Prerequisites

This topic covers prerequisites for using the Collector Toolkit in Windows. To use the Collector Toolkit in Linux, consult Installing and Configuring the Collector Toolkit for Linux.

To create custom collectors using the Collector Toolkit:
  • You must have Visual Studio 2010 and Historian 6.0 SP1 or higher installed and configured on your machine.
  • You must ensure that you have administrative rights and open Visual Studio in Administrative mode.
  • The collectors developed based on the Collector Toolkit must be written in C++.
Note:
  • Both the computer the collector is running on and the Data Archiver it connects to must be Historian 6.0SP1 or higher. Also, Historian Administrator should be 6.0 SP1 or newer.
  • You can create custom collectors using Collector Toolkit on both 32-bit and 64-bit collectors.

Enabling Python Expression Tags with the Collector Toolkit

To enable Python Expression Tags with the Collector Toolkit:

  1. Open the registry in regedit.
  2. Navigate to the key created for the specific collector type for which you want expression use enabled. The collector type is the value of ServiceName that is specified in the method call to CCollectorDelegator::InitializeCollector.
    • If you are creating a 64 bit collector, this is under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intellution, Inc.\iHistorian\Services.
    • If you are creating a 32 bit collector, this is under HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Intellution, Inc.\iHistorian\Services.
    • For example, if you are creating a 32 bit collector with a ServiceName of RabbitMQCollector with the toolkit, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Intellution, Inc.\iHistorian\Services\RabbitMQCo.
  3. Under that key, add a string variable with the following values:
    • Name: ServiceExtensions
    • Type: REG_SZ
    • Data: PythonExpressions
  4. Ensure that the Python Expression Extension binary dependencies (casablanca100.dll, python34.dll, PythonExpressionExtension.dll) are in the same location as the collector executable.

Refer to the Python Expression Tags for details on how to use these tags.