Citect SCADA 2016 Release Notes

New features and enhancements

• Plant SCADA Studio

  Plant SCADA 2016 comes with a brand new user interface that is intuitive and easy to use. The new interface replaces the Citect Explorer and the Project Editor and allows you access to projects, topology, system model information (such as equipment, variable tags and alarms), and other configuration areas.

  The highlight of Plant SCADA Studio is the Grid Editor, which allows tabular editing of alarms, variable tags, equipment across your entire project hierarchy. The Grid Editor makes editing values very easy as a change made to a single record can be propagated throughout the system. The Grid Editor allows for bulk editing of multiple records, which makes it easy to maintain projects.

  Properties of a selected record are displayed next to the Grid Editor in a Property Grid where you can update values. Grid Editor views also allow multi-column sorting and filtering.

• Topology

  Plant SCADA 2016 allows you to quickly visualize the computers, network addresses, clusters and services being used in your system through a new interface that displays all related information in a single view. This view is available from the Topology activity of Plant SCADA Studio.

• Deployment

  Plant SCADA 2016 allows you to roll out small and large project changes to computers in your SCADA system located at a single site or across multiple sites quickly and efficiently through the Deployment feature. This feature allows for centralized management of project versions to be deployed to servers and clients including Citect Anywhere clients. Changes can be deployed automatically or through a customizable notification to the operator. Deployed changes can be rolled back if required.

  When new project versions are deployed, only the project changes are sent to the computers instead of the entire project. The amount of bandwidth available when deploying changes on the network can also be throttled.

  Note: It is recommended that you use Deployment instead of the Run/Copy functionality. The Run/Copy functionality is also available for use if required.

• Calculated Variables

  Calculated Variables in Plant SCADA 2016 allow users to generate tags at runtime from a Cicode expression and to call internal Cicode functions. A tag value is calculated for I/O devices that have their protocol set to "CICODE" and a tag associated with the I/O device that has a valid Cicode expression as its address.

  Calculated variables significantly reduce the coding required in Cicode functions to manipulate tag values, thus improving code maintainability.

• Schedule Integration

  Scheduler now supports the integration of schedules that are configured on a BACNet device. Locally configured schedule items on a BACNet device can be imported into Plant SCADA. You can also view and modify schedule-object and calendar-object properties on a BACNet device at runtime.

  Schedule integration is enabled via the following process:

  • A BACnet I/O device is configured in Plant SCADA Studio and connected to Plant SCADA via the BACNET driver.

  • Variable tags and equipment definitions that represent the device's schedule and calendar objects are configured on the I/O server through tag import.

  • The reports server subscribes to the tags on the I/O server and generates schedule entries in Scheduler.

  • Any changes to the schedule entries are written back to the BACnet device via the I/O server.

Citect.ini parameter updates

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

New Parameters

• Deployment Parameters

  [CtEdit]Deploy	The location where a project will be stored when a deployment package is received from the deployment server.
  [Deployment]AskRestartArgs	Passes arguments to the Cicode function called by [Deployment]AskRestartFunc.
  [Deployment]AskRestartFunc	Calls a Cicode function instead of a displaying a restart notification dialog when a prompted deployment occurs.
  [Deployment]Enabled	Determines if Runtime Manager runs a project that has been deployed from the deployment server, or the Active Project.

Modified Parameters

• Windows Parameters

  [Win]Configure

  Determines whether Plant SCADA Studio and Graphics Builder options are displayed on the control many of the runtime system.

Removed Parameters

• LAN Parameters

  [Lan]SecureLogin

  [LAN]SecureLogin is no longer supported.

Obsolete Parameters

• OID Parameters

  [OID]Reset	Resets all OIDs (Object IDs) at compile. This parameter has been removed.
  [CtEdit]MaxFields	The maximum number of fields that can display on a Citect Project Editor form.
  [CtEdit]ShowToolbar	Shows / hides the toolbar in the Citect Project Editor.

Cicode function updates

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

New Functions

• Alarm Functions

  AlarmCountEquipment

  Counts the available alarms for specified equipment in conjunction with the selected filter criteria.

Modified Functions

No functions have been modified for Citect SCADA 2016.

Deprecated Functions

No functions have been deprecated for Citect SCADA 2016.

Removed Functions

No functions have been removed for Citect SCADA 2016.