Here's how you build an Element
Relative Display in ProcessBook. Now, the first thing,
though, you're going to have to have some kind of a Structure
in AF. 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. I'm using
ProcessBook Version 3.2 here, 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. And, the 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, 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 --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, 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, 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 happen
to have selected through whatever search criteria
you prefer, either through here or through here.
So, I will choose the 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 -- or not the Tanks, but those Flow Meters.
I can just drill down straight to where I'm interested
in. , 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 and 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 a look at those, you'll see
each Flow Meter has a Process Value
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.
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 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 stand for
Element Relative. This is looking at Flow Rate. Now,
notice it didn't say Flow Rate in URL FM001.
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 seven days.
So, the big finish then is, as
I change context, we're going to change
what you're looking at. It's 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, or
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, 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 got 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. 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 --
wow, 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.
Now, we're 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.