# Does Tag History have to be on for making a report?

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/does-tag-history-have-to-be-on-for-making-a-report/16242>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** ignition78, ignition79, database\
**Created:** [December 7, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/does-tag-history-have-to-be-on-for-making-a-report/16242 "2017-12-07T01:39:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![danewilbanks1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@danewilbanks1](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/danewilbanks1)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/does-tag-history-have-to-be-on-for-making-a-report/16242/1 "2017-12-07T01:39:16Z")

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I’ve set some tags into a timeseries chart and it comes up empty on the preview.

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**Author:** ![Matrix\_Engineering](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/matrix_engineering/32/19781_2.png) [@Matrix\_Engineering](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Matrix_Engineering)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/does-tag-history-have-to-be-on-for-making-a-report/16242/2 "2017-12-07T02:18:45Z")

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1. Create a report
2. Add a new source - tag historian query  
2a - expand the available historical tags and choose the one you want
3. go to design and add a timeseries
4. click on the timeseries, then expand data sources in the key browser
5. drag tag history to data key
6. expand tag history and drag fields to pen 1, pen 2, etc
7. preview

Did you do this?

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**Author:** ![Paul.Scott](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul.scott/32/4578_2.png) [@Paul.Scott](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Paul.Scott)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 4:26pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/does-tag-history-have-to-be-on-for-making-a-report/16242/3 "2017-12-07T16:26:30Z")

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To answer the question in the title, no Tag History doesn’t have to be “on” to make a report, but if you’re trying to use a Tag Historian Query Data Source and you are not recording Tag History to the Database, then that could be why the chart is empty in preview: the Data Source couldn’t retrieve any data.

You don’t necessarily need Tag History, but the Timeseries Chart does need a Data Source assigned to it: a SQL Query or Scripting Data Source could also do the trick.

That being said, the Tag Historian Query is the easiest Data Source to work with.