Collection Configuration

Open Development Configuration → Collection Configuration. A channel defines the connection, a device selects the protocol, and a variable defines the point to read. Without physical equipment, begin with Collect Your First Point.

For byte order, string length, BCD format, and encoding, go directly to Common Variable Register Options.

Add your first point

Prepare the device address or serial settings, protocol, station ID, one known point address, and its data type. Verify a small sample before importing the full point list.

1. Create a channel

Click Add Channel at the top of the resource panel and enter a name. Select TcpClient for a device providing a TCP endpoint, and enter its actual IP:port, such as 192.168.1.10:502. For serial devices, match the port, baud rate, data bits, parity, and stop bits. Keep the channel enabled and save.

Use a separate channel for each ordinary collection device. Share one only where the plugin manual explicitly supports it. Plugins supporting only Other do not require an ordinary channel.

2. Create the device

Click Add Device, enter a name, select its collection plugin, and associate the new channel. Open the plugin-properties tab and fill in the protocol parameters: for example, Modbus requires its mode and station ID, while Siemens S7 requires PLC and connection settings. Start with an execution interval of 1000 milliseconds, keep the device enabled, and save.

3. Create a variable

Select the device and click Add in the variable list. Enter the variable name, confirm its device, and use the known point address and matching data type. The variable address is not the device IP. For monitoring, use read-only access and leave RPC writes disabled. Save with the remaining defaults.

4. Verify the result

Wait for the device to become online. Confirm that the current value agrees with the source and the sample time advances. Enable automatic refresh or refresh manually if the value is not displayed. Open Protocol Debug for a representative address read when needed.

After the first point is correct, add a few representative points, verify units, ranges, and alarms, then import the complete list. Inspect every import result and export the completed configuration for delivery. Share a channel only where the plugin manual explicitly supports it; DTU Service and Gateway MQTT have documented shared-connection modes.

Maintain the collection configuration

Page Structure

After selecting a channel or device on the left, the variable list on the right is filtered to that scope. Device rows show online status, redundancy role, and collection plugin so you can quickly confirm that each device uses the intended channel and plugin.

Resource Panel Operations

Parameter reference: channels, devices, variable list, and variable configuration. See channel transport for connection and timeout decisions, and collection strategy for intervals, packing and concurrency.

Channel Management

Click “Channel Management” to open the Channel Management drawer.

Channel Configuration

Click “New” or “Edit” to open the Channel Configuration popup.

After configuring a backup remote address on the TCP client, the gateway will still prioritize connecting to the “remote address” when the gateway starts or the channel restarts. After switching to an alternate address during operation, it will retain the currently available link; Only try another link if the current link fails again. This configuration only applies to the TCP client channel on the acquisition side and does not affect the TCP server, UDP, serial port, or device primary and backup redundant configuration.

When batch editing channels, only the fields that have actually been adjusted in the batch popup will be modified. Used for unified start-stop, log levels, timeout, heartbeat, SSL, and other public configurations; The addresses, serial port names, and certificates of different types of channels should still be checked individually.

Device Management

Click “Device Management” to open the Device Management drawer.

Device Configuration

Click “New” or “Edit” to open the device configuration popup.

Device plugins provide available channel types. When adding or editing a device, select the plugin first and then choose a matching channel. Do not reuse another device’s channel unless the plugin manual explicitly says that sharing is supported. If the plugin only supports Other (no standard communication channel), the device can be saved without a channel and appears in the ungrouped area.

Redundant devices should not duplicate overlapping configurations: Do not enable redundancy for backup devices. Before going live, you can disable the main device or disconnect the main link and observe whether it switches to the backup device as expected.

Variable List

The variable list remains visible in the main Collection Configuration workspace and shows the current resource scope.

Common columns include device name, variable name, description, register address, current value, original value, last set value, data type, unit, collection group, business group, online status, enabled status, acquisition time, change time, and error information.

Raw value preserves the collection input; current value is used by business calculations and downstream processing. Last set value records the value before a runtime update and can also change during ordinary collection. It is not an audit record of the most recent manual or RPC command. Verify writes using per-point results and source readback.

Memory variables are maintained on the “Memory Calculation” page. This page only displays variables under the Memory device, suitable for saving scripts, rules, or internal calculation results; The collection configuration page mainly maintains the channels, devices, and variables connected to field equipment.

Variable Configuration

Click “New” or “Edit” in the variable list to open the variable configuration popup.

When batch editing variables, only the fields that have been modified in the batch popup are saved. Before batch modifying data types, addresses, read/write permissions, expressions, or alarms, you should first filter variables of the same device, protocol, or data type to avoid applying incompatible configurations to other locations.

