Adding measurements to a Siemens S7 collector
Measurements can be added to a Siemens S7 collector by:
- Manually adding measurements
- Bulk importing measurements
- Adding measurements using the APIAdding measurements using the API
Manually add a measurement
Follow the guide on Creating a measurement for general instructions on how to create a measurement.
Open the Measurements page in Factry Historian web interface and click + Create Measurement.
Fill in the Name of the measurement and optionally add a short Description. This will make it easier to find and recognize the measurement later when searching for measurements to trend or configure.
Choose the Siemens S7 Collector you configured before, and select the time-series Database where the data should be stored.
Select the correct Datatype (for example, Boolean, Number, or String) based on what the Siemens S7 server reported for this address.
Basic settings
MemoryAddress
In the settings panel below, provide the MemoryAddress. This tells the collector exactly which address to read from.
Typical address formats include:
All address ranges must fit within a single DB and data type, and align with the element size. Bit ranges are not supported. Valid address space: 0–65535. Use non-optimized DBs for consistent access.
PLCDatatype
Select the PLCDatatype corresponding to the data type defined in your Siemens S7 program (for example, REAL, BOOL, WORD, or DINT).
Rules:
- BOOL requires a bit index in the address.
- STRING length must come from the address (no STRING arrays).
- Ranges must align to the chosen size (WORD = 2, DWORD / DINT / REAL = 4).
- For STEP-7 addresses like DBD*, use this field to choose between DWORD, DINT, or REAL, the underlying bytes are identical.
For an initial test, you can leave the fields CollectionInterval and CollectionOffset at their default values. If you need more control, you can find detailed explanations of these optional settings in the reference documentation for the Siemens S7 collectorSiemens S7 collector.
Expected outcome
Once you have submitted your measurement, and all settings are correct, you should see the following:
- The measurement status changes to Good within about 10 seconds.
- The measurement appears in the list of configured measurements.
- The data preview panel begins to display live values coming from the selected memory address. Click the refresh icon if it does not refresh automatically.
If you need to configure a large number of nodes, you can also bulk import the measurements to speed up the process.
Bulk import measurements
Follow the guide on Importing measurements in bulk for general instructions.