WinCC Report Designer: Custom Start/End Time Report Printing

1. Problem Overview

The default WinCC Report Designer layout prints a fixed sliding window (for example, "last 12 hours") of the WinCC Online Trend Control. Operators frequently require an ad-hoc report that covers a user-defined interval such as a shift, a batch, or a fault investigation window. The layout file (RDL) is static, but the underlying trend object exposes two dynamic properties — BeginTime and EndTime — that can be driven from internal string tags at print time.

This article documents the complete procedure to:

1. Declare two internal WinCC tags of type Text variable 16-bit (WinCC string) to hold the interval boundaries.
2. Bind them to the BeginTime and EndTime properties of the Online Trend Control inside the RDL layout.
3. Write the desired start and end timestamps to those tags from VBScript, C script, or the PLC before the print job is triggered.
4. Print to a physical printer, PDF, or file using the RPTRunPrintJob / PrintReport function.

The technique is officially supported on WinCC Runtime V7.4 SP1 and later, including V7.5 SP2, V7.5 SP3, and the V8.x line. The companion engineering system tested against is STEP 7 V5.5 SP4 HF11; TIA Portal V15.1+ with WinCC Professional/Comfort uses a different (C#/VB .NET) approach that is out of scope here.

2. Prerequisites

Verify the WinCC Online Trend Control version on the target system:

1. Open the RDL layout in the Report Designer.
2. Right-click the embedded trend object → Properties → General tab.
3. Confirm the OCX Version field shows at least 7.4.1.x.

3. Architecture: How the Layout Resolves Time Range

When the Report Designer prints, it instantiates the embedded WinCC Online Trend Control as an ActiveX object and queries its BeginTime and EndTime properties. These are Date/Time values internally, but the control accepts and displays them in two ways:

• Static configuration in the layout editor (locks the window).
• Dynamic binding to a WinCC tag via the OCX property dialog.

Dynamic binding is the key. By wiring each property to an internal string tag, the runtime evaluation happens at the moment the print job starts, not at layout load time. The control parses the string using the WinCC regional format configured under Computer Properties → Graphics Runtime → Regional Settings.

4. Step-by-Step: Declare the Internal Tags

1. Open WinCC Explorer and select the Tag Management editor.
2. Right-click Internal Tags → Add New Tag.
3. Create the following two tags:

5. Step-by-Step: Bind Properties in the RDL Layout

1. In WinCC Explorer, double-click Report Designer and open the existing RDL layout (e.g. ShiftReport.rdl).
2. Click the embedded Online Trend Control object inside the layout canvas to select it.
3. Right-click → Configuration Dialog → switch to the Time Axis tab.
4. Uncheck Use fixed time range. The fields Start time and End time become editable and show small ... buttons.
5. Click the ... button next to Start time and select Report_BeginTime.
6. Click the ... button next to End time and select Report_EndTime.
7. Save the layout and close the editor.

The binding is persisted in the RDL XML. Verify by opening the RDL in a text editor and searching for:

If both attributes appear, the dynamic binding is active.

6. Step-by-Step: Populate the Tags Before Printing

6.1 VBScript Method (Recommended)

Attach a VBScript action to the button (or scheduled event) that triggers the report. A clean, locale-independent implementation reads the target interval from operator-entered fields on the screen:

' --- WinCC VBScript: Write BeginTime / EndTime from screen fields ---
Option Explicit

Dim sBegin, sEnd
sBegin = HMIRuntime.Screens("ScreenOverview").ScreenItems("dtBegin").OutputValue
sEnd   = HMIRuntime.Screens("ScreenOverview").ScreenItems("dtEnd").OutputValue

' Normalize to runtime regional format expected by the trend control
Dim oFmt : Set oFmt = CreateObject("MSWC.Tools") ' not used; built-in helper

HMIRuntime.Tags("Report_BeginTime").Write sBegin
HMIRuntime.Tags("Report_EndTime").Write sEnd

' Optional: small delay to ensure the control polls the new values
HMIRuntime.Wait 250

' Trigger the print
HMIRuntime.Trace "Printing report from " & sBegin & " to " & sEnd & vbCrLf
Dim sRet
sRet = HMIRuntime.Report.PrintReport("ShiftReport@WINCC_RT_DEFAULT.PDL", _
                                    "\\\\PRINTSVR\\ShiftReports", _
                                    "\\\\FILESVR\\PDF\\ShiftReport_*.pdf")
If sRet <> "" Then
    HMIRuntime.Trace "Print error: " & sRet & vbCrLf
End If

Note that HMIRuntime.Wait 250 is a 250 ms pause giving the OCX one full pump cycle to refresh its bound properties. Increase to 500 ms on slower HMI panels.

