PI DataLink 2017 Release Notes

Transcription

1 PI DataLink 2017 Release Notes Version OSIsoft, LLC. All rights reserved Updated: 8-Aug-2017

2 Table of Contents Overview Fixes and Enhancements Setup Operating Systems Microsoft Excel Versions PI Data Archive Platforms PI AF Server Platforms System Prerequisites Hardware Requirements Distribution Kit Files Installation and Upgrade Legacy Add-in Installation Silent Installation Uninstalling PI DataLink Documentation Overview Known s Known s for PI DataLink and PI DataLink (Legacy) add-in Known s for PI DataLink Notifications add-in Known s for Trend Control Technical Support and Resources Overview PI DataLink is a Microsoft Excel add-in that enables you to retrieve information from your PI System directly into a worksheet. Combined with the computational, graphic and formatting capabilities of Microsoft Excel, PI DataLink offers powerful tools for gathering, monitoring, analyzing, and reporting data. PI DataLink 2017 enhances the filtering capabilities for searches of PI points; you can now filter by the current time stamp, value, and isgood status. Additionally, PI DataLink 2017 introduces several fixes and enhancements. Please note that DataLink 2017 is compatible with Office 2007 SP3, 2010, 2013, and 2016, and is best experienced when used with Windows Integrated Security and PI AF Server Back to Top

3 Enhancements and Fixes Enhancements Work Item/UserVoice Idea Add Tag Value and Status to tag search Filter fields Add Tag Value and Status to tag search Filter fields Add support for empty string for attribute value filter value Enable Users to Specify Root Path When Searching for Events Description Added quick filters for common PI point attributes to the Search tool. Added help buttons to the top right of task panes, Search tool, and Settings dialog. In the Search tool, PI points can now be filtered by time stamp, value, and IsGood flag. The Search tool now has additional attribute filters for PI points. These include attribute filters for compression settings, exception settings, creator, creation date, changer, change date, digital set name, data security, and point security. In the Explore Events, Compare Events, and Asset Filter Search functions, empty string values are now supported for attribute value filters of string attributes. In the Explore Events and Compare Events functions, event searches can now be filtered by an event root path in addition to a database path. Back to Top Fixes Work Item Description The number format and time format are now correctly retained for a recalculated Compressed Data function when the hide count option is used. An upgrade of PI DataLink on Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 no longer results in a Microsoft Office Customization Installer error dialog if Excel was never opened prior to the upgrade. Re-initialization now correctly groups adjacent Archive Value, Compressed Data, Sampled Data, and Calculated Data function arrays that show time stamps. When using the Client or UTC time-zone setting, a time offset entered alone in an End time input now specifies a time relative to the Start time input rather than to the current time. This was the previous behavior prior to PI DataLink 2015 and always the behavior for the PI Data Archive time-zone setting.

4 Removed the inaccurate message "Number of results exceeds maximum." that was shown in drop-down list output when the maximum Asset Filter Search Count setting was set to higher value than 32,000. Explore Events and Compare Events functions now show the duration at the time of calculation for in-progress events. Error handling is improved when a change in a referenced cell causes Excel s maximum dimensions to be exceeded. Closing Excel is no longer delayed by PI DataLink waiting for a PI AF server connection. Output from the Search tool and Asset Filter Search function no longer auto-fits the column width to output. Formula Rollback behavior added in most cases where the task pane fails to write to the sheet with message "You cannot change part of the array". Back to Top Setup Operating Systems Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 (Minimum Service Pack: SP1) Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 (Minimum Service Pack: SP1) Microsoft Excel Versions Microsoft Excel 2016 (64-bit)* Microsoft Excel 2016 (32-bit) Microsoft Excel 2013 (64-bit)* Microsoft Excel 2013 (32-bit) Microsoft Excel 2010 (64-bit)* Microsoft Excel 2010 (32-bit) Microsoft Excel 2007 SP3

