Parameterized Phrases

The Report Studio is still under development and has not officially been released. Be warned that code may change such that reports you create with this pre-release trial version might need to be updated in order to continue working after your next VTScada update.

Until the official release, documentation for the Report Studio will open in response to the F1 key but will not be shown in the menu system. To view a table of contents for the complete chapter, navigate to The Report Studio

Parameterized phrases are used for any customizable wording within a report, including:

  • The title of the report.
  • The header text of any column.
  • The display of time and date information.
  • Any text that you add to the body of the report.

Parameter keywords begin with a % and are enclosed in square brackets as shown in the following example. All other text is passed through, exactly as written. You need not include any parameters when adding titles, headers, or other text to your reports.

Make Parameterized Phrase dialog

Standard parameters available to tag query parameterized phrases

When building a parameterized phrase, leave a space between each element unless you want words to run together. If building your own time format, it is up to you to include colons between hours, minutes, and seconds.

Tag Query Parameter Variables Include:

ShortName - The name of a tag, excluding all parents.

DataColumn - The function applied to the column.

Field - For any I/O tag (including legacy input / output tags) this is simply "Value".
           Field is most useful when displaying driver statistics or values from custom tags that store data other than value.

Units - Engineering units configured for the tag displayed in any column.

RelativeName - The name of a tag including parents to the selected Context or the top of the tag tree.

Description - The configured description of each tag.

AncestorShortName - The shortname of an ancestor tag at a specified level (default: 1).

AncestorRelativeName - The name of an ancestor tag at a specified level (default: 1) including parents to the selected Context or the top of the tag tree.

AncestorDescription - The configured description of an ancestor tag specified by level (default: 1).

Time Parameter Variables Include:

Time - Displayed as hh:mm tt, where tt represents AM/PM.

Date - Displayed as yyyy-MM-dd.

Hours12 - The current hour using a 12-hour clock.

Hours24 - The current hours using a 24-hour clock.

Minutes - Minutes within an hour.

Seconds - Seconds within a minute.

SubSeconds - Three decimal points of accuracy.

AMPM - AM or PM.

DayNum - The numeric day within a month.

MonthNum - The numeric month within a year.

Year - The four-digit representation of the year.

DayString - The name of the day of the week.

MonthString - The name of the month of the year.

Label & Report Title Variables Include:

StartDate - Beginning date of the time span formatted as yyyy-MM-dd

StartTime - Beginning time of the time span formatted as hh:mm tt

EndDate - Date ending the included time span.

EndTime - Time ending the included time span.

RunDate - Date when the report was generated.

RunTime - Time when the report was generated.

WorkstationName - The identity of the workstation where the report was generated.

Custom Parameters

As described in Define Parameterized Reports, parameters that you create for your report can also be used in your parameterized phrases. This is especially useful for report titles and column headers.