6.2 C-Script Method (Classic WinCC)

For projects still on ANSI-C, the equivalent is:

/* WinCC ANSI-C: Populate begin/end then print */
#include "apdefap.h"
void OnPrintReport(char* lpszPictureName, char* lpszObjectName)
{
    char szBegin[32], szEnd[32];
    char* pszFile = "C:\\Reports\\ShiftReport.prn";

    /* Read operator-entered times from the screen */
    szBegin[0] = '\0'; szEnd[0] = '\0';
    GetOutputValueChar(GetScreenItem(lpszPictureName, "dtBegin"), szBegin);
    GetOutputValueChar(GetScreenItem(lpszPictureName, "dtEnd"),   szEnd);

    /* Write to internal tags */
    SetTagChar("Report_BeginTime", (LPSTR)szBegin);
    SetTagChar("Report_EndTime",   (LPSTR)szEnd);

    /* Trigger print job via internal API */
    RPTJobStart(pszFile);
    RPTJobPrint(NULL);
}

6.3 PLC-Triggered Method (STEP 7)

When the start/end timestamps originate in the S7 PLC, write them to the WinCC internal tags over the WinCC-S7 connection using raw PUT on the configured area pointer:

1. Declare two STRING[32] variables in the STEP 7 DB, e.g. DB100.DBB0 (Report_BeginTime) and DB100.DBB36 (Report_EndTime).
2. Add an Area Pointer "Date/Time" or a custom Raw area pointer of 64 bytes in the WinCC channel.
3. Format the strings in the S7 to match the WinCC regional format (see Section 7) using FC5 / FC6 (DT to String conversion) or SCL.
4. On a rising edge of the Report_Trigger bit, fire the print job from a WinCC global script (see Section 6.1).

7. Date/Time String Format Specification

The Online Trend Control parses the bound string using the regional format configured at the WinCC station, not the HMI panel's locale. To inspect or change it:

1. Open Computer Properties on the WinCC server/HMI.
2. Navigate to Graphics Runtime → Runtime Settings → Regional Settings.
3. Note the Short date format, Long time format, and Date separator.

Hard rule: The string length, separator characters, leading zeros, and 12/24-hour flag must match the runtime locale. A US-formatted string sent to a German runtime logs "CWTRC: Invalid time string" in WinCC_Sys_xx.log and prints the default window (12 h or whatever the static config was).

8. Triggering the Print

For batch/unsupervised printing, prefer RPTJobPrint (C) or HMIRuntime.Report.PrintReport (VBS) over the legacy ReportJob COM object, which is deprecated in V7.5+.

9. Verification Procedure

1. Open the project in WinCC Runtime, navigate to the print screen, enter 03/14/2024 06:00:00 as start and 03/14/2024 14:00:00 as end.
2. Click the print button. The WinCC_Sys_xx.log should contain a line "Print job 'ShiftReport' started, pages=...".
3. Open the resulting PDF or printed page. The trend's X-axis must show the 8-hour interval 06:00 → 14:00 on 14 Mar 2024 only.
4. Enter a deliberately invalid range (End < Begin). The trend control falls back to the static configured window; no error dialog is raised. Validate input upstream to prevent silent fallback.
5. Re-run with end-time in the future. The control clamps to "now"; curve stops at the last available archive data point. Acceptable for live dashboards.

10. Troubleshooting Matrix

11. Extended: Multiple Pages with Different Ranges

To produce a daily report (24 pages, one per hour) from a single VBScript loop:

1. Pre-allocate Report_BeginTime and Report_EndTime as above.
2. Loop over the day, calling HMIRuntime.Tags(...).Write and PrintReport inside the loop body.
3. Sleep HMIRuntime.Wait 500 between iterations to avoid OCX queuing.
4. Append a counter to the output filename: "C:\\PDF\\Shift_2024-03-14_##.pdf".

A 24-page batch typically takes 12-25 seconds on a WinCC V7.5 server with a 30 ms/h process value archive.

12. References Within the WinCC Information System

For further reading inside the installed WinCC Information System (Start → Programs → Siemens Automation → Documentation):

• WinCC Information System → Working with WinCC → Creating Reports → Layout of the Page Layout → Working with Objects in the Page Layout
• WinCC Information System → Options → Report Designer → Working with the Report Designer → Configuring the Online Trend Control
• WinCC Information System → Communication → SIMATIC S7 → Area Pointer for S7 Communication

These are bundled with the WinCC installation media and the matching Service Packs.