5 * Not all functionality will work on Excel (64 bit). PI DataLink (Legacy) and trend control are the most notable features that will not work. PI Data Archive Platforms Minimum PI Data Archive version is PI Data Archive (PI Server) 2012 ( ). The use of Windows Integrated Security (PI mappings) is highly recommended for the best user experience when using PI DataLink For future data support, PI Data Archive 2015 is required. PI AF Server Platforms Minimum PI AF server version is PI AF Server PI AF Server 2017 or later is highly recommended for best performance when using PI DataLink System Prerequisites In order to use the PI Notification Search add-in, you must have the PI Notifications Client feature of PI Notifications or later installed. Hardware Requirements Physical Memory: Recommended 2 GB. Although 2 GB provides acceptable performance for many, increasing the available RAM improves performance, especially when there are multiple applications running simultaneously on the same machine. For spreadsheets with higher RAM utilization, consider using a 64-bit Office installation. Processor Speed: 1 GHz processor. A faster processor may help performance if displays have complex calculations performed locally, but increasing the installed RAM is more likely to help with general performance. Hard Disk Space: 300 MB of empty space on the system drive for application files and registry entries. Also, consider the space necessary to install Office (approximately 3 GB). Distribution Kit Files OSIsoft Microsoft Runtime Redistributables Microsoft Visual C SP1, 2012, and 2015 Runtimes Microsoft.NET Framework 4.6 PI SDK 2016 (v ) AF Client 2017 SP1 (v ) Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (v ) Installation and Upgrade A self-extracting zip file is supplied as the distribution kit for PI DataLink.

6 1. Shutdown Microsoft Excel. 2. Unzip the file into a temporary directory. 3. Run Setup.exe from the temp directory and follow the directions. Legacy Add-in Installation The Legacy Add-in includes the trend control as well as PI DataLink functions that support PI Module Database. It is no longer installed by default during the 32-bit PI DataLink installation or during an upgrade of an existing 32-bit PI DataLink installation. The add-in uses older technologies, such as ActiveX, that have known security risks. ActiveX controls can have unrestricted access to your computer and therefore can access your local file system and change your operating system registry settings. If a hacker uses an ActiveX control to take over your computer, the damage can be significant. To install the Legacy Add-in, first extract the contents of the install kit to a temporary folder. Next, modify the setup.ini file in the temporary folder to indicate that the legacy addin should be installed with the 32-bit PI DataLink installation. More specific instructions are given in the comments of the setup.ini file. Lastly, run Setup.exe from the temporary folder to run the installation. Silent Installation For silent installation, follow the steps above for installation and upgrade. However, before running Setup.exe from the temp directory, delete (or rename) the existing setup.ini file, rename the silent.ini file to setup.ini, and modify the new setup.ini file to the configuration desired for silent installation. Running Setup.exe will follow the silent installation specified in the recently modified setup.ini file. Uninstalling PI DataLink Remove the following from Add/Remove Programs: 1) PI DataLink 2017 (x64) 2) PI DataLink 2017 (x86) 3) PI Software Development Kit (PISDK) x ) PI Software Development Kit (PISDK) x ) PI AF Client (x64) 2017 SP1 or PI AF Client (x86) 2017 SP1 depending on your OS Back to Top Documentation Overview PI DataLink User Guide: An introduction to PI DataLink for the end user. This user guide provides a product overview, installation procedures, and other topics. Back to Top

