Operator Diary — Screenshot Audit Trail

Capture, Annotate, Archive — In One Click

The Operator Diary is a built-in documentation system we designed for operators to capture, annotate, and archive screenshots of the live application with contextual notes — creating a persistent, searchable visual timeline of system operations.

In standard WinCC OA, operators rely on external tools (email, paper logs, shared drives) to document system states. InteriaLib embeds this capability directly inside the application.

How It Works

1. Capture & Annotate

The operator clicks the screenshot button. A modal opens with a live capture of the current panel and the ScreenshotEditor EWO — the same 9-tool annotation toolkit we built as a standalone widget:

An operator documenting an anomaly: they've captured the Water Compliance dashboard and drawn red circles around suspicious values, added arrows pointing to specific cells, and written notes. The toolbar offers pen, line, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, text, highlight, and eraser tools. The note field reads "Look this notes!" Metadata shows: user, timestamp (2026.02.24 14:35:39), zoom level (27%), image size (3594×1998), and 15 annotations.

2. Automatic Metadata

When the operator clicks Confirm:

• The annotated screenshot is saved as PNG
• User identity captured automatically from WinCC OA session
• ISO 8601 timestamp recorded
• Unique ID generated (YYYYMMDDHHmmss format)
• Entry prepended to the diary (newest first)
• Modal closes — operator returns to work in seconds

3. Browse the Timeline

The diary entries are displayed in an interactive timeline viewer integrated directly into the SCADA application:

The Operator Diary running inside the live WinCC OA application: the left sidebar shows the "INTERIAL" menu with alarm badges active, the center shows the alarm/event table, and the right panel displays the "Diario Operatore" timeline. Entries are grouped by day ("Lunedì 23 Febbraio 2026 · 6 screenshots") with timestamps, user names ("Sconosciuto"), and annotated screenshots visible inline. Two diary entries show plant dashboards with IoField widgets, annotated with drawings and notes. The timeline sidebar on the left allows quick date navigation.

The timeline viewer features:

• Day grouping — entries organized by date with sticky headers
• Sidebar timeline — clickable day list with bidirectional scroll sync
• User filtering — dropdown populated from all operators who have entries
• Note search — case-insensitive full-text search across all notes
• Lightbox — click any screenshot for full-screen viewing
• Auto-refresh — silent 30-second polling keeps the diary current
• Responsive — works on desktop, tablet, and mobile

Why It Matters

Scenario	Traditional	With InteriaLib Diary
Incident	Operator takes a phone photo, emails it later	One click → annotated screenshot, permanently archived
Shift handover	Paper logbook or verbal	Visual timeline with searchable notes
Root cause analysis	"What did the screen look like?" — nobody knows	Timestamped visual evidence with annotations
Compliance audit	Reconstruct events from scattered logs	Chronological visual audit trail
Training	"Let me explain what this alarm looks like"	Browse real examples with annotations