How to read total project tag count via OPC client

[TRS-80]

I have Ignition connected to KepserverEX 6.13 as an OPC client. I'd like to build dashboards, reports and alarms in Ignition to monitor performance statistics as we scale out our system - adding more devices, channels and tags. I know most device drivers provide a count of active tags (e.g. <Channel Name>.<Device Name>._System._ActiveTagCount), but is there a way to access the total number of tags defined in the Kepserver Project, as displayed in the "Tags Defined" field Property Editor dialog for the Project? I'm looking at _System._ActiveTagCount at the root level, but this number is not matching what's displayed in the dialog box on Kepserver.

For bonus points, is there a good post or white paper out there for best practices on dashboarding Kepware in general - what are the prudent metrics to be monitoring and thresholding for alarms, etc.?

[cmorehead · Accepted solution]

@Dn_10789866 

The _System_ActiveTagCount under the KEPServerEX parent group shows all of the active tags currently configured in the project. If you are using the KEPServerEX Quick Client and have the utility automatically add and count system tags.  This number may be different from your actual data collection tags. You can go into the Quick Client > Tools > Options and uncheck the box "Ignore browse paths containing leading underscores when auto-building". This will disallow the inclusion of system tags in the active tag count.  The _System_ActiveTagCount highlighted in the attached screen shot is at the server level so it will contain all tags configured in the project that at least one Client application is making a reference to. I created a demo project with three tags configured and included a screen shot of the active tag count with the "Ignore browse paths containing leading underscores when auto-building" option checked. You can see the three tags configured were the only ones counted. The _System_ActiveTagCount shown in the screen shot is different from the device level system tags you mentioned in your initial post. 

Bonus points - KEPServerEX  works with real time data acquisition. It would be up to a third-party Client application to perform the dashboarding and setting up of alarms on the data.

Thanks,

*Chris

[cmorehead]

Here is the second screen shot...