7 Known s Known s for PI DataLink and PI DataLink (Legacy) add-in Punch List Item issue issue Description Enabling the Require that application add-ins are signed by trusted publisher Excel setting may require the user to apply the latest updates and service packs to Windows and Office. PI DataLink assemblies are signed with a sha256 certificate, which is only supported by updated Windows/Office versions. The trusted publisher certificate pidlcert.cer can be found in the PIPC\Excel directory. If an Excel chart references a PI DataLink function, it will not update when Cntl+Alt+Shift+F9 is pressed unless the PI DataLink function references a cell that has changed or the PI DataLink function being referenced is the Current Value function. Tab key does not wrap from the last control to the first control and Shift + Tab does not wrap from first control to the last control. Pressing F1 while displaying the tooltip does not bring up more information about the DataLink function even though it says "Press F1 for more help". Double clicking on a spreadsheet file may be slow in opening. Workaround is to minimize then immediately maximize Excel. DataLink may take over 2 minutes to start up on isolated networks (disconnected from the internet). For more information, please refer to Microsoft KB In Excel 2010, DataLink requires the Office 2010 Primary Interop Assembly. This generally gets installed by default with Office 2010, but in rare circumstances it may not get installed. If the Office 2010 Primary Interop Assembly is not installed prior to DataLink installation, the PI tab will not be visible in Excel 2010 following DataLink installation. Please see for instructions on how to resolve this situation. If a workbook is protected, DataLink functions can be recalculated by F9 or Cntl+Alt+Shft+F9 but not all right-click menu options will work. Any worksheets created with a new version of DataLink may have problems when run on an older version of DataLink. Worksheets created with an older version of DataLink should work fine when run on a newer version of DataLink. The task panes and the right-click menu do not work in an OLE object. However, the PI DataLink functions themselves are not broken so the functions still can be entered manually into the cells. If the SUBTOTAL function is used to calculate the subtotal of a list in Excel 2007 and later, and the worksheet contains a user-defined function, the user-defined function may be calculated more times than expected. All DataLink functions are user-defined functions. For more info, please refer to Microsoft's Knowledge Base article: KB Data returned from functions may be truncated if the amount of data has increased after the initial insertion of the DataLink function on the spreadsheet. To make sure all data is there, use the Recalculate (Resize) Function on the right click menu. Right click key does not properly bring up the context-sensitive DataLink menu items in the right click menu.

8 WI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 8640OSI8 8572OSI8 8142OSI8 Double-clicking a spreadsheet file with an already minimized Excel in taskbar may cause the new spreadsheet to open minimized. Spreadsheets with only one sheet have a shorter limit on the number of characters accepted by Excel in formula arrays. Some foreign locales (including Japanese and Korean) do not interpret a timestamp of n as the nth day of the current month. As a workaround, the user could use Excel functionality to enter the nth day in the month in a cell and cell reference the cell. For example, the function =DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),MONTH(TODAY()),5) will return the 5th day of the current month. DataLink functions using cell references fail to re-initialize when the worksheet name contains commas, single quotes, and double quotes. The search button on the search dialog is cut off when the MUI language pack is installed. Some Excel Ribbon Buttons labels/strings wrap when using Japanese/Chinese MUI language pack When a connection cannot be made to a server and expression is data source and * as timestamp, two login prompts may appear. AF hierarchy in search is not refreshed with new changes until a reconnection is made to the AF server. Any checked-in changes to an AF attribute are not refreshed until a reconnection is made to the AF server. Task panes settings like position and size are not saved unless the settings dialog is invoked after making changes. In Office 2010, pressing the File tab closes the task pane and does not reopen when returning to the worksheet. Select formula does not work for Time Filtered, Point ID to Tag, and Alias To Tag Functions. Sampled Filtered Data does not paste a formula array whose size matches the number of events after the filter has been applied. Module search button on Alias and Property task pane does not copy module path to module path field if copy module path unchecked from previous queries. Some versions in Office 2007/2010 About Box are actually product version and not file version. Task pane back color does not match the Excel color scheme. "Show minimum/maximum timestamp" functionality incorrect when multiple tags referenced. Only the minimum/maximum timestamp for the first tag is displayed. The rest of the tags do not display it. Digital state changes to digital state set are not recognized in DataLink until a restart of Excel or a reconnection to the PI server is made. DataLink functions embedded within Excel functions such as If/Else will reinitialize improperly. If the 1904 date system checkbox is checked, the returned timestamps will not be correct. Incorrect data may be returned with cascading Worksheet_Change events. Tag attribute changes and tag deletions may cause problems with DataLink functions. A restart of Excel or a reconnection to the PI server is necessary to get back into proper state.

