The Registers sub-menu on the Device tab appears as illustrated below, when logged in as Account Administrator.

From the Register list view above, you can Plot data just as you can when logged in as a User or Manager. But from here, you also have additional capabilities.

To cause a register or data object to be treated as disabled, check the box in the first column, and click Disable. All points default to enabled when they are defined. If you wish to remove a data point from the remote monitoring device, DO NOT simply delete it from this page. Doing so will only delete it from the web portal. The remote monitoring device will continue to log data for that register and also continue to send that data to the web portal. Since the web portal will now not recognize the data point, it will be flagged as an error. It will also needlessly use up air time on a cellular or satellite device.

The proper procedure for deleting an object from the remote mointoring device is (1) Disable it here by checking the box and clicking Disable; (2) Check the box again and click Queue Send To Device. This will cause the disabled status to be sent to the remote device and effectively remove it from that device. Once you are certain the register is no longer reporting, you can delete it from the portal.

You may update display positions for all registers using the Page and Line settings. Change them as needed and click Update Display Positions. The page and line numbers refer to the Status and Levels pages shown to users according to their user level and page settings. Data items are organized into pages using the settings here. The definition of the pages themselves may be found on the Pages sub-menu of the Devices tab.

New registers may be added to the device using the windows and buttons at the top of this page. Enter a register number that is available in the device, provide a name, and click Add. Now click on the newly created register name to fully configure that register as shown below.

Click on any register/object name on the list above to bring up a page of configuration information about that register, as follows.

The first section of this page is common to all data point types. Provide a name for this object. Select reporting options, and select a data format. Provide optional data scaling. If zero, scale is treated as 1 and offset 0. Data obtained either from physical I/O or from Modbus devices is multipled by scale, and then offset is added, when reading data. The resulting scaled data will be presented as the actual value of this data object for purposes of alarm processing and reporting to the web portal.

Click Queue to Send to cause changes to be sent to the remote device the next time it calls in.

The Events Only reporting option means this data point is not reported periodically, and only alerts are processed.

Report on Delta means the monitoring device will send new data to the web portal only when it changes by the amount given in the Delta window. Report on POR means send a delta reading upon system power-up without noting any prior change.

Report Trend means minimum, maximum, and average are tracked over some reporting window as determined by the report priority settings. These three numbers are reported to the web portal periodically.

The Report Priority is more than just a priority level. It is also a lookup for additional timing parameters that affect how often this data will be sent to the web portal. These timing parameters are used to restrict the amount of data traffic, especially when using pay-per-byte transmission such as cellular or satellite.

Report priority may be 1 through 60. Under certain circumstances, the priority is used to prioritize reporting. Priority 1 is highest/most important. Do not start with priority 1 when setting up a new device since this leaves no room to elevate a report's priority later. Always start near the middle, choosing to use priority 25 or 30 first, and fan out from there.

The configuration page shown above and below applies to 4th generation devices. Older devices are supported, but are only configurable by uploading a new XML configuration file, and therefore this page will be substantially less populated for those older devices.

When configuring 4th generation devices, the first several I/O points are typically physical I/O connected via terminal blocks on the monitoring device. The web portal knows which points those are, an the Hardware options will be shown for those devices. Once you get above the first several points, the uncommitted data objects are configurable as Modbus master registers, Modbus slave registers, linked objects, or generic holding registers for data generated by the monitoring device's soft PLC.

If an object is not otherwise committed, it may be assigned as a linked object. One use of linking is to implement multiple alarms on the same data. When linking is configured, the source of this object's data is another object as identified as the source.

One common use of linking with Modbus is for the parsing of packed Modbus registers. It is common to find the 16 bits of a standard Modbus register each having a specific on/off status or alarm meaning. To split these up, choose one register as the "master" register. This master register will be configured to read the 16 bits of status information from a holding register in a Modbus slave, or will be written as a single holding register by an external Modbus master (when the monitoring device is acting as slave).

Once the master register is defined, create up to 16 additional data objects using the Add New Register capability noted above. All 16 of these registers will reference the same master register as the data source, but each will have a different Mask value to identify which bit in the master register is to be processed by this object.

Mask values are as follows:

If the remote monitoring device is functioning as a Modbus slave, no Modbus configuration is required. All data points are accessible as standard holding registers to the external Modbus master.

If the remote monitoring device is configured as Modbus master, polling one or more external Modbus slaves, you must create a data object for each register to be polled in that external slave. To do this, start by checking Enable Modbus, and click Update at the bottom. This will now open up the Modbus configuration section as shown below.

To configure the monitoring device to read a Modbus slave device, check Read (or Write if this is a control output), and select a data format and Modbus register type. Provide the Modbus register number and slave address to be read (or written). You must refer to documentation for the Modbus device provided by the manufacturer to determine which registers you have access to.

If you wish to pick a specific bit or type out of a register being read, enter a Mask value (same as Mask above). If you will be writing individual bits, and must always write certain bits as "1", use the Fill to create a fill mask using the same bit values as noted for Mask.

If you will be reading, and especially when writing, multiple bit fields in a single Modbus slave register, you must check the Packed Register box to cause the remote monitoring device to search for all components of the register. Redundant reads do not cause problems, but multiple writes to the same register, each write having only part of the correct data, is an obvious functional problem that will create havoc in the Modbus slave. The Packed Register box is there to fix this issue.

The Big Endian flag only applies when reading/writing 32-bit values. These are always implemented as two consecutive Modbus registers, but the ordering is not standardized. Therefore, if the manufacturer's documentation indicates that the most significant data is contained in the first of the two registers, this is known as "big endian" and you must check this box to correctly interpret the data.

If the object defined here will Write to the external Modbus slave, you have the option of writing periodically, or only when new data is available. Depending on the Modbus slave device itself, this may matter.

The Display Options are settings known only to the web portal, and only affect appearance. Bar graph values must be specified (at least min or max must be non-zero) before bar graphis will be shown on the Levels dashboard page. The min/max values represent bounds for the graph.

The bar graph will normally be green. To change it to yellow or red to call attention to out of range values, enter yellow and red limits. When the data is below the low limit, or above the high limit, it will be changed to the respective color.

Dashboard position indicates which line and page of the Levels dashboard this bar graphi will appear on. If you wish to create subdividers on the Levels page, enter a label here. The obect label will already appear automatically. This header will be redundant if you re-enter the label here. The appearance resulting from too many section headers is not pleasing, so use them sparingly.

Default values are most applicable to control outputs. If you wish to have a register/data object take on a specific value other than zero upon startup, enter that value here and select Default on POR. If you wish to have a specific value reported instead of "stale" data in the event Modbus communications fails (applies only when monitoring device is master), check the Default on Comm Fail box and enter the default value.

If you wish to generate an alarm when Modbus communications fails, use the Default on Local Comm Fail, with a default value that is obviously unreasonable. Then set a warning or alarm level to trigger on that value.

If this data object is a control output, you must specify that by clicking the appropriate button here.

You may enter any arbitrary notes you like just to document anything about this register that you wish to.

Click on the Update button any time you want to register changes. Changes entered but not registered by clicking the Update button will be lost as soon as you navigate to another web page.