Action Settings

The action settings of a group define how often the group will be evaluated, as well as important settings that apply to the group as a whole.

They are found on the Action tab, the first of the tabs on the right side of the Transaction Group workspace.

Common Settings

The settings vary for the different types of groups, but a few setting are common to most of them:

Execution Scheduling

There are two ways to specify when the group should execute: timer and schedule mode.

Only execute when value have changed (asynchronous trigger)

These settings are evaluated first. If set, the group will examine whether the values in the specified tags have changed, and if not, will exit evaluation.

It is possible to monitor all Run-Always tags in the group, or only specific ones.

Execute this group on a trigger

Enables trigger on a specific item in the group. The trigger item can be any Run-Always item, such as an OPC item, Tag reference, or an Expression item set to "Run-Always" mode.

In addition to the numeric settings that define the trigger, there are several other options:

• Only execute once while trigger is active - The group will only execute once when the trigger goes into an active state, and will not execute again until the trigger goes inactive first. If unselected, the group will execute each time the trigger conditions evaluate to true.

• Reset trigger after execution - If using the ">0" or "=0" trigger modes, the trigger can be set to write an opposite value after the group has executed successfully. This is useful for relaying the execution back to the PLC.

• Prevent trigger caused by group start - If selected, the group will not execute if the trigger is active on the first evaluation of the group. In the course of designing a group, it is common to stop and start it many times, and sometimes it is not desirable to have the group execute as a result of this. Selecting this option will prevent these executions, as well as executions caused by system restarts.

Handshake Settings

Group handshakes are also defined on the trigger tab. It is possible to specify both a success and failure handshake. The success handshake will write the specified value to the given item when the group has finished all other triggered execution without error.

The failure handshake, on the other hand, will be written when the group execution is cut short due to an error, such as an error writing to the database or an item.

OPC Data Mode

This setting modifies how the group receives data from OPC.

Subscribe - Data points are registered with the OPC server, and data is received by the group on-change. This is the default setting and generally offers the best performance, as it reduces unnecessary data flow and allows the OPC server to optimize reads. However, it's important to note that data is received by the group asynchronously, meaning that it can arrive at any time. When the group executes, it "snapshots" the last values received and uses those during evaluation. If some values arrive after execution begins, they will not be used until the following execution cycle.

Read - Each time the group executes it will first read the values of OPC items from the server. This operation takes more time and involves more overhead than subscribed evaluation, but ensures that all values are updated together with the latest values. It is therefore commonly used with batching situations, where all of the data depends on each other and must be updated together. It's worth noting that when using an OPC item as the trigger, the item will be subscribed, and the rest of the values read when the trigger condition occurs. Note: This option was previously referred to as "polled reads" in earlier versions of the software.

Bypass Store and Forward System

Only applicable to groups that insert rows into the database. Causes groups to target the database directly instead of going through the store-and-forward system. If the connection becomes unavailable, the group will report errors instead of logging data to the cache.

Override OPC Subscription Rate

Specifies the rate at which OPC items in the group will be subscribed. These items are normally subscribed at the rate of the group, but by modifying this setting it is possible to request updates at a faster or slower rate.

To create a transaction group

Let's create a basic History Group and start logging some PLC values to your database.

1. Click on the Transaction Groups in the Project Browser panel to switch the Designer's workspace to the Transaction Group workspace.

2. Click on File > New > New Standard Group to make a new Historical Group.
   Your new group, named Group will be selected. The OPC Browser panel is now docked to the lower-left of the screen.

3. Browse your OPC device and drag some OPC tags to the Basic OPC/Group Items section.
   Your group starts out disabled by default.

4. Click the Enabled button above the item tables to enable logging.

5. Go to the Action tab and change the Table Name in your table to something interesting.
   Right now your group only exists in the Designer.

6. Save the project to start the group.
   Your group is now running and logging data to your database connection. To see the data, you can use the Ignition Designer's built-in database query browser. The easiest way to do this is to click on the Query Browser ( ) button to the right of your group's Table Name field. The Query Browser is a convenient way to directly query your database connection without leaving the Ignition Designer. Of course - you can also use any query browser tools that came with your database.