Let say that I have 8 Identical machines and I build one configuration for one of them can I export the datapoints and transactions or triggers use excel or any other text editor and search and replace and import them and have all my 8 machines or do I have to setup the 8 of them one at a time.
Sorry for so many questions I am trying to make a decision to of using your product vs someone else.
thanks
jdelgado,
Yes you can! FactorySQL can be backed up and transferred to another computer quite easily.
You can make a backup of the entire system (including database connections and all other settings) and move it over to another computer. This means that you will have to make only a few minor modifications to the project settings on the new computer.
After that, you can use the built-in search and replace, or export to CSV by highlighting the groups you want and simply right-clicking and selecting ‘Export to CSV’. From there you can use any text editor you want to modify or search and replace. After that just right-click in the group pane and import your modified csv file.
I don’t know if you are using FactoryPMI as well, but it can be easily copied in the same manner.
Robert,
Sorry that I did not explain it correctly. It is not to backup to another computer but to add have one FactorySQL Server for 8 Machines. So we will build one machine and then export the configurations of the triggers, alarms… and search and replace and then import it back to the FactorySQL. This way we can build them quickly for the other 7.
I pick 8 for an example it varies from project to project.
Thanks
jdelgado
jdelgado,
I’m not sure I understand your question. Are you saying that you want to build one project on a computer and then just copy it (with machine specific changes) to other machines? Saving a backup is the best way to do this, and effectively makes a copy of your FactorySQL project that can be imported or merged into another (or the original) copy of FactorySQL.
Hope that helps,
What Jdelgado is looking to do is create all the items for one machine. Then export this to a CSV file and use the CSV file to add additional machines to the project. Since the machines are the same, except for the OPC items, a little cut and paste, search and replace is a quick way to add additional machines to the CSV file. Import the CSV file, done deal.
Jdelgado,
Yes you can. You can export/import groups to/from a CSV file. In the Project view, right click on the group and select Export to CSV. If you select the ‘Project’ folder you will export all groups. Then you can add additional groups to the CSV file and import the file back into FactorySQL.
I kept getting confused - thinking of a “machine” as a computer instead of a “set of similarly programmed hardware devices”. I also assume that you want to use a single installation of FactorySQL for everything.
-If each machine is an identical PLC (as seen by FactorySQL), this is particularly simple. In the most difficult case you can perform a large copy/paste then search and replace. The only difference will likely be the OPC “topic/channel” name. If this takes you more than a few steps you’re probably complicating things. Keep in mind that machine changes will probably be most easily solved in FSQL by deleting all but one machine, making your change, then copying/pasting/S&R again - which should be a quick task.
-You should be able to achieve the above even if all machines are on the same PLC, split between PLCs, etc. This depends on a layout that “makes sense” on your part.
-Depending on the sophistication of what you’re doing with the SQL database, you might need to do some copying/pasting there. At the very least you’ll need to ensure that FSQL is writing to different places in the database, distinguishing between machines. For historical data, this usually means different tables. For realtime data you can use different rows with the “custom where clause”. The really easy way is to use a separate database for each machine - you just create a new datasource, which points to a separate database for each. I wouldn’t recommend this in most cases, but it depends on what you’re doing/how you operate.
The bottom line is that replication of machines within FSQL should be easy to implement, particularly with a little foresight. The CSV export is an even more powerful tool - it allows you to use Excel to do massive pattern/sequence based changes. You can probably solve your problem with copy and paste and search and replace operations.
Thank you guys, I have been reading the book. I was confused about terminology. I was thinking the Groups were opc groups and the groups in FactorySQL includes the items and the data object connections (triggers, actions, database connections…)
So far it looks promising. Just to let you know I am evaluating this project to replace RSSQL but I have to say I have been using RSSQL since it first came out. I have done 100s of RSSQL applications and it is a solid product and very powerful. In all my RSSQL application I use Stored Procedure, I don’t bound directly to tables
So that is why I am reading the book, forum and asking questions to make sure that if I make the change I don’t loose anything hopefully I will gain.
Thanks
Rather than start a new topic, let me add on to the above…
I already generate all of my groups automatically based on a text file from the PLC, and this works fine. But recently I added an action item to some of my groups (thanks Colby!), and when I exported the group to see the format of the action item, the script wasn’t there, although the name of the action item was there.
What can I do? The groups will be regenerated quite often during development. Will I have to manually copy the script to the action items every time I do this? Does the script reside somewhere else, and can I “point” to it by name somehow?
Actually, the script should be there in the CSV, so we might need to take a look on our side to see if something’s going on. What is the text of your expression? Better yet, if you could send a Project Export (File->Backup/Restore->Export Project) to support AT inductiveautomation.com, we could probably help you out a little quicker.
Regards,
Just wanted to make a note here that the feature works as advertised, and it was a screw up on my part. Thanks Colby!