Technical data

Programming with STEP 7
Manual, 05/2010, A5E02789666-01 395
17 Controlling and Monitoring Variables
17.1 Configuring Variables for Operator Control and Monitoring
Overview
STEP 7 provides a user-friendly method of controlling and monitoring variables in your process or
programmable controller using WinCC.
The advantage of this method over previous methods is that you no longer need to configure data
separately for each operator station (OS), you simply configure once using STEP 7. You can
transfer the data generated when you configure with STEP 7 to the WinCC database using the
transfer program AS-OS Engineering (part of the software package "Process Control System
PCS7"), during which the consistency of the data and their compatibility with the display system are
checked. WinCC uses the data in variable blocks and graphic objects.
Using STEP 7, you can configure or modify operator control and monitoring attributes for the
following variables:
• Input, output, and in/out parameters in function blocks
• Bit memory and I/O signals
• Parameters for CFC blocks in CFC charts
Basic Procedure
The procedure for configuring operator control and monitoring variables is dependent on the
selecting programming/configuration language and the type of variables you want to control and
monitor. The basic procedure always includes the following steps, however:
1. Assign system attributes for operator control and monitoring to the parameters of a function
block or to the symbols in a symbol table.
The step is not required in CFC because you take blocks that have already been prepared from
a library.
2. Assign the variables you want to control and monitor with the required attributes and logging
properties in a dialog box (S7_m_c). In the Operator Interface dialog box (menu command Edit
> Special Object Properties > Operator Interface), you can change WinCC attributes, such
as limit values, substitute values, and protocol properties, etc.
3. Transfer the configuration data generated with STEP 7 to your display system (WinCC) by
means of the AS-OS Engineering tool.