate OPC, web services, databases, ERP, SAP, and other systems in your Industry 4.0 initiatives, it’s good to have an idea of the underlying operations of the application. That knowledge can empower you to get the best results from the software’s many connectors and visual workflow engine.  If you’ve never heard of or are new to OPC Router, we invite you to explore the OPC Router website and view the OPC Router Getting Started Virtual Training Video

Topics: OPC Router
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OPC Router Power Tips - Using OAuth 2.0 with REST APIs

2 min read

By Rodrigo Restrepo on Jul 13, 2023 2:00:00 PM

In the ever-changing landscape of industrial control, the ability to establish connections and facilitate efficient data exchange between different technologies is crucial. With digital transformation, the industry requires robust integration solutions more than ever before. This is where the powerful combination of OPC Router, it's ability to both call and host REST APIs using industrial data, and OAuth 2.0 comes into play, enabling organizations to achieve secure and streamlined communication across their automation and other systems.

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Leveraging Visual Studio for Efficient OPC Router Scripting

3 min read

By Rodrigo Restrepo on Jun 1, 2023 2:00:00 PM

OPC Router is a standards based tool for data integration from the shop floor through all levels even up to ERP systems, with a visual workflow engine, scalable configuration templates, and integration to many OT and IT systems. Leveraging OPC UA, REST, SOAP, MQTT and more, it can be an essential enabling tool for your Industry 4.0 applications. Solutions can be extended using C# scripting, and this blog shows a live built example of how to efficiently use Visual Studio to build those scripts. 

Topics: OPC Router REST
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Video Tutorial - Logging Dynamic JSON Data to SQL or MES

3 min read

By Rodrigo Restrepo on May 4, 2023 2:00:00 PM

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a file format that has become fairly common in the industrial automation industry for storing data or information (including such things as configuration files). But also as one of the most common data formats used by RESTful APIs and web services, which are commonly used for providing a range of useful information including energy prices and weather data.

Sometimes, of course, depending on the application, some or all components of JSON packet might be variable or dynamic in nature, which can make it difficult for off-the-shelf industrial software solutions to properly parse the information from those packets.

In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to leverage the scripting capabilities of the OPC Router to access and parse JSON packets either from a JSON file saved to a specific file directory or from a RESTful web service after which that data can be used with any of the other connectors that OPC Router supports. For this example, we log the data to a SQL database.

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