Create InTouch tags from OPCUA server

The External providers option under Tag dictionary lists all the OPC UA server connections configured in the Gateway Communication Driver that is present on the same machine. Using this option, you can avoid several manual steps and create access names and InTouch tags for OPC UA item references easily.

Create InTouch Tags from OPCUA Server configured in the Gateway Communication Driver:

Prerequisites:

• Configure the OPC UA server connection in the Gateway Communication Driver. Refer to the Gateway Communication Driver help for more information.

• Both Gateway Communication Driver and the InTouch WindowMaker should be on the same machine.

1. Open the InTouch application in WindowMaker.

2. On the Home menu, in the Tags group, use the dropdown arrow under Tag Dictionary and select External providers. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Q.

   

   All the OPC UA server connections configured in the Gateway Communication Driver are displayed.

3. You can expand the OPC UA tree to view and browse the item references.

   

   Note:
   The OPC UA servers from the remote Gateway communication Driver will not be displayed.
   After the OPC UA items are displayed, if you configure another OPC UA server, select the Refresh button present at the bottom of the External providers window to view the newly added OPC UA server items.

4. Open the Model - Tagname pane.

   The Model - Tagname pane displays all the alarm groups and tags of the InTouch application. For more information on the Model - Tagname pane refer to the Model - Tagname topic.

   

5. Drag and drop the items from the External providers window to the Model - Tagname. You can select multiple items by pressing and holding Ctrl key while selecting the items.

   

   • You can drag and drop to the required alarm group node to add the OPC UA tags under a particular alarm group.

   • If you randomly drag and drop; the tags are created under $System node.

     Once you drag and drop the items, the OPC UA tags gets created and you can see the newly created OPC UA tags in Model - Tagname pane.

6. To close the External providers window, select Close.

Additional information:

• For different OPC UA connection different access name is added. The access name of the tag will be the node name of the OPC UA connection in the Gateway Communication Driver.

  Note: After adding the tag if you rename the OPC UA node in the Gateway Communication Driver, you have to manually change the access name and it will not be changed automatically.

• Duplicate tag names are appended with index number. For example: if there are two tags of name ‘Input’, then the first tag will be named as ‘Input’ and the second tag will be named as ‘Input_1’.

  Note: If the tag name length exceeds maximum tag length 128, the characters from end of the tag name are removed to make length 128. When the tag name length exceeds 128 characters length and there is a duplicate tag name, then the number of characters from end of the tag name are removed so that the tag name +_{ index } length measures 128.

• If data type of the OPC UA tag is unknown, then it will create the corresponding InTouch tag as I/O message type.

• You can also use InTouch as OPC UA server by configuring it as OPC UA server in Application Manager. For more information refer to Configure and using the InTouch OPC UA server topic.

• In Log Flag Editor, under WindowMaker if you select the OPC UA Tags Creation checkbox then you can view the log messages related to OPC UA tags in the Log Viewer.

  

• If the OPC UA item name has unsupported special characters, while creating the corresponding InTouch tags the unsupported special character in the tag name will be replaced by ‘A’ or ‘_’. If the unsupported character is at the beginning of the tag, then it is replaced with 'A', in other places it is replaced with '_’. You can view the details on what character is replaced in the Message Details window of the Log Viewer.