The Report Studio

Use the VTScada Report Studio to create all the reports you need. You can access this tool from the Reports Page, which is typically found in the Alarms Reports and Diagnostics folder.

Reports are presented as tables of information, where you select which tags to include, what calculations to perform, and what summary information to include. Any report can contain multiple tables, allowing you to create comprehensive overviews of your system.

In addition to the tables, you can add images, spacers, and text to provide clarity and context.

Preview

A preview button in the Report Studio gives you a way to check your work. You will be prompted for a time span with a pop-up dialog. Note that what matters is the time and date shown; the presets give you a quick way to select those. If the default time or date differ from what is shown in the list of presets, those values will be the ones used in the preview.

The destination for a preview is always the screen.

Tips:

Column A is typically used for Time but can be used for data retrieval.

Column B will expand into as many columns as needed to show the results of your query. Or, it could be used to display time if you are using column A for data retrieval.

Column C, etc., can be used to add additional tag queries to a table. It does not display summary data for a row. Very few reports will need a column C.

All data columns other than Raw Timestamp and Raw Data are retrieved with a common time interval per row (Time per Record), which is set for the table as a whole. Click in the upper right corner of a table to set this value. You can set the time per record as large or small as needed.

If reporting on Raw Timestamp and Raw Data values for more than one tag, note that the column for each tag is generated independently. Timestamps are unlikely to match across any row.

If the available list of data columns does not include the calculation you're looking for, don't forget that you can create tags from the Analytics group including I/O and Calculation tags to generate additional statistics. (Referring here to the selection of tags for a query, not the summary information compiled at the bottom of a column.)

Add rows showing summary statistics by clicking the plus at the bottom of the table and then configuring the summary row. You can multiple summary rows as needed, up to the number of possible summary actions.

If your table has multiple tag query columns, not all summary statistics will apply to all queries. Suppress statistics that do not apply on a column-by-column basis (referring to configuration columns B, C, etc., not output columns).

Under the current configuration, there is a limit of 30 columns and 10,000 rows.

All elements in a report can be duplicated by doing a copy and paste (Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V). Copies are always added to the bottom of the report.

The table and parts within it are configured by clicking on a region and then using the panel to the right to customize that region. When clicking on the table, note the blue highlight, indicating which aspect you have selected to customize.

You might decide to create a series of very similar reports. A quick way to do this is to re-open the first and then use the Save As button to save it to a new report. Edit the new report as needed. By saving first, you eliminate the risk of accidentally replacing the new report with the old.

The definition of each report that you create is stored as a JSON file in the folder, ReportDefinitions, within your application. For the sake of maintaining backward compatibility as you move to newer versions of VTScada, you are advised to use the Report Studio rather than edit those files directly.

The VTScada installer offers WebView2 as an option during installation. Ensure that WebView2 is installed on your VTScada workstation in order to use the Report Studio, and to generate PDFs of reports built using the Report Studio. For the VTScada Internet Clients (VIC), WebView2 should be installed on the machine running on the VIC in order to display report previews in the Report Studio. For workstations without internet access, WebView2 can be downloaded directly from Microsoft. Refer to notes on this topic within the description of the Web Browser Widget

As noted elsewhere, VTScada should not be run under an account that has Windows Administrator privileges. This remains true when running as a service. One of the problems you will encounter if attempting to do so is that WebView2, required in order to generate a PDF report, will not run when VTScada is running as a service and either of the following is true:
- VTScada is running as the "Local System" account.
- VTScada is running under an account that is part of the Administrators group.