Overview of the InTouchProxy object

The InTouchProxy object is a key member of the core set of AutomationObjects within the ArchestrA system infrastructure. The InTouchProxy object is a DeviceIntegration object that represents a running InTouch node. The InTouch node effectively serves as the data provider (supporting the SuiteLink communication protocol) by providing data points to Galaxy application objects through the InTouchProxy object.

Note: This object is compatible with InTouch v7.11 and later applications.

There is a one-to-one relationship between an instance of the InTouchProxy object and a running InTouch node. An InTouch "node" is a unique combination of the computer name and InTouch application. If you want to reference data points in more than one InTouch node, you must configure and deploy more than one InTouchProxy object. For example, you would need to configure one InTouchProxy object to get data from an InTouch application running on Computer1 and another one to get data from an InTouch application running on Computer2.

When you configure the InTouchProxy object, you might want to specify one or more existing InTouch tagnames (items) to use as object attributes. At runtime, if these attributes are added in the client (for example, the Object Viewer watch window), they will be updated with the latest values from the InTouch items. InTouch will send a new data value for an item to the InTouchProxy object each time the value changes. Any items that you configure for an InTouchProxy object will automatically become available within the ArchestrA Attribute Browser.

From other objects and from scripts, you can reference the attributes you created for InTouch items. For example, you might configure the input source for a FieldReference object to reference one of these InTouchProxy object attributes. Thus, the FieldReference object's input source would be receiving data from a tag in an InTouch node via the InTouchProxy object. The reference syntax for an InTouchProxy object data point is:

<objectname>.<InTouchTagName>

The <objectname> is the name that you choose to give to the InTouchProxy object.

The group of specified InTouch items for an InTouchProxy object is also known as the "scan group." Only one scan group exists in the InTouchProxy object. Runtime object attributes within the scan group allow you to monitor errors related to the data quality for InTouch item values in a scan group.

Items in a scan group can be "dynamic" in that they can be created or activated dynamically during runtime.

The time stamp is retained for attribute values coming from the InTouch HMI. If the quality for a dynamic attribute changes from GOOD to INITIALIZING, BAD, or UNCERTAIN, but the data value does not change, the current time provided by the hosting AppEngine is used.

An InTouchProxy object cannot establish a data connection to an InTouch application running in a terminal session.

For general information on objects, including relationships, deployment, and alarm distribution, see the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) documentation.

For information on configuration options of object scripts, attributes, or features, click Attributes Help in the Help file header.