Hello and welcome to the new quick start guide on how to best use
Movicon.NExT™.
In this technote we will use an example to show you how to import and
export elements to and from a Movicon.NExT™
project.
We will use tags in this example to show you how this is done.
Procedure
Importing tags from a driver
The editor allows you to import tags from files or directly from
field devices using drivers and to export tags to files.
We will proceed with importing tags directly from a field device.
Most of the drivers in Movicon.NExT offer a tool to export and import
tags to and from the PLC project.
We will now see how to import tags in this way by first opening Movicon.NExT
in development mode and using the OPC UA Client driver:
Double click the I/O
Data Server in Project Explorer window's tree structure to open
it.
Select
the driver from which you wish to import the tags. In our example,
we will use the OPC UA Client driver.
Right
click to open the contextual menu.
Select
Import Tags.
While
keeping the CTRL key pressed down, select the tags you wish to
import.
Press
Import Tags to confirm.
Exporting tags from a project
The I/O Data server allows you to import and export tags from a
CSV file so they can be handled in an optimized manner with third-party
software such as Microsoft Excel.
We shall now proceed with exporting tags from a project.
To facilitate this, create a BakTags folder on the C disk of your PC.
Create a tags.csv file within this folder.
Open Movicon.NExT in development mode and load a project, such as the
DemoMoviconNExT project for example. To open this project from the
editor's startup page:
Click on Examples in
the Support Instruments section.
Search
for the DemoMoviconNExT folder and double-click to open it.
Select
the DemoMoviconNExT.UFProject file and click on the Open button.
You should now see the project opened on screen with
the Project Explorer window's tree structure populated with the application's
resources.
At this point, we can go ahead and export the project's tags:
Click Tools on the
editors top toolbar.
Then
click the Import-Export Tags item on the menu that opens.
In
the window that opens, click on the three dots to open the system
browser window and select the tags.csv file contained in the previously
created folder.
Click
on Open.
Check
that the action type selected is Export.
Set
the comma symbol as the separator.
Click
on the OK button to confirm the operations.
Click
Yes in the popup that shows striaght after the previous operation
to overwrite the file.
Confirm
by clicking OK in the next two popups.
When this procedure has finished, you should have successfully exported
the project tags. By opening the tags.csv file with a text editor
or with Microsoft Excel for example, you will be able to manage and
modify the tags as needed.
Tag Import
Now we will import the tags we just exported to a new project.
Create an empty Movicon.NExT project and open it in development mode:
Click Tools on the
editors top toolbar.
Then
click the Import-Export Tags item on the menu that opens.
In
the window that opens, click on the three dots to open the system
browser window and select the tags.csv file contained in the previously
created folder.
Click
on Open.
Check
that the action type selected is Import.
Set
the comma symbol as the separator.
Click
on the OK button to confirm the operations.
If no errors occur duing the import operation, we will see the tags
imported on the Tag List in the I/O Data Server directly.
If errors do occur, the software will alert us and ask whether we want
to open the System Log to view them in order to find out why they
occurred.
The procedure described here is perfectly replicable with any of the
Movicon.NExT project's components such as, for example, structures,
alarms, converters, Historians and Data Loggers.