We had a few issues with key-users creating inefficient AF Analysis and starting a backfill over a longer time period.
This resulted in a CPU load of 100% (caused by the PIRecalculationprocessor).
The whole PI System got not responsive incl. PI System Explorer so unable to see anything.
Killing the PIRecalculationprocessor.exe process didn't work because a new process (with new PID) was running in a split second. Also setting process priority to Low didn’t make any difference.

Need a way to limit the time period user can use to start backfill and / or limit the load of the PIRecalculationprocessor during backfilling

While creating and/or debugging analyses in PI System Explorer, I would like to have available an instant evaluation dialog.

This would be something I can bring up empty, and start typing (if in template, use the context of the currently selected Example Element) to evaluate a formula.

If I right click a formula or expression already placed in a variable I would like to see "Evaluate in Instant Window" or "Evaluate instantly", where the dialog is brought up with that text pre-defined. If the expression you right clicked contains time expressions (such as start time, end time) I would like to see these pre-evaluated, if they refer to other expressions or are set with PI Time expressions. One if the things I spend most time doing while debugging is changing "T+6h" and "Y+6h" to their full "18-Feb-2019 06:00" equivalents.

Another thing I spend a lot of time doing is going between the Element -> Analyses tab to the Element Template -> Analysis Template counterpart, to change things. If I was able to debug things for a template-bound analysis using an instant window it would save time.

It would be nice to have the option to select either starttime or endtime of the eventframe as the timestamp for the value that will be written a PI tag using the Outputs at close feature in Event Frames. Currently, it will only write the value with a timestamp of the endtime of the event frame.

Use case:

I have an event frame and I would like to see the average of an attribute value for that duration of that time frame on PI Vision. The expectation is to see a horizontal line indicating the average value throughout the duration of the event frame.

As of now, the average value is written to the underlying PI Point with the timestamp at the end time of the event frame using the Outputs at close feature in Event Frames.
This leads to a sloping trend when you try to visualize the resultant average values. i.e. the trend links the previous average value (calculated from the end of the previous event frame) to the latest event frame output average value.

With the requested option available and combined with the step parameter in the PI tag, we will be able to visualize a straight horizontal line for the average value of the tag for the duration of the event frame for that particular duration.

This is a followup to discussions with Roger Palmen and Rick Davin about their excellent writeups on the topic of EF Duration attributes; seeEvent Frame duration - easy way in AF2.6 or higher & Duration attribute on an Event Frame - Part 1 , respectively.
With the addition of the %Duration% substitution parameter and it's support in the Formula Data Reference, the following is suggested as a standard way to add a Duration attribute with values in a Time class UOM for newer versions of AF.
Create an EF attribute template with the following configuration:

Note 1: no parameters need to be defined; the substitution parameter is put directly into the Equation and can even be retrieved from the "helper" menus (red box and arrows).
Note 2: As mentioned in Rick's blog, the Formula DR supports unit conversions so we can change the result in seconds produced by %Duration% to any other time class UOM (from seconds to hours in the example above; blue boxes).
Note 3: A third method not shown here or the referenced articles, is use of EF Generation analysis outputs to add duration (see here). Pro: this is a nice, all-in-one method if you also want to output the duration to a PI Pt attribute on the reference element. Cons: Because the output expressions are not evaluated until the EF closes, there are no intermediate Duration attribute values available for open EFs. This method seems more complex to configure.
For further details/discussion, please see the comments under Rick's blog.
Please vote/comment here to let everyone know what you think of this as a standard way to get EF duration into an EF attribute.
Thanks for your time!

Please add a column in the SMT Point Builder list to show the current value.
 
I would love to see that ability to have a column that showed the current value fo the tag in the Points\Point Builder list similar to Data\Current Values.
As a second feature it would be great to have the ability to export the point builder list to a CSV file.
 
With these two feature I would never need to switch between point builder and current values again.
 
You can leave current values as it is for those people that it is useful for.
For my workflow I find it is an extra couple of steps for me to maintain two identical lists (one in point builder and one in current values).  Or I need to constantly click on each value in point builder to get the value to get the current value.

From a pharma/biotech user perspective, I am finding that the PI Auditviewer application is difficult to use and conduct an investigation with over an extended time period.  I believe the application needs an overhaul to allow for, at minimum, the following enhancements:
Mass import and scanning of audit source files.  A user should not have to individually browse to, add, and scan each individual log file.  Current functionality does not easily support an investigation that must take place over a broad time period.  Better yet, the application should automatically scan the log file directory, and all audit log files should be searchable by the user after the application has loaded, without having to manually add anything.In addition to the existing Start/End time search criteria that exists today, the search feature should allow additional text-based filtering options.  A user should not have to manually inspect multiple pages of returns, and re-set the filtering on a page-by-page basis as it works today. If the application is not enhanced to automatically scan all available log files when the application is open, there should be a way for the user to save their view/profile.  When the application crashes (for example when initiating a Print Preview with a large number of records returned in a search), you lose all of the added/scanned log files and you have to completely start over.  Also, if a user closes the application to log off the PI server, currently all work is lost as well. Organization of the data is not efficient to review, with each row returned containing at minimum one additional row of nested data, and in some cases multiple rows of nested data.  Each record should be in a single row without anything nested if possible.Printing capabilities require significant enhancement.  Printed output currently contains a summary page with information about the search, followed by a display of the audit records that is challenging to read.  For example, a report from my system showing add/edit of 23 PI tags results in a summary page plus 48 pages worth of audit information.  When a row/record spreads across multiple pages due to the page not being wide enough, there ends up being some blank pages and some pages with very little information contained in the printout.  Additionally, “Good Documentation Practices” type of requirements, including header/footer information indicating a title, the date/time of the print, and pagination in Page x of y format should be included.  This header/footer information is required to link each page together as a complete package without additional user effort.  If not automatically included on each printout, there should be a user option to add this information in custom header/footer fields. Thanks for your consideration in this matter.

On current PI Builder 2018 there is no option to select the RecNo attribute for a PI point by default.

For instance, this would be helpful to recover deleted points such as we do with piconfig command. I would like to see if it would be possible to include this option on a future version of PI Builder.

Note: I know we can enable the "recno" object type by typing it out on the header as explained on "KB01413 - Importing Attributes for a Given List of Tags Using PI Builder" but it would be good to have this option by default.