Rockwell Automation 9301 Series RSView32 Users Guide - Manual (Page 565)

Sharing data with other Windows applications
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16–3
Retrieving historical data
All logged data is stored in files in dBASE IV or ODBC table format,
so you can retrieve data from log files using any software that reads
these formats. (ODBC format is available for data logs only, not alarm
or activity logs, unless you send the alarm log or activity log data to an
ODBC database online.) Many software products are available for
retrieving and analyzing data. This chapter briefly describes how to
bring data from .dbf log files into Microsoft Excel. It also describes
how to create a pivot table using .dbf data from data log files.
For information about how alarm log files are named, see page 6-31.
For information about how the dBASE IV data log files are named,
see page 7-5. For information about how ODBC data log tables and
backup files are named, see page 7-9. For information about how
activity log files are named, see page 8-10. For information about how
to send activity log data or alarm log data to an ODBC database, see
page 6-32.
Before retrieving data, consider how the data will be used. This will
help you choose the best method for retrieving it. For example, you
can bring .dbf data from log files directly into Microsoft Excel.
However, it might be more valuable to limit the data you retrieve.
Suppose you want to examine the values of certain tags over time. To
do that, you could perform a query (with Microsoft Query) using tag
names and time as criteria so you retrieve only relevant data.
For detailed information about working in Microsoft Excel and
Microsoft Query, see your Microsoft documentation.