Before-read and after-write expressions

The existing read and write transformation chains retain their execution positions. Steps run in order with independent parameters.

For an independent expression-based interlock, add the delay script to a memory guard’s after-write chain with a three-second delay and write value 0. Add the variable-condition script to the command’s write chain, referencing the guard and expected value 1. The guard write request waits until the delayed reset completes. Issue the command from another request during this window. After the guard resets, the next command must be rejected. A condition in a point’s before-read chain can independently block collection for that point.

The original request returns after all after-write steps finish. Waiting releases communication locks. If a step fails or is canceled, the result explicitly reports that the device write succeeded but post-write processing failed; the applied value is not rolled back. Do not blindly retry the original command. Concurrent writes do not cancel each other’s steps. Request cancellation, device stop, and configuration reload cancel waiting steps. See Asynchronous scripts.

Variable control interlock

The variable interlock and expression chains work independently. Use the variable interlock when each command must verify a physical source through active communication. The condition script checks the related variable’s current runtime value.

1. Edit the command variable, enable Control interlock, and select a different Guard variable.
2. Set Allowed state, for example 5. Numbers, booleans, and text are supported; enter "" for empty text.
3. To reset the guard through TG, enable Reset on expiry, set Closed state to 2, and Window (s) to 4. The guard must be writable. Write 5 to the guard through TG, then issue the command in a separate request. After four seconds the guard should become 2, and the next command must be rejected. A value of 5 sampled from the device does not arm the TG timer.
4. To follow external state only, disable Reset on expiry. Each command actively reads the guard source. Only the allowed value authorizes the command; TG starts no timer and writes no guard value.
5. Verify that rejected commands do not change the device command value. Communication failures, offline quality, and rejected samples must also reject commands.

Selection and control must use separate requests. Shared automatic guards require matching allowed and closed states and use the shortest window. Reading a state other than the automatic allowed state revokes the existing selection. Even if the device later returns to the allowed value, select again through TG. Read-only mode continues to follow each actual read. Stop or reload revokes selection. A failed reset write cannot extend the expired authorization.

Address fields and dynamic methods

The variable address remains a text input for entering protocol addresses or method arguments directly. Click Edit fields on its right to configure the address area, station, function code, byte order, and other parameters in a dialog. Fields and available choices depend on the plugin and current configuration.

1. Select the device, data type, and access permission, then click Edit fields. The dialog parses the current text into fields. Enable each option you want to set and enter its value. Unselected optional fields use the device or plugin default; an explicit 0 differs from an unset option.
2. Click Confirm and fill. After validation, the dialog closes and the generated string fills the address input. Check it, then confirm the variable dialog to save the variable. Canceling or closing the field dialog preserves the original text.
3. Enter addresses directly in the text input without switching modes. If the text cannot be fully parsed, cancel field editing to preserve special parameters, or complete the fields and explicitly confirm replacing the text.
4. For a dynamic method, select a method allowed for the current access permission under Special method, then click Edit fields to configure its arguments and generate a JSON argument array. You can also enter JSON directly: an ordinary array parameter occupies one nested array item, and write values come from the actual RPC write. A method-only plugin requires a method; follow the displayed instructions for plugins with no address or system-managed addresses.

Confirm or cancel field editing before changing the device, data type, permission, array length, or method. Parsing fields and generating text validate configuration without sending read or write commands to a device. Verify collection results after saving the variable.

Common variable register options

For collection plugins that support common register conversion options, enter the protocol address in Variable address, then append key=value options separated by semicolons (;). Follow the plugin’s address rules. For node identifiers, Topics, or special-method arguments, check the plugin manual before appending these options.

1. Open the variable’s New or Edit dialog and select the device and data type.
2. Enter the starting address and append the conversion options required by the device point list.
3. Save and compare the current and raw values. For strings, check that the text is complete and readable.

Values such as =1 and =ABCD above illustrate the syntax; they are not universal plugin defaults. Unspecified conversion options follow the plugin or device configuration.

Explicit conversion parameters must be valid: data and bcd use defined options; encoding must be nonempty and supported by the runtime; len must be an integer from 0 to 65535; and vsl accepts only true or false. Select actual lengths and variable-length mode according to the device point list. Empty, misspelled, or out-of-range values report a parameter error rather than silently using defaults. Correct the configuration before checking collection again. Only omitted parameters use defaults.

4-byte data formats

Let A B C D represent the four bytes from most to least significant in the device point list. Select the actual transmission order:

Combined examples

These examples use Modbus holding-register addresses. For other protocols, substitute a valid plugin address and select the data type specified by the device point list.

