View data item details
- Last UpdatedNov 26, 2025
- 5 minute read
If you want to investigate the origin of the data that appears on a symbol, or copy-and-paste information about the data, you can open the Data Item Details pane. The Data Item Details pane shows detailed information about each data item that exists on one or more selected symbols. A menu at the top of the pane lets you choose which data item you want to view.
The Data Item Details pane may be useful in various scenarios, such as if:
-
You need to troubleshoot an issue with data that appears in PI Vision, so you want to know more about the origin of that data.
-
You are not sure what data a symbol is showing, so you want to see more information such as the PI tag that the data item references or the data item's description.
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You want to copy a data item's path to your clipboard so that you can paste the path elsewhere, such as in PI DataLink.
Use the Data Item Details pane
Follow the instructions below to open and use the Data Item Details pane.
To open the Data Item Details pane for a symbol, right-click on the desired symbol and select Data Item Details.
To open the Data Item Details pane so it contains data from multiple symbols, hold down the Ctrl key and select the desired symbols. Then, right-click on a symbol and select Data Item Details.
To change the data item that appears in the Data Item Details pane, use the menu at the top of the pane to select the desired data item. The menu does not appear if you are viewing a symbol with only one data item.
To copy information to your clipboard, so that you can paste it somewhere else, place your cursor next to the information
that you want to copy and select the Copy 
icon.
Tip: If you want to copy and paste only the path for each data item on a symbol, you can do so without opening the Data Item Details pane by selecting one or more symbols (use the Ctrl key to select multiple symbols) then select Ctrl+C to copy. Then, you can paste the datasource paths to another application, such as a spreadsheet, text editor, etc.
Display additional PI tag fields
For data items that reference a PI tag as their data source, you can choose to display additional attribute fields that are associated with the PI tag in the Data Item Details pane.
Note: The option to show additional fields is not available for data items that do not reference a PI tag, such as PI AF attributes that use a table lookup or a formula data reference as their data source.
To show additional attribute fields for the data items's PI tag, select the 
icon. The Select Additional Fields window opens allowing you to select which attribute fields you want to include in
the Data Item Details pane. Some fields may not contain any values, depending on which PI tag attributes
your organization chose to populate with information.
Understand the information in the Data Item Details pane
The information that appears in the Data Item Details pane can include some or all of the fields below. Some of the fields below are not applicable to certain types of data items and therefore they do not appear for those data items.
Note: For more background information about the fields described below, refer to Search for data.
Item type - The type of data source for the selected data item. The most common types are described below.
|
Item type |
Description |
|
PI Point |
The data source is a direct reference to a PI point. For more information about PI points, refer to Search for data. |
|
Asset Calculation |
The data source is a calculation that was created in PI Vision based on attributes. For more information, refer to Understand calculations. |
|
PI Point Calculation |
The data source is a calculation that was created in PI Vision based on PI points. For more information, refer to Understand calculations. |
|
Attribute |
The data is an attribute value that does not have any data reference. In PI System Explorer, the attribute's data reference is displayed as <None>. This type of data source provides a static value for an attribute that remains constant. For example, an attribute without a data source could be used to track a fuel tank’s maximum capacity or the diameter of a turbine, as those measurements generally do not change. |
|
Attribute (Analysis) |
The data is for an attribute that is mapped as the output of an analysis, and that analysis is not configured to save its output history to a PI point. Analyses are set up in PI System Explorer, and they calculate one or more output values from specified functions, operators, and input values. For more information, refer to Introduction to analyses. |
|
Attribute (Formula) Attribute (PI Point) Attribute (String Builder) Attribute (Table Lookup) Attribute (URI Builder) |
The data is for an attribute that uses the system-provided data reference type that is specified in parentheses. For more information about these data reference types, refer to Understand configuration of data references. |
|
Attribute (Name of custom data reference) |
The data is for an attribute that uses a custom data reference created by your organization or a third party that is registered as a plug-in on your Asset Framework server. For more information, refer to View installed plug-ins. |
Asset - The PI AF asset associated with the data item.
Attribute - The PI AF attribute associated with the data item.
Description - The description of the data item.
Path - The path to where the data item exists.
Tag Server - The Data Archive server where the PI tag that provides the data exists.
Tag Name - The name of the PI tag that provides the data.