Plan tag usage

You can reduce development time by identifying the key requirements of an application’s tags in a preliminary planning phase. Thorough planning reduces the time you need to create InTouch applications.

Before creating tags:

• Identify all physical components of the process that need to be represented in the InTouch application.

  Create a list of component attributes that need to be represented as data sources in the application.

• Identify the type of data associated with each component attribute.

  Assign each tag a tag type based upon the data associated with the component attribute. For more information about assigning a data type to a tag, see Create new tags.

• Determine the characteristics of data that needs to be incorporated into your InTouch application.

  Assess the following data characteristics for each tag:

  • Expected range of data values

  • Units of measure assigned to data values

  • Initial data value

  • Deadband value to set a threshold when a tag’s value is recognized as changed

  • Messages to be shown when a tag’s value changes state

    For more information about defining the characteristics of tag data, see Understand tag properties.

• Develop a tag naming convention and standard.

  Typically, complex applications require many tags. Develop a standardized naming convention that suggests the organization of the tags within the application. For more information about tag naming conventions, see Tag name conventions.

• Determine what process data needs to be saved.

  Selected data is saved to a log file. You can use logged data to create historical trends that show the changes in tag values over time. For more information about setting tag logging, see Tag logging.