Citect SCADA 2018 R2 Release Notes

New features and enhancements

• Graphics Browsing

  Enhancements have been made to the Visualization activity that allow you to browse the pages and library items in the active project and its included projects.

  Browsing provides you with a thumbnails view or list view of pages and library items, allowing you to easily see their attributes. You can perform the following operations in these views:

  • Browse, search and filter pages (see Browse Pages in Plant SCADA Studio).

  • Browse, search and filter library items by project and/or library (see Browse Libraries in Plant SCADA Studio).

  • Perform bulk operations directly from Plant SCADA Studio including delete, update pages and pack libraries.

  • Open existing pages or library items in Graphics Builder directly from Plant SCADA Studio.

  • Create new pages or library items in Graphics Builder directly from Plant SCADA Studio.

• Size and Position Objects

  Editing graphics has been simplified, as you can manually enter the size and position of a selected object.

  It is also possible to move or nudge an object using the keyboard.

  See Adjust Position and Size Dialog.

• Encrypted Connections

  Citect SCADA 2018 R2 allows for Encrypted Communications between Citect SCADA servers, clients and other processes. Security certificates are centrally configured for all nodes (when on a domain), including secure deployment of configuration to remote clients.

  This provides enhanced protection against external security threats by providing secure connectivity for remote CtAPI clients.

• Publish Plant SCADA Data to the Cloud

  A new interface is now available to AVEVA Insight, which allows you to publish your Plant SCADA data to the cloud easily and securely. You can:

  • Access your data from browsers and mobile devices.

  • Create and share customized content for your process/plan.

  • Automatically detect anomalous patterns in your historical data and display these via the AVEVA Insight "newsfeed".

    For more information, refer to the AVEVA Insight documentation.

• Situational Awareness Improvements

  The following enhancements have been made to the workspace for Situational Awareness projects.

  • The Navigation Zone can be configured to support icons for four alarm priorities.

  • The equipment tree view on alarm pages can also support icons for four alarm priorities.

    See Configure Display Properties for a Fourth Alarm Priority.

    You can also add a fourth alarm priority filter button to your alarm pages (see Add a Fourth Alarm Priority Filter to Alarm Pages).

    Additional topics have been added to the documentation to provide an overview of key functionality and concepts. These topics include:

  • Alarms

  • Libraries

  • Interlocks

  • Page Levels.

    The workspace will also support a new blue theme (see Apply a Color Theme to a Workspace).

Citect.ini parameter updates

The following Citect.ini parameters have been introduced or modified in this release.

New Parameters

• Accumulator Parameters

  [Accumulator]Debug

  Enables trace logging messages for accumulators.

• DDE Parameters

  [DDE]Enable

  Allows Citect SCADA Runtime to function as a DDE Server.

• Page Parameters

  [Page]ValueAbnormalPattern

  Displays a diagonal pattern across a graphics object when the corresponding device when the device goes offline, that is, it loses communication.

• Scheduler Parameters

  [Scheduling]BACnetSchedulePollPeriod

  Sets the subscription poll period (rate) for the BACnet tags.

• Report Parameters

  [Report]Debug

  Enables trace logging messages for the report server process.

• Workspace Parameters

  [Workspace]NumberOfTopPriorities

  Determines how many alarm priorities are included in the alarm counts presented in the Tree View on alarm and trend pages, and the tabs and buttons in the Navigation Zone.

Modified Parameters

• Page Parameters

  [Page]KeyEcho	Zero (0) has been added as an allowable value. It can be used to disable the supported functionality.
  [Page]Prompt	Zero (0) has been added as an allowable value. It can be used to disable the supported functionality.

Removed Parameters

• CtAPI Parameters

  [CtAPI]AllowLegacyConnections

  Allowed connections from client applications compiled against version 7.00 (and earlier).

Cicode function updates

The following Cicode functions have been introduced or modified in this release.

Some Cicode functions have been introduced or modified. The following sections detail these changes:

New Functions

• Alarm Functions

  StrReplaceAlarmFilterEditHasField

  Checks whether an alarm field name or any field in a set of field names is used in the filter specified in an alarm filter edit session.

• String Functions

  StrReplace

  Replaces a substring in a string with a replacement substring.

• Scheduler Functions

  SchdSpecialItemAddRange	Adds a range of special days in a specified special day group.
  SchdSpecialItemDeleteRange	Deletes a range of special days in a specified special day group.
  SchdSpecialItemModifyRange	Modifies a range of special days in a specified special day group.

Modified Functions

• Alarm Functions

  AlarmSetInfo

  The function was enhanced to allow alarms to be sorted by type.

• Trend Functions

  TrnGetTable

  New display mode options have been introduced to allow users to synchronize samples to the specified time instead of the nearest display period.

Deprecated Functions

No functions have been deprecated for Citect SCADA 2018 R2.

Removed Functions

No functions have been removed for Citect SCADA 2018 R2.