Edit Interface Information properties

The Edit Interface Information dialog box has the following properties.

• Name: Name of the interface, chosen by the administrative user.

• IF Source Name: Interface source name. The list of possible interface sources is defined in the Interface Source tab on the Option dialog box available under Tool > Option.

  If you click this field, all defined interface source lists are shown in a combo box and you can easily select the desired one.

  

• Mode: Import or Export, the usage mode of the interface. In the case of RTDB interface sources (such as PI, PHD, and InfoPlus), only Import mode is supported. This means that AVEVA Production Accounting data cannot directly export to the RTDB historian.

• Date Format: Date format of the interface. This corresponds to the date format setting used by the interface software that accesses the external data base. Typically this matches the date format setting defined for use by an external relational database such as Oracle or SQL Server. It is not necessary to specify a date format for interfaces to RTDB historians because AVEVA Production Accounting does not receive dates as values from real-time databases.

• Date Delimiter: Date Delimiter of the interface. In similar fashion to the Date Format setting just described, this AVEVA Production Accounting setting needs to match the date delimiters in use by the interface to the external database. For example, Oracle and MS SQL Server database use a single quote (') date delimiter but MS Access uses a hash sign (#) date delimiter. Again, since AVEVA Production Accounting does not receive dates from real time databases, you need not specify a Date Delimiter for RTDB interfaces.

  Note The delimiter in question is not the internal separator between day, month and year fields, but rather the delimiter used to mark where the date value starts and ends.

• Description: Description of the interface. This is optional.

• Query SQL: SQL sentence built by the user. It is not used for interfaces with RTDB historians.

• Name Field: Every SQL-accessible table normally has a column that serves as its unique key and which identifies that entry to you, the user. By default, when you query from such tables, the results are returned with the native column name from the database. However, you can control the column name that will be used in the results by using the ‘AS’ qualifier in your query. Because of this, a way must exist for you to define for AVEVA Production Accounting what column name you will assign to the unique identifier. That column name, regardless of whether you are relying on the default or a name redefined using an ‘AS’ clause, is what you must put in the Name Field definition. It is not necessary to provide contents for the Name Field column when defining an RTDB interface.

• Start Field: The contents of this column identify for AVEVA Production Accounting the column name that will appear in query results obtained through this interface which will contain StartDateTime information. It is not mandatory to provide a Start Field name. If you leave it blank, the start datetime of the current selected period is assumed (and not taken from the queried data). Use this field when you have to select the starting time of a movement and it will not exactly equal the start of your period, for example: 2008-08-27 13:40.

• End Field: This column contains a definition of the column name that will appear in query results for the EndDateTime information, in a similar fashion as described above for the Start Field definition. As for the Start Field, it is not mandatory to define an End Field name, in which case the end datetime of the current selected period is assumed. Again, this is intended for use with transaction data that has an exact end time that does not match the period end.

• In use:

  • If this checkbox is selected, executing the Get Tag Data operation (via the File > Get Tag Data menu item) will cause execution of the associated query or data fetch operation for this interface.

  • If the box is clear, this interface will be skipped during Get Tag Data.

  • If the Select "In Use" checkbox is selected, all the available interfaces are automatically selected together.

    Each user can define different settings for these In Use checkboxes, but the settings do not normally persist past the current execution of the AVEVA Production Accounting program. If you launch the AVEVA Production Accounting again, the checkboxes will revert to their default setting, which is checked.

    If you want to save these checkbox settings so that they persist to the next execution of AVEVA Production Accounting, select the checkbox at the bottom of the Edit Interface Information dialog called Save "In Use" Property in INI File. Selecting that checkbox causes the In Use settings to be saved in the INI file that was used to open the model. If the INI file is being shared among many users, they will inherit those same settings. The Apply "In Use" Setting in Auto Running checkbox determines whether the saved In Use settings should be applied during automatic running of AVEVA Production Accounting. Along with the In Use settings, the checked/unchecked state of the two checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog are also saved and restored to and from the INI file if Save "In Use" Property in INI File is checked. This means that the next users to use the same INI file will also end up saving their choices for the In Use settings when they save their model.

    

• Status: You can check that the interfaces are actually working and usable by clicking the Interface check button, which populates the Status column on the grid. When the Interface Check button is pressed, the action performed is slightly different for RTDB interfaces than for SQL-based interfaces. For RTDB interfaces, the check is identical to the check performed in the Interface Sources dialog box. For RDB and file interfaces, the interface check verifies both the connectivity and the SQL syntax. If an error occurs, the status cell for the interface turns red and the description of the error is placed in the cell. If there is no error, the status cell turns green and the text "OK" appears in the cell.