Check-It

General

Check-It is a utility that scans through DDE values in other applications. If you use INS as alarm server you may not always be able to define alarms in the application that actually measures the values. (IE SCADA applications). In this case you may define alarm conditions in Check-It and let it read the values from your data server.

Similar to the Message Service application Check-It displays an icon in the system tray (Right part of task bar) after startup. This means that Check-It is ready to read values from the other applications. If you click on the icon and double click on an entry the following configuration screen opens:

DDE Topic	Parameter for the DDE call, usually APPLICATION\|TOPICNAME
Item	Subject of DDE conversation
Condition	Condition to compare value
Limit	Limit to compare value with
Hysteresis	Absolute value to exceed until event is re-enabled after sending an alarm message. IE if the Hysteresis is 1.5, the Limit is >11.5 and the actual value exceeds this limit an alarm will be sent. Then this event is disabled until the value falls below 11.5-1.5=10, then the event will be re-enabled.
Scan time	Scan time to read values. Format hh:mm:ss.
User to call	Contacts(s) which will receive the alarm message
Message	Actual alarm message to send (See also file sending)
Enable/Disable	Enables or disables scanning of value

Note(s):

While the configuration screen is open the actual scanning of the values is paused. It resumes when you press the Close button.
To exit Check-it, use the Exit option on the pop-up menu of the system tray.
Check-It needs Message Service running in order to send the alarm messages.
To be able to read values from an application through DDE the application needs to be running.
To scan a remote computer on a network use the NetDDE format as topic.
IE \\ComputerName\Application|Topic
This however only works up to WindowsXP, Windows Vista does not support NetDDE anymore
When using Excel please note that the Topic and Item is language dependent. This means that for instance in German a call to cell A1 in Excel becomes
Excel|Tabelle1 and Z1S1

Command line parameters for CheckIt

You can start CheckIt.exe with the following command line parameters:

/NOFORM

Does not display the taskbar icon nor any other form

Please only use this parameter when directed by MAW support to do so.

Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)

DDE has three parts: the name of the application; the file name or topic; and the cell range, value, field, or data that's referred to. The following illustration shows the parts of a remote reference formula and the required separator characters.

Topic: Excel|Sheet1
Item: R1C1

You can either get data form a DDE server, send data to the DDE server or execute a macro on the DDE server.
The program that contains the data you want to link must support Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). To determine whether your program supports DDE or to learn the DDE name and topic information for the program, contact the software vendor of the program.

Connecting Check-it to RSView32

The RSView32 DDE Server, which makes database values available for DDE Clients, must be configured to start when RSView32 is started.

From the Project window Edit Mode tab, select the System folder, then choose Startup.
Click the OPC/DDE Server checkbox. (Same as setting the DDEServerON /NetDDE macro variable). If you enter this in a macro directly, you must have the /NetDDE flag if you are using this over a network.

To access a value from RsView enter in Check-It the following values:

DDE Topic	RTDATA\|ProjName
Item	TagName

where

DDE Topic	RTDATA followed by the name of the project, without a path or extension.
Item	A tag name

To access RsView over the network use \\ComputerName\RDATA|ProjName

Alternatively you can directly access the tag from a node through RSLinx

DDE Topic	RSLINX\|NODE
Item	TagName

where

DDE Topic	RSLINX followed by the name of a configured node
Item	A tag name

Connecting Check-it to Citect

To access a value from Citect enter in Check-It the following values:

DDE Topic	CITECT\|VARIABLE
Item	TagName

To access Citect over the network use \\ComputerName\CITECT|VARIABLE

Citect version 7.0 allows different clusters, hence the item becomes Cluser.TagName

Connecting Check-it to InTouch (Wonderware)

To access a value from InTouch enter in Check-It the following values:

DDE Topic	VIEW\|TAGNAME
Item	TagName

To access InTouch over the network use \\ComputerName\VIEW|TAGNAME

Note: There is an alternative (better) way to extract information out of InTouch and send messages without the use of CheckIt. Please read on here...