I have a shared folder on my C drive
where all of my PI ProcessBook displays are kept.
These files end in PDI and have a red and
grey icon. And while I can keep coming back to this
folder every time I need to look at a different
display, this can be disorganized, require flipping through different
windows and memorizing file names. In fact
I was working on a display yesterday and I
can't quite remember what the file name was. But that's OK because I
can use PI ProcessBook to help jog my
memory.
Every time you open up PI ProcessBook
you are greeted by the homepage. The default
homepage is this PI ProcessBook and PI ProcessBook's
will have different tabs as well as a
hierarchy with links to other locations.
For instance if I click this run mode
and double click on paper machine, I'm brought to
this paper machine display. And
after inspecting the various symbols on it, I
can close it to return to my book. And then click on a
different display that I might be interested in. This is a
great way to organize your displays and other links. But it
has something to do with the display that I was looking for. So I'm going to
close it to find that display.
Now the first place I'll look is in my history
tab. So opening my bookmark organizer
I would see any bookmarks if I had any right here. But
I'm interested in the history
tab. Unfortunately the history tab will only
record places you've been to in the current PI ProcessBook
session. To look back earlier than that, we
can open up the address bar and see
more places that we've been through. So let's
guess that this is the display I was working with
yesterday. So no this isn't
quite it but I know it's linked to this
display through this boiler button.
This is the display I was looking for.
So I'm going to add it to my bookmarks
so that I don't lose track of it again.
So clicking on this star here,
we'll add it to the bookmark toolbar. Now every time
I go to a different display I can always
return to my boiler overview by using
the bookmark.
So let's go back to that area overview display.
And we can see that this is a
pretty useful display. It has a lot of
information dealing with critical process
data that has to do with my plant as well as links to
lots of the other places in my plant if I want to get a
better view. For example, here with my generator I can see the
nitty gritty details of my generator.
Because this is such a
great reference page, what I'm going to do is make this
my new homepage. I'll click this down
arrow and use current.
So now every time I open up PI ProcessBook
I'll immediately be met with my area graphic
overview where I can see my critical data
as well as link to anything I might want to see more information
of.
So this is an OK setup for
me. But now that I've gone through all of that, I want to setup a
system so that other users can find what they are looking for
too. And I'll accomplish this by creating a book file
for me as well as other plant operators to use.
So first I'll close everything I'm working on right
now. And make a file,
new, ProcessBook.piw file.
So let's call it
plant overview.
And I'll save this
in the location with all my other
displays.
And we'll call it plant overview.
So this is a display file like we
saw at the beginning of the video with a
binding. And eventually it'll have tabs
as well. So to start making entries we'll make a
new ProcessBook entry.
And the first one will be a text entry because we need
a title. So we'll call the first
title displays. And note that it's
on level one. That means that it's going to make a tab.
So we'll hit OK and we can see here
we've got a title with a
display tab. So let's start adding some
displays as entries.
File, new
entry and let's first add a new display. So I'm going to
call this first display
critical plant data.
And I'm going to make it level
2 so that it tucks underneath that's level 1.
So hitting OK
we can see that my critical plant
data display is now tucked underneath my display page.
We also opened up the display so
that we can start working on it right away. Now I'm not
going to build out this display right now but what I will do is
create a button to link back to my book file so that users
can simply click on it to return. So here in my
button I'll drag and
drop one. And I'll call
this return to book
where the action is where I want it to go.
So what I'll do is simply browse to that
location and here it is.
And we'll hit OK. So now
switching to run mode will open up my
display and then use my return to book
icon to return to my book file.
So that's how you create an embedded display.
But what about a display that you already have
and you just want to link to it? We'll make it a new
entry. And this time we'll
link to a display.
So here like the button we just made,
we'll put in the action of the location we want to go
to. So I'll add the Wintopia revenue
display and we'll call
it Windtopia Revenue.
And we'll keep it on
level 2 so it's underneath my display page.
So hitting OK, it opens up the Wintopia
display by default. And closing
it, we go back to our book file where we have our display
title and then the two links
underneath. Now I
know that some other plan operators refer to Excel files
and certain webpages quite often. So what I can do
for them is create a new tab with links on it to some of
those other useful places and files. So I'll
make a new entry
and this one will be another text
entry. And we'll call these
other links.
We are going to bump it up to level 1 so that it's on the same level as the
tabs and hit
OK. So the first thing you'll notice is that it took over my
Windtopia Revenue and my critical plant
data. So to see why that happened we can
switch to build mode and view the
outlined view.
So when we do that we see that my other links
entry was sandwiched between my
displays and my two links. So what we can
do is select the two
links and move them around with these arrow keys.
We can promote
them, demote them and move them up and down.
So let's move them up underneath
the display entry. So now they are tucked
underneath displays again. Since this is a pretty
good way to visualize our books, let's stay in this
when we make our two last links. So again
file, new and we'll make
an entry. And this time I'll make a link to
one of their Excel files they use pretty often. So I'll browse
to it
and I know it's up a level from my displays
folder. And I'll
filter by all files. And there is the plant
data source configuration file. So what I'll do is I'll
select it and then I'll label it
plant data source configuration.
So we'll hit OK.
And it automatically opens but
I'll just close it again. And here what I'll do
is I'll slide it down underneath
other links. So we'll down,
down, down, down, and then
I'll demote it to tuck it underneath.
There we go. And we'll make the
last link. And I'll make
another link and this time I'll link to the
OSIsoft tech
support website.
And I can just type in the URL.
And while you are typing
in the action field you can't hit OK. So what I'll do
is select the label again and
hit OK. And then the page will open
by default. So we can just close it. And now we can see
our two links tucked underneath displays and
our other links tucked underneath other links.
So viewing the book mode
again, here is our displays tab
with my two displays. And my other
links with my two useful other links.
So far in this video we learned how to
navigate ProcessBook displays using favorites, history and
buttons as well as
PI ProcessBook files. And as I've developed my PI ProcessBook
book file, I'll continue to add more embedded displays
and linking other important displays that I'll need easy access to.