You specify the time or date by using the Trip Sequence Time field on the appropriate tab of the Crystal Report Form. You specify the time in the OPC Relative Time Format.
The default of NOW results in a time of ‘now’ exactly.
For some reports, you may want to specify an offset time:
Example:
On a Geo SCADA Expert system, reports for the previous month are generated at the start of the following month.
The reports are exported to CD and then stored in the company archives.
The directory into which each report is archived indicates the year for which the report data corresponds. The file name of each report includes the month and year for which the report data corresponds. The directory and file name are specified using a trip sequence:
E:\Reports\%Dyyyy%\Report for %DMMM yyyy%
(where Report for %DMMM yyyy% is the name of the report)
As the reports for February are exported at the beginning of March, and the reports for March are exported at the beginning of April, and so on, a Trip Sequence Time of NOW would result in the reports for February being exported with a March file name.
In order to export the reports with the appropriate file name, the Trip Sequence Time is specified as:
MO-1D
(the last day of the previous month)
This results in reports containing February’s data (which are exported at the start of March) being exported with a February file name (as the date with which Geo SCADA Expert replaces the trip sequence %DMMM yyyy% is calculated using the last day of the previous month as the time source).
For further examples on using the OPC Relative Time format, and the time units that you can use to specify the Trip Sequence Time, see OPC Relative Time Format in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration.