Unique IDs for Variable Tags and Equipment

A unique ID is applied to each of the following in a Plant SCADA project:

• Variable tags

• Equipment instances

• Equipment types.

This is done to provide consistent identification for integration with future software releases.

Each unique IDs is a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) generated by Plant SCADA using the following format:

XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

A unique ID is automatically generated whenever the following occurs:

• A new variable, equipment instance or equipment type is created in Plant SCADA Studio.

• A new variable, equipment instance or equipment type is generated by Equipment Editor during an Equipment Updates.

• The Migration Tool is run with the Create unique IDs for Variables and Equipment option selected.

• A variables database is imported as a CSV file (see Import from Microsoft Excel).

• Tags are imported from a device (see Import Variable Tags from an External Data Source).

  Note: It is highly recommended that you only use Plant SCADA to generate the unique identifiers for the variables in your system. If for some reason this is not possible, use a reputable tool to generate GUIDs that match the format described above.

Using an external tool to modify the variables and/or equipment databases can result in unique IDs that are invalid or duplicated. The Plant SCADA compiler will use the following messages to indicate if this occurs.

E2182 - Invalid Unique ID format

To resolve this, do one of the following:

• If a small number of invalid IDs are detected, you can copy an identified variable into a new row in Plant SCADA Studio. The paste function will create a new ID. You can then delete the original variable with the invalid ID.

• If a large number of invalid IDs are detected, you can export the variables database to Excel and use the compiler results to delete the invalid IDs. New IDs will be created when you import the variables again.

E2183 - Duplicate Unique ID for variable

To resolve this, do one of the following:

• If a small number of duplicate IDs are detected, you can copy one of the identified variables into a new row in Plant SCADA Studio. The paste function will create a new ID. You can then delete the original variable with the duplicated ID.

• If a large number of duplicated IDs are detected, you can export the variables database to Excel and use the compiler results to delete the duplicated IDs. New IDs will be created when you import the variables again.

  Note: If the compiler generates a warning message stating that some equipment or variable tags do not have a unique ID, it indicates that a project has not been migrated to the current version of Plant SCADA. To resolve this, run the Project Migration Tool with the Create unique IDs for Variables and Equipment option selected.

See Also

Repair A Project's Unique IDs