9 6668OSI OSI8 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A PITimeFilter function results may be different because many factors affect the ways to sample the expression specified. R1C1 reference style on non-english Excel does not work for Legacy add-in. Explore/Compare Events task pane no longer supports a fifth attribute filter (starting in PI DataLink 2016). Existing formula arrays with a fifth attribute value filter will continue to work correctly, but will not have the fifth attribute value filter available in a re-initialized task pane. Search results have a limit of 100,000 tags for PI tag searches. This limit may be less if there are GUID named tags. For AF searches, there is no limit. Timestamp strings in PI format (i.e. "5-Jan-12") will be parsed as "yy-mmm-dd" with Asian regional settings. To parse them as "dd-mmm-yy", set the Locale Independent setting to true. On Windows 7 with UAC turned on, installation may not resume after reboot that is necessitated by the installation of.net Framework 4.6. Installation works fine though if installation resumed manually by re-running the setup kit. PIPutVal does not support writing to attributes which are configuration items. The event-weighted count when used with an expression will return two more events than are actually there. The default behavior of the PI server is to return two interpolated values at the period endpoints in addition to the other values in the period. So these get counted into the return value. The connection preference for DataLink functions has been set to "Any". However, since the connection preference is set at the time of the connection, the order in which the connection is made matters. If DataLink functions are called first, then it will make a connection with connection preference of "Any". If the first connection is made with the trend control, tag search or the connection manager, then the connection preference is "PreferPrimary". DataLink calls referencing custom data references will return "Data item not supported by function" unless the author of the custom data reference opts-in when writing the custom data reference. Known s for PI DataLink Notifications add-in Punch List Item Description WI 4543 WI 4621 "Acknowledge subscription" returns error of "NewInstance" when notification instance is not active. "View Notification Rule Summary" option on the right click menu of the notification history control returns "Please configure a trigger." even when a trigger has already been configured. WI 4628 If search type is Time Range, searches cannot go further back than 1/1/1988. WI 4629 WI 4693 WI 5116 On searches where the query returns no notifications instances, "Index was out of range" errors may occur. The timestamps displayed on the spreadsheet from the Notification Search function may be off by a second from what is displayed in the notification history control in the dialog. The timestamps on the spreadsheet are the correct ones. On occasion, "socket connection was aborted" errors are displayed. If these errors show up, there may not be any problems with the connection to the AF server. Subsequent connections sometimes are successful.

10 WI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 In the case where the user is subscribed to exactly one notification and has PI Notifications installed, Excel 2007 (or later) will crash if the user presses Search twice on the Notification Search Panel. A workaround is for the user to subscribe to an additional notification. Notification ribbon button not always displayed after DataLink ribbon buttons. Acknowledgement web page does not work when having multiple delivery channels for a single contact. On instance acknowledged contact event, contact method is not blank but it should be. Only the subscription acknowledged event should have a contact method. Notification function does not respect some settings in the Settings dialog. If one notification has a problem, all notifications also return the same error. Notification Search Add-in is not localized. Known s for Trend Control Punch List Item 26749OSI OSI8 Description Trend control is not supported on 64 bit Excel. HorizontalScale.SetUpdating is not implemented OSI8 HorizontalScaleConfig.Updating is not implemented OSI8 Trend control help files will not work with a standard Vista or Server 2008 installation. Users may download software from Microsoft to address this limitation. For Vista, see cd175d4bb&displaylang=en. For Server 2008, see: The default User Access Control (UAC) settings on Vista and Server 2008 prohibit the creation of the master TC.ini file (normally written to the <installationdirectory>\pipc\dat folder, e.g. C:\program files\pipc\dat) unless the user is logged in as the built-in administrator or is using the run as administrator option This release creates a per-user version of the TC.ini file (under Vista and Server 2008 found in Users\<user name>\appdata\roaming\pi System\Trend Control; under XP found under Documents and Settings\<user name>\ Application Data\PISystem\Trend Control) even if the master TC.ini is not found. If the master TC.ini file exists and can be copied, it will be copied to the per-user directory if a TC.ini file does not exist. Previous versions of this software would not create a per-user TC.ini file if the master file did not exist OSI OSI8 Users with a 16-inch monitor must set their resolution to 1024 X 768 to see the entire property page of the Trend Control. Once a data control is connected to a trend, reordering the traces within that control has no effect. If you wish to reorder traces in a data control that is attached to a trend, you must disconnect the data control and reconnect it before the changes take place. Note that doing this places all traces from the disconnected/reconnected data control at the end of the trace list. An alternate solution is to write VBA code to reorder the traces by using the Traces.Reorder and Traces.MoveX methods.

