Browse and add tags from a device

9 min

Browse Tags allows you to browse to a connected device and discover, add, and manage tags for the device. Browse Tags is useful for adding and managing a large number of tags from a device. Instead of providing configuration information on specific tags, you can browse and obtain tag information directly from the device. You can also set browse parameters and filters to narrow the scope of the tags that you want to find.

Browse Tags provides you with:

Unified search: Search and manage tags in one location.

Persistent results: Search results load once and persist for faster searches.

Bulk management of tags: Perform bulk edits on tags, such as changing the polling frequency, before adding them to DeviceHub.

Spreadsheet support: Download your search results for further processing in Excel.

Multitasking support: Browse tasks run in the background. Notifications alert you about in-progress and completed tasks.

Highly performative search: Easily search a browsable server, device, or system that has hundreds of thousands of tags.

Note: The protocol of the device that you connect to must support browsing to use Browse Tags. Only devices that support browsing display in the Select Device drop-down.

Create a browse task

A browse task represents a saved search for tags for a specific device. When you create a browse task, you select a device and then create a browse task that contains search parameters and other information. Some parameters depend on the device that you access. For example, for MQTT SparkplugB device you define device, group, node, and metric matches and other settings. For OPC UA, you only define the browse mode as data or event access.

Manufacturing Connect Edge automatically starts browse tasks after you create them. Multiple tasks created on:

the same device start in the order they were created.

different devices run simultaneously.

You can perform other tasks in Manufacturing Connect Edge as the browse processes data. The time that a browse task takes to complete depends on the:

Number of available tags on the device.

Resources of the Manufacturing Connect Edge instance.

Resources of the device or system being browsed.

Network bandwidth.

To create a browse task:

Navigate to DeviceHub > Browse.

In the Browse pane, choose a device from the Select Device drop-down.

To the right of Select Task, click +Create New Task.

In the Create Browse Task dialog:

Enter a task name. The task name cannot contain spaces.

Define additional browse task parameters. The parameters available to you vary depending on the device that you selected.

Select Delete empty folders to delete empty folders from browse results. An empty folder can represent a data point that Manufacturing Connect Edge cannot read.

Click Create Task.

Note: By default, the OPC UA Client Advanced driver excludes i=2253 [Server], i=86 [TypesFolder], and i=87 [ViewsFolder] from browsing so browse tasks finish faster.

Manufacturing Connect Edge starts the browse tasks and obtains tag data from your device.

After the browse task completes, tags are available in the hierarchy.

Manage browse tasks

You can view and manage tasks associated with a device in one place. For each task, you can see parameters defined when the task was created, a status (pending, in progress, and done), number of folders and tags, and disk size of the browse results.

To manage browse tasks:

In the Browse pane, choose a device and task from the Select Device and Select Task drop-downs.

To reload data, click Reload tree. A message appears indicating that data is being collected.

To see the progress of the browse, click the notification icon in the top toolbar.

Click Manage Tasks. The Manage Tasks dialog displays.

To start or stop a browse task, click the start or stop icon.

To delete a task, click the delete icon.

You can add tags in several ways. You can browse the navigation tree or through advanced search. You can:

Add tags to DeviceHub from a single folder immediately.

Add tags from multiple folders by storing them in the tag collection and adding them all at once.

To add tags:

In the right pane, select the tags that you want to add.

To add a tag immediately, click Create Tags. The Creation Results dialog displays the number of tags created, skipped, or updated.

To add tags later, click Add To Collection. You can also navigate to other folders and add additional tags.

To manage tags from the collection, click the total tags icon at the right. The Total Tags dialog displays.

To add all tags to DeviceHub, click Create All.

To edit the description or polling interval for values for an individual tag, click the edit icon in the right column and modify values.

To edit the description or polling interval for values for multiple tags, click Global Update. Select all or multiple tags and modify values.

To remove all tags from the collection, click Clear Collection.

To remove individual tags, select those tags and click Delete Selected.

Basic search

Basic search lets you quickly find tags through search as an alternative to navigating the tree.

Note: You can search with common operators and regular expressions. Operators include Blank and NotBlank, Contains and NotContain, EndsWith and StartsWith, Equals and NotEqual, and MatchesRegEx and NotMatchRegEx.

To perform a basic search:

In the Browse pane, choose a device and task from the Select Device and Select Task drop-downs.

At the right, click the search icon. Search displays.

In Search Option, select a search operator and enter tag text to search on.

To make the search case sensitive, select Case Sensitive. This only applies to StartsWith, EndsWith, Contains, and NotContain search options.

Click Search.

Advanced search

You can perform basic and advanced searches to find tags that you want to add. This can be a useful alternative to navigating large and complex tree structures.

Note: You can search with common operators and regex expressions. Operators include Blank and NotBlank, Contains and NotContain, EndsWith and StartsWith, Equals and NotEqual, and MatchesRegEx and NotMatchRegEx.

To perform an advanced search:

In the Browse pane, choose a device and task from the Select Device and Select Task drop-downs.

At the right, click the search icon. Search displays.

Select Advanced Search.

In Field Name, select a field to search on. Fields map to the column names such as Tag Name, Description, and Polling Interval.

In Search Option, select a search operator and enter tag text to search on.

To make the search case sensitive, select Case Sensitive. This only applies to StartsWith, EndsWith, Contains, and NotContain search options.

If necessary, click the plus sign to add further search conditions and to perform and And or Or search.

Click Search.

Download tags

You can download tags to CSV format for further processing in Excel. You can also choose to update tags information in Excel and import the changes back to Manufacturing Connect Edge.

To download tags:

In the Browse pane, choose a device and task from the Select Device and Select Task drop-downs.

Click Download Tags. Tags download in CSV format.

You can now open tags in your preferred spreadsheet application.