Logging and Reporting

[David_L]

I am looking at using DaqFactory for energy monitoring. We will connect pulse output electricity and gas meters to PLCs and then read the pulse count and production counts from the PLCs into DaqFactory every 5 minutes (say). This seems easily within the capability of DaqFactory.

The problem I have is creating reports. I was considering using Excel to analyse the file, plenty of people can use Excel. However:

Can Excel read the current logging file or does DaqFactory have a lock on it?

We would want to be able to produce reports across a number of different time frames, shift, day, week etc. This seems to lead to either very big files or having to concatenate files. Is there a way round this?

One solution seems to be to log to a database but this then requires more exotic IT skills. Is there a solution using Office type tools?

[AzeoTech]

With a logging set, DAQFactory keeps a lock on it. However, you can script logging with File. functions and keep it from locking. However, depending on what types of reports your want, I'd consider doing the calcs in DAQFactory and simply logging the report directly as you want it as a text file.