11 17418OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 Due to the numerous ways a date/time may be formatted, it is possible under unusual circumstances that when sub seconds are shown, that they may not be formatted correctly within the date-time string. This is most likely to occur when time separators used in Excel are different from those specified in the regional settings. When adding an external PI Archive Data Control to a trend created with the wizard, the time range on that data control is unaffected by a time range change made on the wizard dialog. This behavior is by design. Changing the operating system s regional settings while Excel is running may produce unexpected results. The time is not parsed correctly between different regional settings. If the PI Archive Data Control is based on an absolute time range saved in English (American) and is then opened in German, the start and end time format of the standard PI tags may not be translated properly to the new regional settings. For example instead of Dec-6 the date format is interpreted as June-12. When using data from one workbook for a trend on another workbook, you should save the data workbook BEFORE adding the data to the trend. If you do not, the book s data is not found when you save and reload. This is because saving the book changes its name even if you just use book1, it changes to book1.xls. The trend cannot detect a name change on a workbook across saved instances. Immediately after creating a Trend using the Excel Trend Wizard, the context menu of the Trend may take a few seconds to update to contain all options. When modifying a Trend using the Excel Trend Wizard, closing the wizard window using the X button may leave the trend in an unstable state The line weight for dotted lines cannot be changed OSI8 SCR OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 If you rename a worksheet that contains data on a trend, the trend no longer shows that data. The trace must be deleted and then re-added. If a worksheet containing trends is copied, and a new version of the worksheet is pasted into the workbook, the context menus will not be set properly. Instead of this, copy the trend objects one by one from the current sheet to the new sheet using the Trend Control context menu. When turning on markers via the PI Archive Data Control directly (either via automation or the user interface), marker icons show on the trend regardless of the state of the Marker at each data point check box. Changing the DataMarkersVisible property via the Trend Control s automation Property alone may not provide the desired functionality if using the wizard. If you wish the markers to be turned on via automation, use the PI Archive Data Control s Property in addition to the Trend Control s Property. A spreadsheet containing a trend saved in this version does not load correctly in the earlier version of PI DataLink (PI DataLink 2.1). This is due to a problem with Excel. Please use the Delete Trend context menu option (available by right-clicking the trend) to delete an existing trend. If the trend object is deleted manually (in Excel s design mode) and the Wizard is then used to create additional trends, unexpected results may be seen. For a PI trace whose tag name and/or server name is sourced from the worksheet; if the trace is manually renamed in the Wizard, a subsequent change to the referenced cell contents refreshes the trace name to reflect that change. This overwrites any manually entered name. If some trace markers are on while others are off, in order to turn them all on together using the design mode Trend Control>Global>Options>Markers check box, first turn them all off (Clear the grey Markers check box) and save (apply);

12 then go back and change the empty check box to a checkmark. Clicking the Markers check box without the intermediate Apply step does not work OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 When referencing server or tag names from the worksheet, if a change to the worksheet results in a duplicate trace on the trend, the trace is removed from the trend. If subsequently, the change to the worksheet is reversed or changed in a manner that does not produce a duplicate trace name, the trace is re-added at the end of the list. If a list of traces is removed from the wizard and the same traces are re-added (before clicking Finish), they are added to the trace list in the same order in which they were before regardless of the order in which they are re-added. If you wish to re-order them, use the up and down arrow controls. When tabbing around the first (Define the traces) wizard screen: (1) The radio buttons used to select which type of data to add are not included in the tabbing order, (2) The refedit button next to the server combo box (on Data from PI page) is not highlighted when it is selected by tabbing. It appears that nothing is selected, even though it is. If a server is disconnected while a trend's updating status is changed or any analysis features are utilized (such as zoom), the trend may show no data. When the server is reconnected, revert the trend to resume data retrieval. Data markers only show if there is physical room for all of them. If data markers are turned on for a trace that returns a large number of events, you may see only colorblind markers on the trend (three evenly spaced markers). To recoup the data markers, either narrow the time range to reduce the event count or enlarge the trend. The maximum number of data markers is 500; however the apparent maximum may be smaller based on the trend size. When viewing an updating trend containing data from Excel, you may notice that the Excel trace flattens at the end. This line, however, only continues to the current time that was retrieved when the trend was first generated. Updating the Excel Array updates this time. If you disconnect from the network or if the PI server is unavailable at the time when a trend is generated, when the network or server comes back online you must use REVERT to get data on the trend. This is not the case when disconnecting from the server after the trend has been created. When updating a PI DataLink formula on the worksheet that is connected to the trend, if you use the dialog box and press Enter instead of clicking OK, the trend may not update with the new data. When using the copy/paste feature from the context menu, ONLY controls created by the Excel Trend Wizard are copied. For example, if you create a manual Data Control and add it separately, that control is not copied. However it remains linked to the copy from its original position. The Excel Trend Wizard Define Trend dialog has some issues regarding the reordering, renaming and deletion of traces. The recommended practice for working with this dialog is to always save changes by clicking Finish each time the order of the traces changes for some reason. Reasons include moving a trace up or down or deleting a trace. The following specific issues have been observed: (1) Upon renaming a trace, canceling out of the dialog does not return the original trace name, (2) Clicking the Format button after reordering traces may cause the marker check boxes to become out of sync. To avoid this issue, click Finish and go back to format the trend, (3) When adding and deleting a specific trace in the same session, that trace may appear on the trend when exiting the Define Trend dialog (regardless of whether Finish or Cancel is pressed). This typically happens only after traces have been reordered by either moving them around or deleting some (forcing the order to change). If this occurs, go back into the define trend dialog and delete the trace again, (4) If a trace is deleted from the list and subsequently several other traces are added at the same time (e.g. from selecting

