First off I’m a Wonderware guy and only used RSView ME once before and it was for a system using a single PV+. The project I’m working on now – parts of it are set in stone such as the equipment being used. I would liked to have used Wonderware instead or learn SE instead.

My system: 1 CLX processor w/ RIO, 9 PV+700 using RSView ME 4.0, Ethernet communication.
My plan for the HMI: make a single application for each of the PV+ and restrict access to screens pending what PV+ is being used
My assumptions: the network is 100Mbps using full duplex switches with IGMP snooping

My problems:
I would like to design the system so that certain screens can only be accessed by certain PanelViews on the network.
To sum it up nicely - If you’re in one area, you can only access the screens relevant to that area of the system.

I’ve done this before in Wonderware and it worked out nicely – there wasn’t any hassle with working with multiple applications. I would like to try to set up the same functionality even though this is all ME. Well when I open Studio I get lost with setting up User Accounts. It seems to me as this was meant for SE and our friends at RS forgot to take it out for ME. The Help and the User Manual for this is useless. How do I add each to PV in to set up the permission for the PV? Can this even be done? Do I have to go through the hassle of 9 separate applications for each PV+ in the system?

If this can be done – I believe this won’t saturate the Ethernet network. I believe the PV only polls the processor for the tags on the active screen rather than updating each tag in the database. This is my sanity check and hoping someone can confirm this for me.

If this can be done – if I include a couple trending screens but only allow permission to a particular trending screen to one PV+, will all the other PV+ log the data? I don’t want that to saturate the network either.
I realize I’m trying to turn something into something it’s not. It would have been easier going with Wonderware or SE but it’s too late now since the hardware and licenses have already been purchased.

Finally this is a question that isn’t particularly relevant to this project but I ran into this problem my last go-around with RSView ME.
How do you get username/passwords set-up to set permissions to certain screens? I suppose this is a route I can take on this project if I can’t figure out how to distinguish the different PV hardware from each other. I assume in User Accounts you need to use the RSView 3.x Accounts tab and I played around with it a little and didn’t figure it out. I didn’t have much time to figure it out and it was only one screen that needed to be protected and different accounts weren’t necessary so I just did a String Input and masked the string then compared the inputted string to a string in the PLC and if they were equal, turned on a bit which they made visible the protected data. I set up a logout macro so when the screen changed then the input string was cleared.

I’m sure there is an easier way of doing this with just ME instead of the hassle I went through with the string so if someone can help me out, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

If you are in support, check out these two tech notes on the KnowledgeBase.

Answer ID 33153 - How to use User Accounts in RSView Studio ME 4.0.
Answer ID 33492 - Using & Managing RSView ME Station User Accounts Through The Local PC.

Very helpful and detail explanation there.

RSView ME works quite well for security purposes.

Fist setup the screens you want and when you right click the screen under display properties setup the severity of the screen. This way depending on the user logged into the system those are the screens you can access from that station.

Setting up users is simple. Select users in your explorer bar and have the 3.xx tab open add users to your program and select the severites of that specific user. Then once complete click on the 4.0 tab and in the top left explorer bar under user select migrate 3.xx users and that is all you need to do.

Then in your application they will go to your login screen and depending on users logged in, this will determine which screens they have access to.

Panelview plus's only access tags as needed so that shouldn't bog down your network. Trending however polls the tags at what ever your interval is setup in your datalog setup.