FactoryTalk Transaction Manager Data Management Software

Transaction Manager is a data management software product in the suite of FactoryTalk software products that Rockwell Automation offers. In a nutshell Transaction Manager acts as the media between your plant data (ex. tags in PLC) and your database (MSQL, Access, etc).  The tags have to be sent to Transaction Manager and depending on a trigger or scheduling settings in the software the tags are pushed to the database to be recorded and monitored.

According to the product profile of Transaction Manager on the Rockwell Automation’s website, it enabled you to:

• Get the data
• Keep work-in-process and production inventory
• Track material consumption
• Optimize and improve your manufacturing by analyzing production data

Data Integrity

Transaction Manager has features that enabled you to protect and ensure system and data integrity. You can also set it to send email notifications of system failures.

Transaction Caching

Transaction Manager can cache transactions before they are sent to the database. One good thing about this feature is that if the system is down data can be saved in the cache and sent to database once the system is back up.

Bi-Directional Communication

Transaction Manager can send data from the control system to the database. It can also send data back to the control system confirming the data has been sent to database.

Online Edits

The software allows online edits of setting and transactions to some extend which means you don’t have to shut it down (lose data) to make changes. However, you can’t add new tags to a transaction when you are online, so a solution might be to create few dummy tags in your program so that it can be used for future real tags (to allow online edits).

Connectivity

Transaction Manager can connect to ODBC-compliant databases, native drivers for Microsoft® SQL Server and Oracle database, and COM+ applications. COM+ application connectivity means almost any Visual Basic or C/C++ applications which is pretty nice feature.

On the other hand Transaction Manager can connect to non-Rockwell PLCs as well. You can simply use OPC.

XML Import / Export

There is an XML import / export feature on the software that is said to be (according to the product profile):

Particularly useful for large transaction configurations or if you want to start with an existing configuration and make changes to it.

I’ve worked with it and honestly don’t suggest using it though. It doesn’t always work as intended.

Configuration Checklist

Transaction Manager is (in my opinion) a pretty easy software to get used to and develop projects in. One of the favorite features on it is the configuration checklist which literally walks you through setting up the configuration and validates your settings as you go along. You can see a screen shot of the checklist configuration tool in the bottom of this post.

Competitors

I need to do a little research to find out what other software is out there that can do the same thing. I’m sure there are some, but I just don’t know them. If you do, feel free to post a comment here.

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