Is it possible to read a csv file into the VTScada historian? If I had a csv file on a computer that was constantly updating, could this csv file be read by the historian and stored?

If you have excel, then you can use Excel to read from the CSV and then use the DDE driver, in VTScada, to read from the excel file. This is probably the simplest but least elegant solution. Something more elegant might be to use a ODBC, XML, or JSON to pass the info from the CSV to excel using a local server. This adds an additional component but makes for a more flexible solution which does not rely on DDE, or excel.

More info on DDE and Excel: https://www.trihedral.com/help/Content/D_DataSharing/D_LocalDDEClient.htm
In excel you can use Data -> From Text/CSV to pull the data into your excel sheet. Note that the excel sheet will need to be configured R1C1 for cell addressing instead of the default A1 addressing.

Success, the DDE driver worked out. For the application I'm using, this may work out fine. Out of curiosity though, how would I be able to use ODBC, XML, or JSON to achieve the same result?

Using XML or JSON would take a bit of effort on your part to setup a server to grab the CSV file info and save it as a JavaScript object for JSON or in an XML file. I’ve used the JSON/XML Driver to pass weather information to VTScada via XML using an Environment Canada server.

Not a ton of system are taking advantage of this but it’s a pretty cool tool. You can do things like create a notification (alarm) or even change a setpoint if there is, for example, more than 40 mm or rain or perhaps a chance of lightning forecast.