13 17414OSI OSI OSI8 multiple rows on a sheet and clicking add), only one of the additional traces may be shown in the list. All of the additional traces are actually added to the trend, however; and after clicking Finish, these additional traces are shown, (5) Reordering a newly added trace (beyond the tenth trace) causes the trace formatting cycle counter to reset. For example, adding a 15th trace to the traces list and immediately moving it upward in the list (prior to clicking the Finish button) ultimately results in the last entry in the list (the fifteenth) inheriting its format from the first trace rather than the fifth trace. Additional traces beyond the fifteenth inherit their formats from the second trace, third trace, and so on; the counter having been erroneously reset. When a trace is removed from the trend and the trend is set for multiple scales, the vertical scale is also removed, so the settings are lost. This is evident when a trace is removed from a trend and another one gets added. If there were special settings for that trace s vertical scale, the new trace has the default settings. Additionally, if a tag name is obtained from a worksheet and subsequently changed, this constitutes a removal and addition of a trace. If string data contained on a sheet contains a numeric value (without any alphabetic characters), the strings are interpreted as errors and the numeric value is interpreted as a number. The value for a string remains the same among data from the worksheet but not necessarily among data from PI. In other words, a trend containing two string tags from PI may not show the same values for identical strings. Additionally, a string from the worksheet may not have the same value as the identical string within a PI tag If the first trace s time range becomes invalid for any reason and you wish to replace it with another trace, use the following steps: (1) Remove the first trace, (2) Click Finish, (3) Go back into the wizard and add the replacement. If these steps are not followed (e.g. if you try to delete and add in the same session), then you may get an invalid time range error when you click Finish OSI OSI OSI8 Using a time for the name of a trace on a worksheet causes problems when trying to add the trace. When loading a worksheet containing a trend with a cell reference for start time, end time, tag or server, if the cell contents change upon the load, a sheet refresh is necessary to update the trend. For example, the start time is from the worksheet and it is set to now()-1. The sheet is saved and opened again the next day. Upon load, the content of that cell is changed. The trend still reflects the value of the cell content when it was saved until an F9 or other sheet refresh (or revert) action is done. Due to refresh issues with Excel, you may find on occasion that when data from the worksheet is added from a sheet that is different from the one on which the trend resides, the trend may appear blank after clicking Finish. Another symptom of this problem is that the context menu does not appear for that trend, even if the traces appear normally. Switching sheets by clicking the sheet tabs to the data sheet and back to the trend sheet resolves this refresh issue. If you change the background color of ToolTips (in the Control Panel) while a trend is loaded, the trend background changes colors. This is because the system fires an erroneous ambient background change event, which the trend was designed to handle. To change the ToolTip background without causing this disturbance, close Excel, change the color, and open Excel again. Copy/Paste functionality may cause anomalies in menu and wizard behavior when pasting multiple trends, which are based on different data controls, onto a single worksheet The line weight can only be adjusted when the line pattern is set to solid line. When any other line pattern is selected, the line weight selector is deactivated.

