The Advanced Tab

The Advanced section, shown in the following figure, displays the following information.
Note: Not all options in the Advanced section are available to all collectors. If an option is disabled, it will be grayed out.
  • Collector Options
  • Collector Status Outputs (for iFIX and OPC Collectors)


Table 1. Collector Options
Field Description
On-line Tag Configuration Changes Enabling this feature allows you to make on the fly changes to tags without having to restart the collector. If you disable this option, any changes you make to tags do not affect collection until you restart the collector executable.
Browse Source Address Space Enabling this feature allows the collector to respond to requests to browse the tags in the source. You may sometimes want to disable this feature to reduce processing load on the collector.
Synchronize Timestamps to Server Time Enabling this feature automatically adjusts all outgoing data timestamps to match the server clock. This feature is not active when you configure timestamps to be supplied by the data source. Note that this does not change collector times to match the server time it adds or subtracts an increment of time to compensate for the relative difference between the clocks of the server and collector, independent of time zone or day light savings time (DST) differences. If the collector system clock is greater than 15 minutes ahead of the archiver system clock, and the Synchronize Timestamps to Server option is disabled, data will not be written to the archive.
Source/Device Timestamps Allows you to set the time source for the timestamps as either Local, or Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). This field only applies if you are using source timestamps. The collector uses this field to determine whether the timestamps coming from the data source are in local machine time or UTC.
Delay Collection at Startup Permits you to enter the number of seconds to delay collection on startup (after loading its tag configuration). The default is 2 seconds.
Table 2. Collector Status Outputs
Field Description
Rate Output Address

Address in the source database into which the collector writes the current value of the events/minute output, letting an operator or the HMI/SCADA application know the performance of the collector. This should be connected to a writable analog field. The value is written once a minute.

For an iFIX data collector, use an iFIX tag for the output address. Enter the address as NODE.TAG.FIELD (for example, MyNode.MySIM_AO.F_CV).

For an OPC Collector, use a writable OPC address in the server. Refer to your OPC documentation for more information. This value displays the same value as the Report Rate field in the collector pane in the System Statistics page of Historian Administrator.

Status Output Address

Address in the source database into which the collector writes the current value of the collector status (running, stopping, stopped, unknown, or starting) output, letting an operator or the HMI/SCADA application know the current status of the collector.

This address should be connected to a writable text field of at least 8 characters. This value is only updated upon a change in status of the collector.

For an iFIX data collector, use TX tag for the output address. Enter the address as NODE.TAG.FIELD (for example, MyNode.MyCollector_TX.A_CV).

For an OPC Collector, use an OPC address in the server. Refer to your OPC documentation for more information.

The text string usually displays either Running, Stopped, or Unknown, matching the Status column value displayed in the collector pane in the System Statistics page of Historian Administrator.

Heartbeat Output Address

Address in the source database into which the collector writes the heartbeat signal output. This address should be connected to a writable analog field.

For an iFIX data collector, use an iFIX tag for the output address. Enter the address as NODE.TAG.FIELD (for example, MyNode.MyCollector_AO.F_CV).

For an OPC Collector, use the OPC address in the server. Refer to your OPC documentation for more information.

The data collector writes the value of 1 to this location every 60 seconds while it is running. You can program the iFIX database to generate an alarm if the Heartbeat Output Address is not written to once every 60 seconds, notifying you that the data collector has stopped.