Here's how you build an Element
Relative Display in ProcessBook. Now, the first thing
though, you're going to have to have is some kind of a structure
in AF. Now, it doesn't have to be as complex as
this one, and if you're not, you know, your PI
System Manager has access to building these structures in AF
or if you don't know how to this, you're going to have to go
out and take a look at some of our training materials on AF
to learn how to build this structure. We're not going to get into
that in this class. But, if you've got a structure,
and if that structure has Attributes that point
to, well, for example, that point to
things like these PI Tags. That's all you really
need. Something where you've got a structure
and that structure should have, like we see in this
set of Flow Meters, this one Element called Flow Meters.
Under that Flow Meters there are these
different Elements underneath that,
each one of which has an Attribute called
Flow Rate. Now, because that Attribute is shared among
these, these six here,
then we can make an Element Relative
Display. They're all going to be relative to
which of these Flow Meters you're currently looking at.
So if you've got an AF Structure, then go into PI
ProcessBook. You need ProcessBook using
ProcessBook Version 3.2 or later,
and let's just build a brand new Display. I'll just show you
we haven't pre-defined anything here, just brand new
Display. I did a pdi file. Now
first thing you need to do -- let me make this about the right size --
is you need to view the Option called
Element Relative Display. What
this does it brings up this Browser, and through this Browser
you can start, you know,
browsing through your AF Database.
By the way, one of the most common mistakes people make when
doing this exercise is they, well, they don't
do it in the right order. Actually, I guess we can argue about whether
it's the right order or not, but, if you were to bring this up,
this Element Relative Display, before
you have a pdi file, you'll notice this is grayed
out. I've actually seen tech support calls
saying hey, this is grayed out, I can't see, I can't
Browse my AF Database. Well,
maybe we could have made this a little bit more intuitive, but the,
the fact of the matter is, until you build
a Display, a pdi file, that will
be dimmed out. So, yeah, sorry if you've wasted
any time over that. So,
make sure you've got a brand new Display. Make sure you have chosen
Element Relative Display. That makes this
pane show up. And now you're
going to use that to browse through, or search
through, the Elements in AF. Now,
one of the things I can do without doing any browsing at all is
just Search. For example, if I know that I'm
interested in Tanks, I can just
type in Tanks, click on Search, and then find
Elements of Interest called Tanks. This shows me
all the Tanks. Let me get rid of these.
Let me show you another way to do -- I could have searched for the word
Flow, with an *.
This is going to find all those Elements --
there we go -- all those Flow Meters. That's actually what I'm interested
in for this exercise, yeah, that have that.
But, so that's one way we can do it. Let me
show you another way, and that is to use this
Tree Structure. Let me remove this. These are Elements
of Interest. In other words, these are the Elements that you're currently
going to be working with. So, you know,
don't think of this as being your -- this is not your Tree Structure.
Your Tree Structure's over here. This is where you can actually
go through the AF Database.
All this is is a, the elements that you
happened to have selected through whatever search criteria
you prefer, either through here or
through here. So I will choose this second method
again. This, -- I'll click on here and what I'm going to say
is let's just, well, let me
start by looking at -- let's say I'm in the Montreal
Division. So, within Montreal,
whoops, I'm only interested
in, I think I'm only going to be interested in the Tanks.
So, one of the things I can do -- not the tanks, but those
Flow Meters -- I can just drill down straight to where I'm
interested in -- yeah, Flow Meters. I'll just choose that
Parent, and then I can
leave, as long as this is clicked, Search Sub-elements. If I leave
the name blank this is simply going to go out all find all those
Flows. And, that's fine. That's what I'd like
in this case. So, by, by doing that, it
allowed me to find these individual Elements. Each Element
represents a, it,
a different Flow Meter,
and if we take a look at those Flows -- let me go back to
Montreal here -- if we take at look at those, yeah, you'll see
each Flow Meter has a ProcessValue
called Flow Rate. Now, this could also have
other things. It could have Installation Date, you know,
Part Number, Equipment Number.
What is the, you know, what orifice type?
Is it ceramic? Is it chrome?
You know, all these different things would be different Attributes, just like, for example,
within Tanks. These Tanks have a Diameter,
an Inside Temperature, a Level, etc., etc. We're just starting with
something very simple. It's a simple Flow Meter
Object that has a Flow Rate.
So, there's only really one thing that I could find here,
and that is going to be that Flow Rate.
Okay, we've done exactly about half of
what we need to do to do an Element Relative Display. Now that
we have something over here in Elements of Interest, now we're ready
to use the Element Relative
Search within these Dynamic
Objects. And I'll choose a Trend for my Dynamic Object,
although I could choose other things. I'll click on this.
