All right we're going to talk about PI Manual Logger
Scheduling. Scheduling is a feature of tours
that dictates when tour runs should be taken.
Let's look at a tour definition.
I'm going to go to an existing tour
reactor. It's been previously configured, it has all of the
tags that need to be there, it has groups and of course
I've set the order in which I want to take the readings on the
tags and the security has been set. But the tour
was not set up with scheduling originally; see this is
blank. Another note on
scheduling; we note here it's available for the tour on
that global basis but even on an individual tag I can
set scheduling. The same is true for a
group. There is a priority or
precedence of these. So if I'm looking at tag
configuration it's going to supercede all other
types of scheduling. So if I choose one of my tags
here and I set scheduling for it, it
will override the group scheduling and the tour
scheduling. The same is for group; I'm
moving up the chain, if there is group scheduling it will override the tour
scheduling. Okay let's first start with the tour
scheduling. Tour scheduling hasn't been configured so I'll do that
now. I'll click on the "set" button
and I see I have a simple on-off for clock
scheduling. I'm going to turn that on. Next I
have an additional set button. This brings up a
dialog that lets me configure the times involved.
First we'll focus on recurrence pattern.
This is how often the data is collected.
If I choose "hourly" it defaults to every one
hour. I see I have a "spinner" button that lets me
increase this to anytime I'd like that's a whole number
factor of hours. The same is true for
the other recurrence patterns--daily,
I choose this and it defaults to one day but I can
bump this. The one recurrence
pattern that's a little unique is "weekly".
Here I still have the factor of
how many or how often the data should be collected. So in this case I'm saying ]
every four weeks but I can also choose
weekdays that the data should be collected. So in this case
it's Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays
every four weeks. For now let's start with
a simple pattern of every four hours.
Looking at the scheduled time at the
top I have a date--a start date.
Generally I'd leave this at the current date but I'm going to backdate
this. I'm doing this just because it's going to help me
illustrate more clearly the scheduling. We'll see this
when I actually do tour runs.
Below we see we have a start time and end
time. With these clock times I'm accomplishing
two things; one, I'm setting a
window during which the data should be
collected. If you'll notice in this case I'm just setting the window very
small--one second--so I'm saying I want the data at the
three o'clock time. The second thing I'm doing is
setting the time on the clock when I want the data to be collected.
So what this means is--with this combination here--
is with three pm I want the data to be
collected starting at three pm and then every four hours afterwards. So
three pm, seven pm, eleven pm, etc.
If I had set this to some odd
time--say three thirty-seven pm--then my
data would be due at three thirty-seven pm and then
seven thirty-seven pm etc.
For now let's keep this straightforward configuration.
Three pm, every four hours and
say "okay" and "okay" here as well. Now I
see that I have tour scheduling.
As you might recall I said that we can do scheduling
actually on a group here or a
tag also. I'm going to choose a
tag and go and add scheduling here.
The scheduling dialogs and choices are exactly the ]
same for tours, groups and
tags. So I'm going to turn on clock
scheduling, I'll do my set, my
recurrence...I'm going to choose hourly.
I'm going to bump this to eight hours because in my
example here this particular tag I'm working with is only
due every eight hours as opposed to the four hour scheduling
that I have set for the tour. Again I'm going to
set my times here.
And now I'm done.
So now what I have as far as my configuration is a tour
that is due every four hours and one of the tags within the
tour is only due every eight hours.
So I'll do a save at this
point.
One thing to note before I leave the configuration
area; down here there is an icon with a drop-down and
one of the menu options is "schedule overview". If I bring this
up and expand this a
little I can see all of the scheduling for my
tour. So I have some tour scheduling and I
scheduling on an individual tag. If I had many
schedules distributed through here with groups and
tags I may want to look at this overview because it gives me a really good look without
having to navigate through each of these entities.
Okay I'm going to leave tour
definition now.
I now will create a new tour run based on my updated tour
definition. So I'll choose "manual data
entry", my tour
reactor and then double clicking begins a new
tour run. The first thing to note is
the seven pm start time. My current
clock time is four o' four pm.
If you recall the tour scheduling configuration
had the start time at three pm to
recur every four hours. Since it's past three
pm the next due tour time is seven
pm. If I use the drop-down I'll see
past due times. We see that this is every four
hours just as my recurrence pattern is set. This is
why I backdated the original start time so that we could see
these. There are
options to override this time.
The "plus" and "minus" buttons allow me to subtract or
add an hour, the "now" button I can
use the current time, "calendar" button
set the date or I can manually type over the
time. In almost all cases I would just
take the time that came from the scheduling.
So I'm satisfied with this time, I say
"okay" and now I'm here
with standard Manual Logger data entry.
Again my tour timestamp can be overwritten with this
button using current time. The tour timestamp is
inherited by all of the tags on the tour.
They also have the ability to be
set individually--current_timestamp
overwritten as I go through each tag.
If I look at my Tree view
I have some icons next to the tags listed here.
The question mark indicates that no value has been entered for this
tag on this tour run.
The X mark indicates that
no value is due. If you recall this is the
tag that we set up the eight hour frequency for.
So with his eight hour frequency and a
begin time of three pm he is not due until eleven pm.
So with this seven pm tour he is not
needed to be entered. I begin my data entry
just as I normally would.
I'll enter a value, hit return,
enter my next
value, hit return...
Now let's see what happened. I just entered reactor
temperature and then it navigated to
reactor valve out two. It skipped the reactor capacity
because it knows that it was not a due tag.
So I can complete my
tour...
And now
I'm done. I have all the data values that
were required along with this
data is not required. I'm going to do a save
now--I'll say
"save". Now I'll exit my tour. So
now I've successfully used a tour run that had
scheduling. I had both tour scheduling and tag
scheduling.