# Purpose/Function of Reference Tags **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition Early Access\ **Created:** [March 1, 2019, 10:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/purpose-function-of-reference-tags/23008 "2019-03-01T22:20:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 9
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Calderon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@Daniel\_Calderon](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Daniel_Calderon)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/purpose-function-of-reference-tags/23008/9 "2022-01-11T15:18:55Z")
As I was about to create a new topic, I ran into this thread and Justin’s specific question. For my application, I have a centralized group of OPC tags for which I enabled history and alarms. Then I was hoping that I could create multiple structures of reference tags pointing at them that would allow me to alias back to the “central tags” from diffferent “angles”. For instance, I want to group tags by machine section but also want to group them by variable type (temp, pressure…) . I could just have two folders with different ref tags organized for different functions (two or more ref tags pointing to same source tag). However, I realized that once I create the ref tag, it does not pull history or alarm config from source tags. So If I only needed to alias ONCE, then I would just disable history on source tag and enable in ref tag, but then how would I use the other structure without having multiple tags instances storing history from exact same source? I assume there is a recommended way for what I am trying to achieve? Is there maybe another way of adding meta data to tags so I can group them symbollycaly for my views/components? What is the recommended practice for having history/alarms? source tag or ref tag? Thanks a lot. Daniel. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/purpose-function-of-reference-tags/23008)._