Control capability

IMPORTANT NOTE: the architecture of our system keeps your SCADA system secure by having data push out the SCADA system so that the SCADA system can remain securely behind firewalls.  Once you add control capability, you are opening up the SCADA system to possible hackers, though the only things they'd have access to are things you have control capability enabled for.  For this reason, you should only enable control capability on items where random settings will not cause any injury or property damage.  This can be done reasonably effectively by adding constraints in the SCADA system and of course the proper hardware safety systems.  However, when designing a system with control capability, you should always assume that someone with malicious intent may get access and send random values to your keys.  Our system is secure, however, the weakest link is you, your users and your passwords.  Even the most secure password can be compromised by a key capture device on a public terminal, or a virus on your system.  The best defense is to assume the worse and keep the mission critical items on local control only.

In addition to viewing data arriving from your data sources, you can send commands back to the data source to control outputs, acknowledge alarms, or whatever else you may setup.  The capabilities are largely determined by the data source itself.  The application sends this commands with a simple line of script, typically placed in the Click event of a control:

system.sendCommand("dataSource.key","value")

dataSource.key is the name of the parameter / command you want to send to the data source.  The dataSource portion should be the name of the data source to receive the command.  The key is any name.  It could be a tag name if you are controlling an output tag, or it could be the name of an alarm to acknowledge, or anything else.  Our application doesn't do anything with it other than pass it to the data source, so its up to the data source to interpret the key.

value is the value to go along with the command.  So, it could be the value to set the output channel to, or anything else.

NOTE: the dataSource.key pair MUST always be in quotes.   The value can be in quotes, or if you are just sending a number, it can also be without quotes.  For advanced users, you can of course use string variables instead of these string constants.