Methods and apparatus for configuring remote access of process control data

A method of providing process data from a process control system of a process plant to a remote computing device, comprising:

• receiving, at a computing device from one or more components within the process control system via a first network, configuration data describing a configuration of at least part of the process control system, wherein the configuration data includes information associated with a plurality of entities within the process control system, and wherein the information regarding each entity includes at least one entity tag associated with a level in a hierarchy of the process control system;
• identifying, by one or more processors of the computing device, a plurality of levels within the process control system based upon the entity tags, including at least a first-level identifier and a plurality of second-level identifiers associated with the first-level identifier;
• identifying, by the one or more processors of the computing device, a plurality of control modules associated with the entities based upon the configuration data, wherein each control module is further associated with a second-level identifier;
• generating, by the one or more processors of the computing device, a hierarchical list of available process data, having a plurality of entries including at least the following entries:
• first-level entries including the first level identifier, second-level entries including the second-level identifiers, and control module entries including the identified control modules;
• communicating, from the computing device to the remote computing device via a second network, a plurality of entries from the hierarchical list;
• receiving, at the computing device from the remote computing device via the second network, a selection of a set of entries from the hierarchical list;
• receiving, at the computing device from a data server via the first network, a set of data values including data values associated with the set of entries;
• and
• communicating, from the computing device to the remote computing device via the second network, the data values associated with the set of entries.