AdminStephen Kwan
(Senior Product Manager, OSIsoft)
My feedback
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2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment -
2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment As you know, users are able to change the database name if they choose to, i.e. from PIFD to whatever they want after installation. Is this request to change the default name with the initial installation?
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2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you verify what your use case is? Is this a Batch type use case?
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14 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you verify if the two event frames are related, such as in a Batch process?
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you confirm you have multiple applications creating event frames with the same event frame template over the same time period?
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5 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment The implementation of client side Known Server Table in the PI System makes it undesirable to leave the PI Point syntax parameterized. Since the Known Server Table (KST) is a client side setting, %Server% may evaluate differently per user depending on their default server setting. As you can imagine, this can lead to very confusing results. Fortunately, we implemented the ability to designate a default server per PI System and/or AF Database beginning with the AF 2018 release which mitigates this issue.
In addition, when you "Create or Update Data Reference", we verify the server ID and point ID and store both in the underlying attribute configstring. This level of details is not shown in the PI System Explorer UI to improve readability for the enduser. However, if you were to "shift-click" the Settings button for an attribute, you would see all the details for that particular configuration. YOu would note it's different after you "Create or Update Data Reference". This is done to handle use cases where a user may delete a PI Point in the Data Archive and then subsequently recreate it to store the same data stream (same PI Point name, but now different ID). Users may also rename the PI Point (different PI Point name, but same ID). By instantiating the configstring via "Create or Update Data Reference", we avoid confusion and complication.
Having said that, we have had many requests to improve the migration of PI System between Dev, Test, Stage and Prod. This particular request is considered to be part of that use case.
An error occurred while saving the comment Hi, first I wanted to let you know that you can also reset to template in PI System Explorer. Secondly, while I understand why you're asking for this feature, we must take other use cases into consideration such as the user having edited the configuration string manually. For example, you can create an element from template, then override the configuration string of a PI Point Data Reference attribute to something specific, such as a PI Point that does not adhere to the naming substitution. Now imagine you desired to make a change and update the PI Point. If we automatically reset it back to template, you would lose your previous manual configuration change to that PI Point which didn't adhere to the naming substitution.
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3 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Currently in PI System Explorer, we use "Enable" and "Disable" already for an analysis. I think what you're describing is a different state that differentiates it from the currently available states. Am I understanding your request correctly?
An error occurred while saving the comment Please help me understand why you wouldn't just remove this analysis if it's permanently disabled in the template?
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you explain how you're getting multiple values for the same timestamp? What is writing these values?
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Thank you for the detailed explanation. I do want to close the loop on why we default to appending the ID to the PI Point name if you create them using PI Analysis Service. Imagine you have an Element template with Analysis Template that uses substitution parameters to define the PI Point name. It is very easy to inadvertently create 10 elements from templates, each with analyses created from template and they all write their outputs to the exact same PI Point. As a way to prevent this, the default is to append the ID to the PI Point name since the ID is unique.
An error occurred while saving the comment Hi, can you verify that you allow your users to create analyses and create PI Points, yet you don't give them access to the management tab in PSE. Do you consider these users to be restricted users?
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment Microsoft operating system patching should not have caused collective members to go out of sync. Have you reviewed this KB article?
If you continue to run into issues patching, I recommend you contact tech support.
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42 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Please provide examples of what you're trying to do. It may be already possible to do what you need. For example, you can configure a PI Point Data Reference attribute with StartTime as the time context, in which case your calculations would use the Event Frame start time. In addition, in the newer release, we support the EventFrame("StartTime") function to provide time context when you configure output-at-close.
An error occurred while saving the comment In calculating your UnitStatus, do you use PI Points in your Analysis?
An error occurred while saving the comment You can do that with currently shipping software. Just configure an attribute with a Formula Data Reference and a %StartTime% or %EndTime% substitution parameter.
This would not work if you wish to write the start and end time to a PI Point.
If I have misinterpreted your needs, please let me know.
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you provide some example use cases?
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2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Hi, can you tell me which tool you're using to create these event frames?
