Example: Subscribing to real time data in MS Excel

Introduction

To give you a practical example of what you can use the Real Time Data (RTD) interface for, we have included a sample MS Excel file associated with the IGSS Demo configuration.

Contents of the example

The example shows how to subscribe to real time process values for the following object types:

The Excel sheet containing IGSS real time data looks like this.

images\IGSS_RTD_Example.gif

Activating the example

To view the example do the following:

1.               Activate the System Configuration program and open the IGSS Demo configuration.

2.       In the View menu, select View Report Folder. The contents of the report folder now appears in Windows Explorer.

3.               Activate the IGSS Starter program and start the configuration.

4.       Switch to the Windows Explorer window and open the Microsoft Excel file called:

- Office 2002/2003: IGSS RTD Example.xls

- Office 2007: IGSS RTD Example2007.xlsx
 

5.               The process values should now be updated every 2 seconds.

Analyzing the items

Lets take a closer look at one of the items, m1 under Digital Objects.

The syntax for the State is:

=RTD("IGSS.RTD";;A11;"State")

The syntax for the Command is:

=RTD("IGSS.RTD";;A11;"Command")

Note that A11 is a cell reference which points to the object name m1. The alternative is to write the object name directly in the syntax.

Adding new items

Lets try to add an item to the example:

1.        Under Analog Objects, right-click the row marker beside the object q2 and select Copy in the menu.

2.               In the Insert menu, select Rows to insert a row above q2.

3.               Right-click the new row and select Paste in the menu.

4.               Format the new row as the one below and replace q2 with q1.

Result:  Excel will now show the values from q1, because the fields are defined as cell references.