Understanding Periodic Heartbeat

The Periodic Heartbeat (HeartBeatMonitor) application allows you to configure AVEVA Enterprise SCADA to send a specific command, or sequence of commands, to a remote device at a specific interval. This can be thought of as a "heartbeat" signal to a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to communicate that the AVEVA Enterprise SCADA host is still alive and actively monitoring communications.

The HeartBeatMonitor application uses either an analog or status point as a control point that is configured to send commands to a PLC. The analog or status control point must be configured to use output commands and to support the command sequence that the heartbeat function is configured to send to the PLC.

For example, if a heartbeat point will be sending a Ramp function that will send values from 0 to 100, the output Engineering Units (EGU) and Setpoint ranges must be at least 0 to 100. 

For further information, refer to Analog table and Status table.

Note: It is recommended that the control points are not configured to use input or feedback values. Configuring a control point to use input can cause delays and could potentially block the next heartbeat command if the frequency of the commands is fast enough. A control point should be configured as output-only. If the configuration of the control point changes while the heartbeat record is enabled, the heartbeat record should be disabled, the HeartBeatMonitor application should be given sufficient time (30 seconds is the suggested minimum) to flush the command buffer, and then the heartbeat record should be re-enabled. This allows the HeartBeatMonitor application to pick up the new configuration of the control point.