For incorrect multi-byte values, check the data type and data. For garbled or truncated strings, check encoding and len. See Modbus address rules for station IDs and function codes.

Alarm Configuration

High/high-high use strict greater-than and low/low-low use strict less-than; equality does not meet the corresponding condition. Numeric state mappings match exact values, with independent enablement, text, level, delay, and suppression per row. Enabled state values must be unique. See Alarm Conditions.

Value Filtering

Value filtering is only used for numeric variables; Strings and boolean variables do not display this tab. If the filtering parameters are set too tightly, true changes will be filtered out. Before setting, confirm based on the field range, sampling cycle, and allowable fluctuation range.

Online collection applies the read expression, rounds the resulting scalar according to Decimal Places, then evaluates value filtering. Set range and amplitude limits in those engineering units. For example, raw 1234 scaled by 0.1 is evaluated as 123.4, including any configured rounding.

Compare raw and current values, sample/change times, and quality while testing boundaries. Rejected samples can update the raw value and collection time while retaining the accepted current value. Test using the source register and a consistent baseline. Memory assignments do not establish collection-filter behavior. Configure reverse write conversion separately.

Verify rounding and conversion

Decimal places changes the final runtime number used by calculations, alarms, and change triggers. With a raw Double value of 23.4567, setting 2 produces 23.46; setting 0 produces 23; clearing the field preserves the original precision. Midpoint rounding goes away from zero. Arrays, booleans, and strings are not rounded by this scalar rule. This setting does not perform engineering-unit scaling.

For scaling, bind a read conversion and check both raw and current values. Configure the inverse write conversion independently, then verify the actual source readback.

Read, write and debug

Variable Details and Writing

Click “Details” in the variable row to open the variable details drawer.

Click “Write” in the variable row to open the write popup.

Device Details and Debugging

Select a device on the left, then open Details or Protocol Debug at the top of its workbench. The upper-right area shows whether the object is enabled and whether a runtime instance is available; use its edit button to change the device configuration.

The available debug tabs depend on the selected plugin. When the object is disabled or its runtime instance is unavailable, you can inspect the panel and edit parameters; communication operations require a running instance. Check the device, channel, and plugin properties before reading a known address.

Channel and device logs retain filtering, automatic refresh, export, and pagination inside the workspace.

When a plugin provides a protocol panel, open Protocol Debug and select its dedicated tab. Consult the plugin manual for address rules and operation requirements.

Switching devices immediately closes the previous debug panel and message-capture connection. Start message capture again from the new device when required.

For detailed debugging steps, open the matching page in the Plugin Manual Index.

Test Data

Click “Show more → test data” to open the test data generation popup. This feature is used to generate demo or stress test configurations.

Normal test data creates a separate collection channel for each test device, which is useful for checking multiple devices and connections. DTU test data uses one TCP service channel for multiple DTUs; that is a DTU-specific shared-connection mode, not the default for ordinary collection devices.

Before using test data in production environments, it should be confirmed that the name and quantity are not confused with the official configuration.

Import and Export

Collect Configuration Import and Export is located in the “Show More” menu at the top right of the variable list.

Control interlocks use separate Excel columns rather than a JSON cell. Identify the guard using Interlock device name and Interlock variable name, without a database ID. The guard may already exist or be added in the same worksheet, in any row order.

An incomplete name pair, missing guard, or self-reference produces a row error and prevents committing that variable sheet. Format state cells as text to preserve leading zeros.

After importing is complete, the import result will be displayed. When importing on site, focus on checking the failed rows, field names, and error details, then correct the Excel prompts and re-import.

Selecting the file starts import immediately, without a shared preview stage. Use a current export as the template, preserve worksheet headers and name-based associations, and inspect every sheet’s result. New names add objects; existing names update them. See Batch Configuration for copies, partial updates, and full-export verification.

Verify and troubleshoot

Validation Results

After configuration, verify the following:

1. The channel and device are online, without persistent connection or read/write errors in their logs.
2. Selecting the device displays its variables, and the values, addresses, and data types match the field point list.
3. A representative read from Protocol Debug matches the variable list and field device.
4. Channel Log and Device Log filtering, automatic refresh, and pagination are available.

Use Notes

Related Links

After the first point works, continue with the task you need:

For a private protocol described by fixed requests, framing rules, and data offsets, see Custom Full Packet.

• System Overview - System Status Monitoring
• Real-Time Alarm - Alarm Monitoring and Handling
• Data Forwarding - Data Collection Forwarding Configuration
• Plugin Manual Index - Per-plugin properties, addresses, special methods, debugging, and troubleshooting