14 25629 When copying a trend between worksheets with the copy/paste dialog box open, ghost images of the trend(s) on the source sheet may appear. This occurs because the worksheet has not been repainted. When the dialog box is cleared, the worksheet will refresh and appear correctly Changes to TC.ini may not affect displayed settings in some cases. Marker visibility, Trend title visibility, and Line Style may appear by default to be different than specified in the TC.ini file. However, the user s settings are honored; setting the value in the dialog(s) will properly affect the desired setting If cells on a sheet are used to specify a time range for a trend, the start time and end time are checked for validity; a start time occurring later than the end time will produce an error dialog. If this condition is subsequently corrected, the trend legend may display incorrect times. This can be corrected by using the Revert menu command on the trend The Trend Add-in Wizard allows the placement of a new trend onto an existing worksheet. If the worksheet s name includes a space character, an error will be presented and the trend will not be inserted onto the worksheet. To work around this problem, either rename the worksheet to a name not containing any space characters, or place the trend on a worksheet whose name contains no space characters, then copy/paste the trend onto the desired worksheet and delete the original (the Move/Resize option will not allow you to place the trend on a different worksheet.) Beyond the tenth trace added to a trend, the default trace properties (e.g. color, marker style) do not re-cycle properly if the Global TC.ini file does not exist and the user TC.ini does exist. In this case, traces beyond 10 will always default to the same color and style (e.g. a solid black line.) As a workaround for this issue, a user with administrative privileges can copy an existing TC.ini file to the Global file location (PIPC\DAT\). To address this issue in the future, the installation kit for the product containing the Trend Control (e.g., PI DataLink ) should include placement of the Global TC.ini file into PIPC\DAT\ OSI8 SCR OSI OSI8 If the Enable updates checkbox is set for a trend, adding and moving the scrollbar will cause the checkbox to be cleared. There is only a single Enable Update variable to control runtime behavior and design-time configuration. A design change will be required to enhance the product. If the Microsoft Office Language Settings are set to Russian, and the Language for Non-Unicode applications in Control Panel is set to English, on an English Windows system, creating traces on trends based on Excel data may result in not being able to reorder or rename these traces. This is due to the inability to be able to resolve Russian characters within worksheet names in Excel in this configuration. This issue can be worked around by renaming the worksheets with non-russian charsacters, or setting the language for non-unicode applications to Russian. Note that when using the copy/paste feature, only persistent attributes of the trend are copied no run-time changes apply (for example, cursors, zoom, scroll, change scale settings). The menu item strings for File, Edit, Copy, Paste, Open, Save and Close must match the menu item strings in Trend Control. This means that on a German Operating System using a German version of MS Excel, the German version of Trend Control must be used in order for these menu item selections to function properly. Microsoft Excel 2007 may present a Security Warning upon opening a worksheet created with earlier versions of Trend Control. The user will be required to enable the macros in order for the controls to function properly. If new controls are added to an existing worksheet that had been created previously, the macros may need to be re-enabled after the sheet has been saved and re-opened.

