Have you wanted to share I/O point or variable data from your SNAP PAC controller with a Microsoft^® Excel^® spreadsheet or Access^® database? 

• Maybe you're tracking sales in a spreadsheet and want to adjust production to match projections.
• Maybe your PAC is monitoring equipment on-time and energy usage, and you want to add that data to an equipment maintenance database.

You might have a lot of good reasons to share data between your control system and a company database or spreadsheet, but you need to do it securely.

The new RESTful API in SNAP PACs gives you that capability—and these two new sample files with step-by-step instructions make it really easy. 

SNAP PAC RESTful API to Excel Spreadsheet Example—Read from and write to an Opto 22 SNAP PAC programmable automation controller using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) with Excel. The sample Excel file is an interactive spreadsheet that can query your PAC and then build URL paths for the data in your control strategy. You don’t even need to know the I/O point and variable names on your PAC. The included technical note explains the sample. 

SNAP PAC RESTful API to Access Database Example—This interactive Access database sample builds commands to read data from a SNAP PAC and store that data in an Access table. Be sure to see the included technical note.

How do the samples work?

The RESTful API is a way for software applications to securely access data in the PAC controller by making GET and POST requests. You can see the complete Opto 22 RESTful API on developer.opto22.com.

The samples use the API plus common features within Excel and Access to move data to and from the PAC. In both samples, you can use the files as is to move data. Or you can see and edit the code behind the sample to understand it more fully.