Module and element hierarchies look different

There are several potential causes for differences in module and element hierarchies:

• Element attributes can be hierarchical, meaning that you can nest them inside each other. Module properties are also hierarchical, however aliases are not. If you nest attributes in a way that is not compatible with aliases, then you might not be able to see all the objects in PI MDB. See Learn about attribute to property and alias conversion.

• The PI AF security settings might not be compatible with PI MDB (Element does not appear in PI MDB)

• PI MDB clients and PI AF clients determine parents in a different way.

  • In PI MDB, the parent list is always the current parent list; it does not take query date into account.

  • In PI AF, the parent list depends on the query date.

    By default, the query dates are set to retrieve the latest versions of the assets (both in PI MDB and in PI AF). With the default query dates, there will be no differences in the parent list between the two versions of a client.

• If you changed the access for the PI AF element such that Everyone has Deny access, the element would not appear in the PI AF element hierarchy. However the module might still be visible in PI MDB. This is because when Everyone is denied, AF Link cannot read the element and therefore cannot synchronize it to PI MDB. To correct this, remove the Deny setting on the element.

  Note: You must be an Administrator to make changes to the element when Everyone is set to Deny.