System values

Some things about a controller are always true of every controller — which program is selected, whether the robot is running, the speed override. These are available as system values, and they need no tag. Use one by name in any expression or label: {active_program}, {robot_running}.

Bind a control to one the same way: they appear in every tag picker under System values, separate from the tags you defined. Read-only ones are offered only where reading makes sense — a slider is offered override and not robot_running.

The Tags panel lists the ones a document uses, under System values in use.

The names are reserved: a tag cannot be called override or active_program. A document made with an older version may have a tag of kind SYS for one of these. It still works, and Validate flags it for deleting — the name reads the same value without it.

Available values

Value	What it holds	Writable
active_program	The program the controller currently has selected.	yes
override	Speed override, as a percentage.	yes
program_state	What the selected program is doing.	no
robot_running	Whether a program is executing.	no
tp_enabled	Whether the teach pendant is enabled.	no
estop_op	Operator panel emergency stop.	no
estop_tp	Teach pendant emergency stop.	no
faulted	Whether the controller has an active fault.	no
step_mode	Whether single-step mode is on.	no
error_code	The current alarm as a number; 0 after a reset.	no
alarm_message	The current alarm’s text, as the pendant shows it. Empty after a reset.	no
uframe_num	The user frame the robot is in; 0 is WORLD.	no
utool_num	The tool frame the robot is in.	no
current_routine	The program the robot is executing right now, a called subprogram included. Empty when nothing is running.	no
current_line	The line the robot is on, counted within current_routine; 0 when nothing is running.	no
date	Today’s date from the controller clock, as 2026-09-15.	no
time	The time of day from the controller clock, as 14:05:30.	no
clock	The controller clock as one packed number. Use date and time instead.	no

Writing active_program changes the controller’s selection, and writing override changes the speed. The rest are read-only.

uframe_num and utool_num are read-only on purpose. Both are selections a TP program or the operator makes, and writing one from a screen changes the frame the robot actually moves in — a decision worth making deliberately rather than as a side effect of a slider someone dragged.

Date and time

{date} and {time} in a label show the controller’s clock:

{date} {time}

To show them another way, add a format in double quotes after a |:

{date | "MM/dd/yyyy"}
{time | "h:mm a"}
{date | "MMM d, yyyy HH:mm"}

Both names read the same clock, so a format on date can include the time and one on time can include the date.

The format is made of these, for 2:05:30 PM on September 5, 2026:

Part	Tokens
Year	yyyy 2026, yy 26
Month	MM 09, M 9, MMM Sep
Day	dd 05, d 5
Hour	HH 14, H 14 in 24-hour time; hh 02, h 2 in 12-hour time
Minute	mm 05, m 5
Second	ss 30, s 30
AM/PM	a PM

Any other character is shown as typed. Keep words outside the braces, since a letter from the table inside the format is a token: Updated {time | "HH:mm"} rather than {time | "Updated HH:mm"}. Month names and AM/PM come from the document’s language.

The clock is the controller’s, set on the pendant under System > Clock. It updates every few seconds on the screen, and the seconds are even: the controller stores time in two-second steps.

Common uses

Gate a Start button on the cell being safe and a program being selected:

{active_program} != "" && !{estop_op}

Show a warning banner while the pendant is enabled, since the robot will not run in automatic while it is:

{tp_enabled}

Put the selected program in a label so an operator can see what is about to run:

Ready to run {active_program}

Caution

estop_op and estop_tp report the state of an emergency stop. They do not implement one.

Show a recovery button only while there is something to recover from. Give a button a Run program action naming the recovery program, and set its Visible when to:

{faulted} || {program_state} == "ABORTED"

faulted is the controller’s FAULT lamp: on while any fault is active, off once it is reset. It is the same check a Run program action makes before starting, so a button hidden by {faulted} never shows while a run would be refused for that reason.

Warn that a Start will run one line at a time, so an operator does not read a stopped robot as a fault:

{step_mode}

Show a control only for one alarm. The code is the facility number times 1000 plus the alarm number, so SRVO-001 is 11001 and SYST-045 is 24045. It is set for alarms that do not light the FAULT lamp too, and goes back to 0 on reset:

{error_code} == 11001

Put the alarm’s text in a label. It is the same line the pendant shows, SRVO-001 Operator panel E-stop, and it covers controller alarms only: an alarm defined in the Alarms panel shows in the banner, not here:

{alarm_message}

Show where a program is, the way the pendant’s status line does. While MAIN is inside a call to PICK_PART, active_program stays MAIN, current_routine is PICK_PART, and current_line is the line within PICK_PART, not the line of the call in MAIN:

{current_routine} line {current_line}

Show which frame a job is set up for, so an operator can see at a glance that the wrong one is active:

UFRAME[{uframe_num}] / UTOOL[{utool_num}]

Related

• Expressions — the syntax these are used in.
• Program control — reads active_program without you naming it.
• Dropdown — bind one to active_program to change the selected program.