Link data messages

Link data messages are a special type of data message that are used to add more context to your data. Static-to-static messages create a hierarchy of elements in PI AF. Static-to-dynamic messages create PI point data reference attributes from PI points. Other link messages are not supported.

Static-to-dynamic links do not link the static instance and the container, but instead extract the PI points making up the container and use them to create PI point data reference attributes. This makes the elements useful to visualization tools like PI Vision, but does not represent container information not captured by the PI point representation. Static-to-dynamic messages create PI point data reference attributes on the element named CONTAINER_NAME.PROPERTY_NAME, where:

• CONTAINER_NAME is the name of the container associated with the PI points.

• PROPERTY_NAME is the name of the property of the container associated with that specific PI point.

The descriptions of the attributes are Dynamic\NULLABILITY\CONTAINER_ID\PROPERTY_KEY\DESCRIPTION, where

• NULLABILITY indicates whether a null is accepted or not accepted.

• CONTAINER_ID is the OMF ID of the container associated with the PI points.

• PROPERTY_KEY is the index of the associated property on the AF Element Template of the element.

Deleting a static-to-dynamic link removes the data references whose descriptions indicate the attribute was linked to the specific container ID.