Configuring WinCC Online Table Control Time Range for Reports

1. Overview

The WinCC Online Table Control (Classic) ships with a fixed time range property that, by default, evaluates only the table's own time column — not user input from the report page layout. Engineers who need selectable Begin Time and End Time strings (for example, to drive a shift report, an audit export, or a maintenance log) must bind the control's dynamic parameters to internal string tags and select the correct TimeRange property position. This reference documents the working procedure on WinCC V6.2, V7.0, and V7.3, the string-tag data type, the exact hh:mm:ss:ms formatting requirement, and the failure modes that cause the report to keep printing at 1-minute intervals even when the dynamic parameter looks correct.

2. Prerequisites

3. Anatomy of the Time-Range Parameters

The Classic Online Table Control exposes three configuration levels relevant to time selection:

The TimeRange combo has four valid enumerations:

• 0 — Local Time Only: control ignores BeginTime/EndTime; uses its own column time base.
• 1 — Start Time Only: BeginTime is honored, EndTime is ignored; report runs until stopped.
• 2 — Start and End Time: both dynamic parameters are evaluated; this is the only mode that respects a user-selected range.
• 3 — Rolling / Timebase: rolling window independent of dynamic parameters.

4. Step-by-Step Configuration

4.1 Create Internal String Tags

1. Open WinCC Explorer → Tag Management → Internal Tags.
2. Create two new tags:

4.2 Bind Tags to the Dynamic Parameters

1. In Graphics Designer, open the report layout @CCTableControl.rpl (or your custom report).
2. Select the Online Table Control → right-click → Properties → Dynamic.
3. Locate the BeginTime row and click the small button to open the tag selection dialog.
4. Bind to Report_BeginTime.
5. Repeat for EndTime using Report_EndTime.
6. Close the dialog and save the layout.

4.3 Configure the Time-Range Property

1. Properties dialog → Time Range category.
2. Set the TimeRange combo to position 2 (Start and End Time).
3. Confirm TimeBase is set to Local Time unless the system runs in UTC.
4. Save and rebuild the runtime.

4.4 Enable Runtime Time Selection Toolbar

1. Open the control's properties in the Graphics Designer.
2. Navigate to the Toolbar tab.
3. Tick the Select Time Range checkbox.
4. Tick Select Time Base if you want operators to toggle between local and UTC.
5. Deploy the runtime.

At runtime the table toolbar now displays a clock icon. Clicking it opens the time-range dialog where the operator enters the start and end timestamp in the format configured in the next section.

5. Time Format Specification

The string written to Report_BeginTime and Report_EndTime must match the column header time format. The accepted literal is:

DD/MM/YYYY hh:mm:ss:ms

Where:

• DD — 2-digit day, zero-padded.
• MM — 2-digit month, zero-padded.
• YYYY — 4-digit year.
• hh — 24-hour, zero-padded.
• mm — minutes, zero-padded.
• ss — seconds, zero-padded.
• ms — 3-digit milliseconds, zero-padded.

Working example for a three-minute window starting 15:40:00.000:

Report_BeginTime = "08/12/2015 15:40:00:000"
Report_EndTime   = "08/12/2015 15:43:00:000"

5.1 Configuring the Column Format

1. Open Online Table Control → Properties → Columns.
2. Select the time column.
3. Set Time Format to hh:mm:ss:ms.
4. Set Date Format to DD/MM/YYYY.
5. Verify the column header shows Date Time with milliseconds.

6. Driving the Tags from HMI I/O Fields

For an operator-driven report, bind two I/O Fields on the report page layout to the same internal tags. Both tags remain freely editable:

I/O Field 1:
   Tag      : Report_BeginTime
   Type     : Input/Output
   Length   : 30
   Format   : String
   Field type: Date/Time

I/O Field 2:
   Tag      : Report_EndTime
   Type     : Input/Output
   Length   : 30
   Format   : String
   Field type: Date/Time

After the operator changes the values, the next print/preview cycle picks up the new range. There is no need to press a separate Apply button.

7. C Action Alternative for Programmatic Control

When the time range must be computed by logic (for example, "last shift" or "yesterday 06:00 to today 06:00"), drive the tags through a C action scheduled every 60 seconds:

// Scheduled C action, trigger 1 s
#include "apdefap.h"
int gscAction(void)
{
    SYSTEMTIME st;
    GetSystemTime(&st);
    char szBegin[32], szEnd[32];

    // End = now
    sprintf(szEnd, "%02d/%02d/%04d %02d:%02d:%02d:%03d",
            st.wDay, st.wMonth, st.wYear,
            st.wHour, st.wMinute, st.wSecond, st.wMilliseconds);

    // Begin = now - 15 minutes
    FILETIME ftBegin;
    SystemTimeToFileTime(&st, &ftBegin);
    ULARGE_INTEGER uli;
    uli.LowPart  = ftBegin.dwLowDateTime;
    uli.HighPart = ftBegin.dwHighDateTime;
    uli.QuadPart -= (ULONGLONG)15 * 60 * 10000000ULL;   // 15 min in 100 ns
    ftBegin.dwLowDateTime  = uli.LowPart;
    ftBegin.dwHighDateTime = uli.HighPart;
    FileTimeToSystemTime(&ftBegin, &st);
    sprintf(szBegin, "%02d/%02d/%04d %02d:%02d:%02d:%03d",
            st.wDay, st.wMonth, st.wYear,
            st.wHour, st.wMinute, st.wSecond, st.wMilliseconds);

    SetTagChar("Report_BeginTime", szBegin);
    SetTagChar("Report_EndTime",   szEnd);
    return 0;
}

8. Common Issues and Root-Cause Matrix

9. Verification Procedure

1. Activate the runtime project.
2. Open the report page layout containing the Online Table Control.
3. Click the toolbar's Select Time Range icon.
4. Enter a 3-minute window that crosses a known data change (for example, 15:40:00.000 to 15:43:00.000).
5. Confirm the table refreshes to show only rows within that range.
6. Print / preview the report and inspect the layout's header to verify BeginTime and EndTime are rendered.
7. Open WinCC Tag Management → confirm both internal tags hold the exact strings entered.
8. Re-enter a 1-second window; confirm only rows whose time column falls within that second appear.
9. Re-enter a window that contains zero data; confirm the report prints an empty table instead of falling back to 1-minute default.

10. Version-Specific Notes

11. Field-Proven Caveats

• Time zone awareness: if the WinCC server is configured for UTC and the operator enters local time, the report will be off by the UTC offset. Confirm the column Time Base is Local Time in distributed systems.
• Daylight saving: the OCX does not automatically compensate for DST transitions. Reports spanning the spring-forward hour may show 60 duplicate rows or skip rows by one hour.
• Archive gaps: selecting a window that crosses a gap in the archive (power loss, network outage) prints the rows that exist; missing data is not interpolated. Document this in the SOP for the operator.
• Multi-column tables: every column shares the same time range because the time range is a control-level property. Each column does not need its own BeginTime/EndTime tag — the two tags are global to the control.
• Print spool: when generating a report on a slow spooler, the tags may be overwritten by another button press before the print job is committed. Lock the tags with a bPrintInProgress boolean and reject concurrent updates.
• Performance: the OCX loads the entire requested window into memory before sending it to the printer. A 24-hour window with a 100 ms logging cycle loads ~864 000 rows. For large windows, prefer the WPF control introduced in V7.4.