Define Equipment in Plant SCADA Studio
- Last UpdatedJul 16, 2025
- 6 minute read
You can manually add equipment definitions to a Plant SCADA project that adhere to an Equipment Hierarchy.
The hierarchy is created from the names you apply to the equipment you define. If you include a period (.) in a name, it specifies a hierarchy level. You can then use this hierarchy as a way to reference the tags in your project using logical equipment groupings (see Define an Equipment Association for a Tag).
To link equipment to equipment and equipment.items outside the equipment hierarchy, you can create equipment references (see Define Equipment References).
Note: If you are adding equipment to an existing project, it is recommended that you leave the Type field blank. An equipment type is primarily used to generate new tags from Equipment Editor, and this is not required if your tags already exist. If you want to define equipment that is associated with an equipment type, you should use the Equipment Editor instead of Plant SCADA Studio (see Equipment Editor).
To manually define equipment:
-
In the System Model activity, select Equipment.
-
On the menu below the Command Bar, select Model.
The list of equipment definitions will display in the Grid Editor.
-
Add a row to the Grid Editor.
-
Type the required information in each column, or in the Property Grid (see below for a description of the properties).
-
Click Save.
The equipment you have defined will now be available to associate with the existing tags in your project (see Define an Equipment Association for a Tag).
You can also Define Equipment States in Plant SCADA Studio for the equipment to support scheduling.
Equipment Properties
General Properties
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Name |
The name of the equipment. This can be a name that represents a single piece of equipment, or a name that also reflects the location of the equipment within an Equipment Hierarchy (where a period (.) is used to indicate levels in the hierarchy). The length of the complete name for the equipment is recommended to be less than 128 characters. The maximum length is 254 chars, however, long names can be harder to use within configuration expressions and Cicode. When naming equipment the following rules apply: • Equipment names need to be unique within the same cluster. |
|
Display Name |
A meaningful name for the equipment that can be used at runtime to easily identify it. Enter a value of 254 characters or less. |
|
Cluster Name |
The name of the cluster to which the equipment is assigned. The specified cluster should be configured otherwise a compile will not be successful. If no cluster name is set, the equipment will run on every cluster. |
|
Type |
The specific type of equipment in the system. This drop down box is populated from the types database created in the Equipment Types settings. |
|
Location |
A string describing the location of the equipment. Enter a value of 254 characters or less. |
|
Page |
The name of the page on which this equipment appears. Enter a value of 254 characters or less. This enables an operator to navigate directly to the page that hosts the piece of equipment. If the graphic object appears on more than one page, the page specified here should represent its primary operational context. Where duplicated variations of a page exist to suit HD1080 and UHD4K screen resolutions, the page that is used is determined by the resolution of the host workspace. This means you do not need to add the suffix "_HD1080" or "_UHD4K" to the end of a name to specify a particular page. For more information, see Configure a Project that Supports Multiple Screen Resolutions. |
|
Content |
A comma-separated list that names the content associated with the piece of equipment. This can include pages, faceplates and documents. For example: Area1_Page_L1, Process1_Page_L2, Pump_Faceplate_FP This content will be available at runtime when the equipment comes into context. Where duplicated variations of a faceplate or page exist to suit HD1080 and UHD4K screen resolutions, the content that is called is determined by the resolution of the host workspace. This means you do not need to add the suffix "_HD1080" or "_UHD4K" to the end of a name. For more information, see Configure a Project that Supports Multiple Screen Resolutions. |
|
Help |
The help context string. Enter a value of 254 characters or less. |
|
Comment |
Any useful comment. Enter a value of 254 characters or less. |
|
Tag Prefix |
Designed to store a prefix that can be applied to the tags generated for the equipment instance. It can be used at runtime to find tags associated with the equipment. |
|
I/O Device |
The I/O device used to communicate with this piece of equipment. Specify redundant devices with a comma between primary and standby, for example, "IODev1,IODev2". Enter a value of 254 characters or less. |
|
Hidden |
When set to true the Equipment will not be visible in the Equipment Tree at runtime. Note: The functionality of the Equipment does not change and will continue to function as configured. |
|
Unique ID |
A unique ID is applied to each piece of equipment in a Plant SCADA project to provide consistent identification for integration with future software releases. This field is read-only in Plant SCADA Studio. Each unique IDs is a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) generated by Plant SCADA using the following format: XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX For more information, see Unique IDs for Variable Tags and Equipment. Note: It is highly recommended that you only use Plant SCADA to generate the unique identifiers for the equipment in your system. If for some reason this is not possible, use a reputable tool to generate GUIDs that match the format described above. If you use an external tool to modify the equipment database, the compiler will indicate if a Unique ID is invalid, duplicated or missing. |
Security Properties
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Area |
The area number or label to which this equipment belongs. Only users with access to this area (and any necessary privileges) will be able to perform operations on the equipment. For example, if you enter Area 1 here, operators need to have access to Area 1 (plus any necessary privileges) to perform operations on the equipment. Enter a value of 16 characters or less. |
Custom Properties
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Custom1 .. Custom8 |
User-defined strings that can be used for filtering equipment when using the Cicode search functions (maximum 254 characters each). Labels or tags are not supported. |
Scheduling Properties
Note: The following fields, Default State and Scheduled, are used when configuring schedules for equipment (see Configure Equipment for Scheduling).
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Default State |
The default state applied to the equipment. |
|
Scheduled |
Specifies if the equipment is included in any scheduled actions. The options are "TRUE" or "FALSE". The following fields, Schedule ID and Device Schedule, are only required when using a schedule configured locally on a BACnet device (see Integrate BACnet Schedules into Scheduler). They require the Scheduled property to be set to "TRUE". |
|
Schedule ID |
The ID used to identify the required schedule on the BACnet device. This field is only required if the Device Schedule property is set to "TRUE". |
|
Device Schedule |
Specifies whether or not the report server should retrieve the required schedule from the BACnet device. The options are "TRUE" or "FALSE". |
Deprecated Properties
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Parameters |
Prior to the release of Plant SCADA 2023, "custom parameters" were used to apply specific values to an equipment type. In Plant SCADA 2023, custom parameters were replaced with Configuration Parameters. If an equipment instance is based on an equipment type that uses a version 1 template, this field will show the associated custom parameters. Note: Version 1 equipment types that support this parameter are flagged as deprecated and may not be supported in future release. To migrate your equipment types, see Migrate Custom Parameters to the Configuration Parameters Database. Following migration, the content of this field will be populated at runtime from the content of the configuration parameters for this equipment instance. You should not make any changes to this field in the configuration environment. |
Project Properties
|
Property |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Project |
The project in which the equipment type is configured. |
Note: Advanced users can use the Project DBF plug-in for Microsoft Excel to edit and save records directly in the EQUIP.DBF file (see Use the Project DBF Add-In to Define Equipment Associations).