Publish objects

To publish data from Microsoft Excel to PI AF or Data Archive, prepare your worksheet, click Publish, and set the options for publication.

1. Prepare your worksheet for publication:

   1. Place new parent objects in rows before child objects that reference them.

      For example, if you create new elements and attributes, place the elements in rows before the attributes.

   2. Place notes and values that you do not want to publish in columns without headers.

   3. Place blank rows and columns appropriately.

      PI Builder publishes data row by row, but processes no rows after encountering two entirely blank rows and processes no columns after encountering two entirely blank columns.

   4. Place an X in the Selected(x) column of any row that you want PI Builder to process.

      PI Builder ignores rows without an X in this column.

2. On the PI Builder tab, click Publish.

3. In the Publish Options window, enter the settings that control PI Builder actions during publication:

   • From the Edit Mode list, select the method for processing rows when publishing data to a server:

     • Create and Edit

       PI Builder edits PI AF objects that already exist and creates objects that do not exist.

     • Create Only

       PI Builder creates new PI AF objects, and generates an error if an object already exists.

     • Edit Only

       PI Builder edits existing PI AF objects, and generates an error if an object does not already exist.

   • Select the Create or update PI points check box to have PI Builder automatically create PI points for attributes derived from templates that use PI point data references. Relevant PI points are created or updated as needed, no matter which Edit Mode is selected. (This check box is not available when publishing PI point objects to PI Data Archive.)

   • Select the Automatically create missing categories check box to have PI Builder create missing categories. (This check box is not available when publishing PI point objects to PI Data Archive.)

   • Select the Preserve Unique IDs check box to have PI Builder retain unique IDs that exist in the source XML. This option is only valid when Create and Edit is also specified in the Edit Mode list.

     Note: There is no guarantee that PI Builder will preserve unique IDs of attributes derived from templates because unique IDs of such attributes are generated based on the template's unique ID.

4. Click OK to start publishing.

   The Publish Selected Objects window shows the operations completed.

5. Click Close.

   PI Builder automatically checks in any changes to the PI AF database when you publish.