SIMCA^®-online 15.1 (Q908)

Summary:

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 brings the following new features along with many other updates and fixes;

• Stopped execution preserves data for active batches keeping alarm state and increases performance
• Phases no longer stop due to temporary data access problems after enabling the Control tag cache
• No re-triggering of alarms after phase finish
• Alarms that have been reset don't influence alarm state in Production Overview in the desktop client, nor in the web client
• Warning- and Critical level alarms are separate and triggered independently
• Rolling view only cycles through tabs that show data from configurations with activity
• Compatibility with projects created in SIMCA^® 15.0.2
• Important bug fixes:
  • Regular expressions for batch id filter now supports the or operator |
  • Active Directory groups without display name, such as groups without email addresses, are now visible when setting up group-authenticated users
  • The Worm plot for continuous projects is quicker to display after plot settings improvements
• The SIMCA^®-online web client is updated to handle continuous (non-batch) project configurations and more. See SIMCA^®-online Web Client 15.1

Read more comprehensive explanations of the above features at the end of this article.

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 is a major release. To run the server other than in demo mode you need a license (a license for an earlier version than 15 does not work).

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 works with Umetrics Suite Active Dashboard as well as the SIMCA^®-online Web Client, and has an evolved Web API with new features and JSON authentication.

More Information:

Download and installation

Download the software from the SIMCA^®-online download page. To unzip the files you need a password which you obtain from your Umetrics sales representative. Refer to the Readme and Installation Guide.pdf included in the zip-file to learn how to install the software.

Demo limitations

If you install SIMCA^®-online without a license it will run in trial (demo) mode. The trial is limited to only work with the SimApi for the database simulation software DBMaker included with the server installation and can be used for demo purposes or testing, with demo data or with your own data, but not connect to production data sources.

Release date

The version of this release is 15.1.0.6308. Release date 2018-09-12.

Validation

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 and the SIMCA^®-online Web Client 15.1 have been fully validated. The validation report is available at the download page.

System requirements

1. Any x64 or x86 computer hardware supported by the Windows versions listed below.
2. Supported versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7,
3. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or later.
4. 200 MB available hard disk space for a full installation.
5. SIMCA^® projects built with SIMCA^® 15, 14.1, 14.0, 13.0.3. Note: to use the latest features SIMCA^® 15 is needed. SIMCA^® 15.0.2 is recommended, see SIMCA^® and SIMCA^®-online compatibility issues (Q904)

To learn more on installation guidance see the SIMCA^®-online Implementation Guide (available on the download page) and the SIMCA^®-online Technical Guide.

Technical details

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 is a separate program and installation from the previous versions. SIMCA^®-online 15.1 can be installed in parallel with earlier versions on the same server computer. Different database directories and settings are used. Note that we do not recommend running more than one Umetrics Suite server per server computer in production. See the SIMCA^®-online Technical Guide (2.1.1) for more information.

SIMCA^®-online 15.1 is backwards compatible with the SIMCA^®-online 15.0, 14.0, 13.3, 13.2 and 13.1 database formats (but no other versions). This means that a copy of the database for those versions can be used if you want to migrate a previous server to 15.1 and keep old data. Note that SIMCA^®-online 14.0 introduced Unicode-support, and if you want to take full advantage of that (correct sorting) you should start with an empty database in SIMCA^®-online and not import a database from a version earlier than 14.

The application SIMCA^®-online Server Options is started automatically following the installation; If an earlier supported version is installed it will ask if you would like to import data and settings from that version. Follow the instructions on the screen.

To learn more about migration of databases and settings, refer to Supported migration of database and settings between SIMCA^®-online versions (Q801).

Licensing

SIMCA^®-online is licensed on the SIMCA^®-online server. Client computers need no licenses and can be freely installed and used on many PCs. A server license file is needed to connect to data sources other than the built-in data source simulation tool DBMaker (see above under Demo Limitations).
SIMCA^®-online licensing works as follows:

• You place an order with your sales representative.
• You receive an email with an Activation Key together step-by-step instructions. Save a copy of the email as you might need it later if you reinstall the product or want to change the license.
• Follow the instructions in the email to use the Activation Key to download and install a license file on your server computer.
• The downloaded license works for the server it was downloaded for. It cannot be moved to other servers.

Third party software

SIMCA^®-online is bundled with ExamDiff, a freeware tool for visual comparison of configuration changes in the SIMCA^®-online audit trail for 21 CFR Part 11 (Electronic Records) compliance. For even more features, check out ExamDiff Pro.

New features and important changes in SIMCA^®-online 15.1

• Stopped execution (manually or when the SIMCA^®-online server is stopped) now preserves data for active batches keeping alarm state and increases performance. When execution is turned on, SIMCA^®-online resumes executing the batch from where it was, and does not re-trigger alarms for the beginning of the batch. It also increases performance because the entire batch is not re-read.
• Batch project execution no longer stops phases because of temporary data access problems after enabling the optional Control tag cache. It re-uses last known good values for control tags (batch identifier tags and tags used in phase conditions) when the data source returns missing value or SimApi errors.
• SIMCA^®-online no longer re-triggers batch evolution alarms after a phase is finished, eliminating duplicate notifications, and duplicate alarms in Active Dashboard.
• Alarms that have been reset no longer influence the alarm state in Production Overview in the desktop client, and in the web client. For example; if there is a critical alarm (red status), and you reset it, the alarm state goes to green because the reset critical alarm is ignored.
• Warning- and Critical level alarms are now separate and triggered independently. There is no elevation (changing) of a warning alarm to critical alarm.
• Rolling view now only cycles through tabs that show data from configurations with activity. If a project configuration has no active batch, no plots will be displayed for that configuration in Rolling View.
• Compatibility with projects created in SIMCA^® 15.0.2. SIMCA^®-online 15.1 handles batch level models in the same way as the updated SIMCA^®-version.