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21 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Hi, thanks for your suggestion and comment. In reviewing this suggestion, I have some questions that I hope you can help me with. What's the end goal of changing the event frame name? Is it to identify event frames that you can easily find? If that's the case, have you considered searching for event frames based on an attribute value? Setting the name of the event frame on close by PI Analysis Service has a side effect in that searches could have different results for in-progress event frames. For example, if an event frame was open, we have to give it a name. If we then subsequently change the name when the event frame closes, then any previous searches based on the name of the in-progress event frame would have different results. Any input you may have is appreciated.
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2 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Can you provide some examples of what you would like to do? Who would be configuring and applying these filters? What would an example of such filters?
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Hi, can you help me understand what you're trying to do? Are you trying to uninstall AFLink because you don't need it?
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment There are some complexities associated with this. When creating objects from template, inevitably you would end up with many with the same name. As such, sorting would require the entire path. This would require careful design to ensure good user interface. In addition, paging becomes more difficult. Imagine you have 100k analyses. In order to sort or re-sort, we would have to load the entire collection, which is impactful to performance.
Having said that, we will look at what we can do.
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment I want to touch on some of the reasoning behind how we package (bundle). All these tools are reliant on the data access layer under the hood, for example AF SDK. As such, they are really clients from that perspective. They also have version dependencies on the SDK. Let's look at an example, PI System Explorer is nothing more than a shell on top of the AF SDK. As such, it is a client and must be bundled and shipped with the AF SDK as there is a version dependency for specific features. While we work very hard to support backwards compatibility, realistically for the best user experience, it has to be shipped (bundled) with the companion version of the AF SDK. This is the same with PI Builder. PI System Management tool requires PI SDK, AF SDK and other internal only components under the hood. Therefore, there are similar restrictions.
We provide an AFClient setup kit because we have 3rd party developers/partners that develop against the AF SDK. Therefore it's necessary to have a separate AFClient setup kit. This and what I've already describe above are the reasons why the AFClient kit includes PI System Explorer and PI Builder.
As to SMT bundling with ICU, it's more of a convenience for end users with some specific use cases. In SMT, you can configure certain interface points that under the hood require %OSI% in the Module Database. %OSI% modules are typically created when you configure interfaces with ICU. Thus, the decision was made long ago to bundle ICU with SMT.
We don't bundle PI DataLink with PI Builder because we sell PI DataLink as a separate product and for those who don't use AF or if they are not licensed for AF, it may not make sense to bundle PI Builder with PI DataLink.
As to confusion with which tool to do what, I would agree that's an area that we can improve on. As tools evolve, sometimes overlaps occur but we do try very hard to differentiate them. For example, PI Builder was designed to be a configuration tool so it doesn't really retrieve data in mass like PI DataLink. On thing that we can do is to start deprecating legacy products.
Having said all that, we can always re-examine whether there are better ways to rebundle.
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7 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment The original design decision was not for PI Builder to replace DataLink because they serve two different purposes. As such, PI Builder was enhanced to replace the legacy PI Tag Configurator, which is for configuration only. Having said that, I can see how this suggestion may be useful in some cases.
Lastly note that you can retrieve the snapshot value of AF attributes that are configured as PI Point Data References. This may help in configuring other data references.
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment Unfortunately we actually don't know when a disconnection has occurred. Just because there is no data flowing, it doesn't always mean there is a disconnection. There is no "marker" that tells us a disconnection has occurred. Even if there was a marker, the fact that the connection is disconnected mean that we wouldn't receive that marker.
No Data is a System Digital State that has a special meaning, especially when the clients make a data access call to the server. We cannot place No Data into a data stream just because there has been no data, because as I described earlier, we don't actually know when a disconnection has occurred.
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1 vote
An error occurred while saving the comment Jeff,
We append the %ID% because that's unique and is necessary when you work with templates. As an example, if you have an element template which includes an analysis template, and this analysis template creates tags because you're storing the calculation results. With that configuration, when you create X instances of the element from template, you would create X instances of the analyses. Without a %ID%, all these analyses would be writing their results to the same (one) output PI Point.
We encourage our users to not worry about the PI Point name, but rather work through AF attributes and if you do that, the fact that the PI Point name as an unique ID appended to the end is irrelevant.
Please clarify when you say "... It should also not be possible to configure such permissions in any way....".