Now I could choose a Bar Graph or a Value as well.
I'm going to go in and build this brand new. Instead
of doing a Tag Search, you'll see there's an Option
here called Element Relative. Element
Relative is going to be relative to whatever
Element is selected in Elements of Interest.
Boy, I should repeat that. That's very, very important.
And, it's not, it's not typically very
intuitive. I mean who would guess, who would guess that when
you click on a Value here,
and you click on Element Relative, then what you're
talking about is this right here. It's as obvious
as we could make it, but it's something that sometimes people miss.
So let me state that again. When I build this Trend,
and I choose Element Relative, we're talking
about relative to whatever your currently
selected Element of Interest is. I'll choose Element
Relative. As you can see, it found what I
was currently look at, looking at, and it found exactly
one thing that it could trend, that Flow Rate.
So I'll choose that. Whoops. I'll move this down --
that looks good --
and there's my result. E stands
for Element Relative. This is looking at Flow Rate.
Now notice, it didn't say Flow Rate in URL
FM-001. Okay. That's because
we're not capturing that context. The context
is being supplied by what you select over here.
So, let me just switch this to 7
Days. So, the big finish then, is
as I change context, we're going to change
what you're looking at, 'cause now, you see the
context is being passed and each one of these
Flow Meters has a different
end-resulting PI Tag.
Okay. Let me demonstrate what is
probably the single most-confusing Element, err,
thing about this whole Element Relative Display.
I, I kind of cheated here 'cause
I went out and did a Search for Elements of Interest that
will not fail. There's absolutely no way
that one of these Elements does not contain
the Attribute I'm interested in. That's kind of a
set-up, because what could easily happen is for you to
find things on here that do not have that Attribute.
So, for example, let me remove this Element of Interest.
You'll notice, of course, the Data goes away now.
Let me go out and Search for everything that has the
word Flow.
There we go. We see Flow Meters,
and, yeah, these are the ones we were just
looking at, right? But, what about
when you click on, for example,
well, just the first one. You click on the
first one. That Flow Meter is an Element that does not contain
an Attribute called Flow Rate.
It's at the top of that hierarchy. So,
you know, although when I click on these that's fine, but when I click the top
of the hierarchy, there is no Element there.
And, and, the same for this. Now, interestingly enough, this
is a, these are San Leandro Meters, these all have
a Flow Rate and so do the Houston
Flow Meters. They all have a Flow Rate. But, if you click at
the top of the hierarchy, you will not see
any Data. Give you another
example. Let me go ahead and remove everything from
here. Let's say you just want to
start at that Level that we call Geography.
If I choose Geography, that's going to find,
it finds a single Element, but that
Element has a huge number of things organized underneath of it.
Now, when you drill down through this, when you do
get to a,
some Element that contains a Flow Meter,
then you will, in fact, see Data, but as
you traverse this you will not see anything until you get
to an Element that contains that. And, again, so if
I go back -- let's go into, instead of Houston, let's go to
San Leandro here.
We'll go to Chemicals, Equipment,
Flow Meters. When I find
those Flow Meters, we're in good shape.
But that can be confusing. Up until when you find those
you will not see any Data on here
when you choose an Object that does not itself
contain the Attribute called Flow Rate.
One last thing I'd like to add is to just demonstrate how
easy it is to modify this Display to show other
things. So, right now, we're just looking at,
as we said, we're looking at this Flow Rate. But, I know
for a fact there's a lot of interesting things I may want to look at at these
Tanks. Now, remember, the Tanks don't contain a Flow Rate.
It contains other things. So, now that that
Tank has been selected, that's my
Element of Interest. I can go in and modify this to look
at anything in that Tank. So, I'm in Build Mode.
I'll double-click on this. Let me get rid of that. I don't
need the Flow Rate anymore. But now, when I choose Element
Relative, it's going to be relative to this Tank.
If I choose that, look at all the things available.to me. I can see
what the Concentration is, the Inside Temperature.
I can select these items and then move them.
I'll hold down Control and select them one at a time.
I can move them down, and then these are the things we can
be looking at. This is actually a Calculation.
I'll select that. Move that down.
Change that to Multiple Scales so we can see --
well, that's pretty ugly, but it's just showing us that the
Data's there, and, as you can see, as I switch
from one Tank to the next it was that easy to switch
this over. Now I've got a nice little engine for looking at all my
Tanks. I'm currently looking at San Leandro Tanks,
but I also have Tanks in other cities, so I can
go out here - Chemicals, Equipment.
Let's look at the Tanks. I got two Tanks in
Houston, and here's how I can look at those Houston Tanks.