As a PI System Admin, I would like to reference an attribute value as part of my attribute data references for a String Builder data reference. For example, suppose I have a parent asset 'Parent' with an attribute of 'XD5' and a child element 'Child' with an attribute 'ID' with a value of '5'. It is currently not possible to build an attribute with a String Builder data reference at the 'Child' level that both:
1. Builds an attribute reference string by referencing the value of an attribute at the current asset level (e.g. 'ID')
Then retrieves the value of a parent attribute (e.g. 'XD5') using the string built in Step 1.

Allowing nested attribute references for String Builder Data References. would enable this functionality.

Some metadata can be used in Analyses, which is helpful, but means constantly running an analysis on static data in order to use it at all in AF, which is inefficient, and we have been told to pull in data as a linked table into AF, which seems unnecessary as the data already exists in the PI environment.

Please allow us to pull in metadata as Attributes in AF, which then makes things much easier to view, check for accuracy, and update, using all of the extra capabilities of AF which are much more robust and easier to use than using Datalink or Builder.

Any attribute can already be used in analysis, so checking for things like missing Engineering Units (even though it is text,) or bad Compression/Exception settings, or anything else could be templatized and automated across the entire system, but not needed just to pull the data in every time there is a change.

It would be nice if these could be made as easy choices as child attributes for any PI Tag attribute. Having them in AF makes it much easier to search and grab all of them for any sort of structure that has been designed in AF at one time, whether it is by equipment type, location, etc.

I have a template Vessel Mobile and also Templates Vessel Processvalues and Vessel Setpoins. I already created Refrence Typse, so a Template Vessel Processvalues is a child of a Vessel Mobile.

But when i add a Element based on my Template Vessel Mobile, only the Element Vessel mobile is created - i miss the child templates "vessel Processvalues" and Vessel Setpoints":

Of course i can add these Elements manually

but i search for an automatic way. So i only include my Element based on vessel mobile and the child templates for process values and setpoints are added without doing it manually.

As a customer who is moving their PI Data Archive historic data to a Centralized IT Facility, hosting another PI Data Archive, and that would like to import tags and historic data from another PI Data Archive, it would be great to have a functionality on PI Archive Subsystem and PI System Management Tools that allow to import PI Points and their historic data to the centralized PI Data Archive without having to perform all the steps for the Merge procedure.

Another option would be to have an improved PI Base, Snapshot and Archive Subsystem services, that allow to have more than 1 set of historic data files and PI Points, organized in a hierarchical way, so it is easy to import data coming from another PI Data Archive.

We are creating hundreds of different attributes in AF, mostly based on templates and using these in PIVision.

One thing that is annoying is when you make the PIVision image you have to manually change the colour of the symbol you use/trend you created etc to reflect the medium of the attribute that is used. Sometimes you even have to change the HEX colour code since it does not match the standard colour palette.

What I am suggesting is to have a Colour Datafield in System Explorer for attributes.

Here we can define the colour (via HEX code or another way), so when this attribute is used in PIVision, the colour is automatically selected.

No Colour Set = Manual/Default PIVision Colour.
Colour Set = Colour chosen by default in PIVision.

Should be overridable in PIVision if people wish etc.

In PI System Explorer, when using the Preview Results function for analyses, I want the dialog to indicate which of the input attributes the current timestamp originates from.

Example: Two inputs with update frequency 1 min, Input1 without offset and Input2 with offset 00:00:30. In my Preview Results dialog I will see timestamps 12:00:00, 12:00:30, 12:01:00, 12:01:30, etc. for an analysis triggering from these two inputs. When hovering the generated timestamp I want to see if this originates from Input1 or Input2 (or both).

This is, of course, a simplified example, but in the real world I would typically have 10 or 20 inputs, which makes it more difficult to debug.