15 25631 If a valid cell range is typed into the "Tag Name" field when the "Data From PI" radio is selected, the Wizard interprets this entry as "use the cell contents referenced for the name of the tag," otherwise, use the name provided directly. For example, assume a tag exists on a PI Server called "D20." If this value is entered into the Tag Name field, it will be interpreted as referring to the cell D20 on the worksheet as it is a valid Excel cell expression. The value in the cell D20 will be extracted, and used as the tag name. If the cell is empty, an error dialog will appear. To add further confusion, a worksheet may be in "Row-Column" mode. This can be seen by looking at the column headings - if they are letters, Row- Column mode is not enabled; if they are numerals the mode is enabled. In this case, the upper-left cell is not "A1", it is "R1C1." If the sheet is in this mode, a reference to a tag called "D20" will go to the server, since that text string is not a valid cell on the sheet. However, if a tag exists with the name, for example, "R2C2", this will cause similar indirection since the text is interpreted as a valid cell reference. There are two workarounds to the issue presently - 1) Use the search tool to provide the tag name. This will bypass this interpretation of the reference, or 2) Place the desired tag name in the cell being referred to. For example, if the desired tag name is "D20", place the text "D20" into the cell D20 (if not in Rowcolumn mode). Do similarly for "RxCy" type tag names (where x and y are numerals) for sheets in Row-Column mode OSI OSI OSI OSI OSI8 If the system locale is set to Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, it is possible for the Tag Search dialog to hang at 95% complete during a search. This is due to an issue with a Microsoft Excel control interaction with the PI-SDK s search dialog. If this occurs, the search is actually complete. The workaround is to hit the Abort button and the list of matching tags becomes selectable. If the system locale is set to Chinese, Japanese, or Korean and the tag search is aborted before all matching tags are retrieved, the OK button as well as others may become disabled. This is due to an issue with a Microsoft Excel control interaction with the PI-SDK s search dialog. The workaround is to double-click on a tag to select it. Note that sub second time is displayed on the horizontal time scale, cursors, and ToolTips according to the properties set on the global options and/or horizontal scale options pages. However, if the regional settings are configured to display no seconds, then sub-seconds are not displayed regardless of the property settings. If you change the time on your computer, the time on the trend may become invalid. With an updating trend, the Substituted icon may not appear with subsequent trend updates when the point that was updated precedes the snapshot. This is a limitation of the PI system architecture. Performing the Revert function acquires and presents all appropriate icons Enabling updates on a Trend Control can cause Excel to be unresponsive over time Unknown PI servers are not automatically added to the Known Servers Table (KST) when an unknown PI Server is specified in a cell reference and the Add button is pressed from the trend wizard even with the "Automatically add unknown servers" feature enabled. When help button is pressed for first time in Trend Wizard on Vista or Windows Servers 2008 with UAC enabled, error appears "Cannot find the \PItrendXL.HLP file. Do you want to find this file yourself?". Browsing to the file in PIPC/Help displays the help file this time but error appears again after help button is pressed again. To fix the problem permanently, go into Program Files/Microsoft Office/OfficeX and right click on the Excel.exe and select run as administrator where X is the version of Office installed. Click on help button as usual. Close Excel. On subsequent opening of Excel the normal way, the help appears as expected.

16 Back to Top Technical Support and Resources For technical assistance, contact OSIsoft Technical Support at or The OSIsoft Technical Support website offers additional contact options for customers outside of the United States. When you contact OSIsoft Technical Support, be prepared to provide this information: Product name, version, and build numbers Computer platform (CPU type, operating system, and version number) Time that the difficulty started Log files at that time Details of any environment changes prior to the start of the issue Summary of the issue, including any relevant log files during the time the issue occurred The PI Square community has resources to help you with your technical questions. PI Developers Club program offers specific services to developers and system integrators. OSIsoft, LLC 1600 Alvarado Street San Leandro, CA USA Tel: (01) Fax: (01) Web: PI DataLink by OSIsoft, LLC. All rights ressserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of OSIsoft, LLC. OSIsoft, the OSIsoft logo and logotype, Managed PI, OSIsoft Advanced Services, OSIsoft Cloud Services, OSIsoft Connected Services, PI ACE, PI Advanced Computing Engine, PI AF SDK, PI API, PI Asset Framework, PI Audit Viewer, PI Builder, PI Cloud Connect, PI Connectors, PI Data Archive, PI DataLink, PI DataLink Server, PI Developer s Club, PI Integrator for Business Analytics, PI Interfaces, PI JDBC driver, PI Manual Logger, PI Notifications, PI ODBC, PI OLEDB Enterprise, PI OLEDB Provider, PI OPC HDA Server, PI ProcessBook, PI SDK, PI Server, PI Square, PI System, PI System Access, PI Vision, PI Visualization Suite, PI Web API, PI WebParts, PI Web Services, RLINK, and RtReports are all trademarks of OSIsoft, LLC. All other trademarks or trade names used herein are the property of their respective owners. U.S. GOVERNMENT RIGHTS

17 Use, duplication or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions set forth in the OSIsoft, LLC license agreement and as provided in DFARS , DFARS , FAR , FAR , as applicable. OSIsoft, LLC. Version: Published: 3/10/2017