Connect FactoryTalk Historian to Copilot
You're building a Copilot agent that should be able to answer questions about production operations — and the process data lives in Rockwell's FactoryTalk Historian. FactoryTalk Historian runs on the same PI engine as AVEVA PI, which means all the barriers that make PI hard to connect to cloud AI apply here too — proprietary data model, on-premise OT network, SDK dependencies, and no native path for Microsoft's cloud to reach historian data.
The barriers below are where most teams stall when trying to connect Copilot Studio to FactoryTalk Historian.
Why it's hard
Seven reasons connecting a Copilot agent to FactoryTalk Historian is harder than it looks.
Copilot agents call HTTP — FactoryTalk Historian speaks the PI protocol
Copilot Studio agents retrieve data through Custom Connectors that make outbound HTTP calls. FactoryTalk Historian's native interfaces are the PI Server communication protocol, PI AF SDK, and optionally PI Web API — none of which Copilot Studio can call directly. PI Web API is the only REST-like option, but it's a separate component that must be explicitly deployed and configured.
PI Web API is on the OT network — Copilot Studio calls from Microsoft's cloud
When a Copilot agent invokes an action, the HTTP call originates from Microsoft's Power Platform infrastructure — not your plant network. FactoryTalk Historian and any PI Web API instance sit behind a private OT VLAN. Microsoft's cloud has no path to them without deliberate network engineering that most OT security policies won't permit.
PI AF SDK required for asset context — but it can't run in Microsoft's cloud
FactoryTalk Historian uses PI Asset Framework (AF) to give raw tag data its business meaning — descriptive names, engineering units, asset hierarchy, and normal operating ranges. Surfacing AF context alongside tag values requires the PI AF SDK. That SDK is an on-premise Windows component with a Rockwell license — it cannot be installed in Microsoft's cloud infrastructure or in any Power Platform component.
FactoryTalk tag names are cryptic without AF context
PI tag names in FactoryTalk deployments encode control system conventions — strings like "PMP_201.Speed.PV" or "R01.FIC102.Out" that are meaningful only to the control engineers who configured them. A Copilot agent returning raw tag names with numeric values gives operators nothing useful. Without AF-resolved names and units, the agent can't explain what a value means in operational language.
High-resolution historian data fills action response limits
FactoryTalk Historian can record at sub-second intervals across hundreds of tags. A time-range query without aggregation returns thousands of data points. Copilot Studio action responses have payload size constraints — raw compressed PI data will exceed them. The endpoint serving the agent must aggregate before responding, which requires logic that doesn't exist in PI Web API by default.
Power Platform Custom Connectors require admin approval
Any Copilot Studio agent that calls external data requires a Custom Connector with an approved OpenAPI spec. In enterprise Microsoft 365 tenants, the approval process for connectors that touch OT-adjacent endpoints involves Power Platform admins, security review, and often change management. The timeline frequently runs to weeks before a connector reaches production.
Multi-site deployments have no unified historian namespace
Larger Rockwell deployments run separate FactoryTalk Historian servers per site or per production line — each with its own tag namespace, its own PI server, and potentially its own version. An agent that needs to answer questions across multiple sites has no single endpoint to call and no unified tag namespace to query without additional aggregation infrastructure.
What teams usually try
Deploy PI Web API and point the Custom Connector at it
Deploy PI Web API on the historian server, expose it through a DMZ or reverse proxy, and define a Custom Connector against its OpenAPI spec.
The catch: Exposing PI Web API externally requires OT security approval. The PI Web API schema is complex and not designed for LLM action responses. Raw compressed PI data overflows action payload limits. Rockwell Automation upgrades can change the PI Web API schema.
Custom middleware API with PI AF SDK on-premise
Build a REST service that uses PI AF SDK to query FactoryTalk Historian and resolve AF context, then expose it to the cloud for the Custom Connector to call.
The catch: Custom middleware running on OT-side infrastructure must be built, hosted, and maintained. It requires a Rockwell PI license, PI AF SDK, and a network path to the cloud. Every Rockwell upgrade that changes PI SDK behaviour is a potential breakage.
Periodic export to SharePoint, agent reads files
Export FactoryTalk Historian data on a schedule, upload CSV or Excel files to SharePoint, and configure the Copilot agent to use those files as its knowledge source.
The catch: The agent answers questions about stale snapshots. For high-frequency historian data, the export files are too large for SharePoint-based agent search to handle effectively. Real-time operational questions can't be answered accurately.
How TrendOps solves it
TrendOps Edge connects to FactoryTalk Historian on the OT network — using PI AF SDK to resolve asset context on-premise — and forwards normalised, context-rich data to TrendOps Platform in the cloud. Your Copilot Studio agent calls TrendOps Web API through a single Custom Connector. No PI SDK on the cloud side, no OT network path from Microsoft's infrastructure, no AF context to puzzle out in the agent layer.
The agent calls TrendOps Web API — a cloud-accessible HTTPS endpoint. No PI AF SDK or PI client software on any cloud component. No firewall exception into the OT network.
TrendOps Edge resolves PI AF context before data leaves the plant. The agent receives descriptive tag names, engineering units, and asset hierarchy — not raw PI tag strings it can't interpret.
TrendOps handles aggregation server-side. The agent receives compact, interval-based summaries — not thousands of raw PI compressed values that overflow action response limits.
TrendOps normalises data from all connected FactoryTalk Historian instances into a single platform. The agent queries across sites through one endpoint without needing to know which server holds which tags.
TrendOps Edge polls FactoryTalk Historian continuously. The agent gets current process values — not a snapshot from a scheduled export that ran last night.
TrendOps Edge pushes data out over a single outbound MQTT connection. No inbound path into the OT network. The Copilot agent's calls never touch the plant network.
What you end up with
No PI client software on any cloud component — the agent calls a standard REST API.
Current production values — the agent knows what's happening right now.
Copilot calls TrendOps cloud API — the OT network is never in the call path.
One connector, every OT historian — not limited to FactoryTalk.
Don't want to build your own AI agent integration?
TrendGuru — TrendOps's built-in AI agent — already has access to your plant data. Ask questions about your FactoryTalk Historian in plain language and get answers instantly, deployed directly in Microsoft Teams. No Custom Connector to configure, no OpenAPI spec to write, no Power Platform admin approval to wait for.
Learn about TrendGuru →Your Copilot agent shouldn't need a PI developer and an OT network exception to answer a question about production data
TrendOps gives your Copilot agent a clean, cloud-accessible API for FactoryTalk Historian data — with AF context, aggregated history, and no PI SDK in the cloud.
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