BlueCielo Meridian Asset Management Module 2016 Administrator's Guide

NEW  Configuring the MicroStation link

A MicroStation link is installed with the Asset Management Module that supports equipment tag extraction. It can use information that exists in drawings to create and manage links between the drawings and tags. The information can reside in MicroStation tags embedded in cells that are inserted into the drawings to represent plant assets. The Asset Management Module can read this information and store it in the Meridian Enterprise vault. The information can then be used to find or create matching tags in the vault. Users can link these tags to the drawing with indirect linking as described in Indirect linking using tag references and the BlueCielo Meridian Asset Management Module User's Guide.

Notes

• Elsewhere in this guide, the term tag refers to equipment tags, not to MicroStation tag entities. In this chapter, be careful to not confuse equipment tags with MicroStation tags. We have tried to make the distinction clear in the text but because the same word is used in both contexts, the result is not perfect.
• This feature works very similar to, but different from, the way Meridian Enterprise synchronizes title block data. This feature is designed for use with equipment tags produced by applications such as MicroStation. Therefore, it is designed to synchronize the data of many MicroStation cells per drawing file. However, unlike title block synchronization, which can synchronize data in both directions, tag synchronization is performed only from the drawings to Meridian Enterprise. The drawing tags are never updated from the Meridian Enterprise properties.

Configuring tag extraction includes specifying the tags within your equipment cells for which you want to extract values. You must also specify the corresponding Meridian Enterprise document property where you want to store the extracted data.

This topic describes how to configure basic tag extraction. That is, one cell per tag, where the tag value alone is the tag name. This is the typical scenario. Additional instructions to configure more complex scenarios are described in the following topics.

Before you begin

Compile a list of the cell names used by your organization as equipment tags in the past and present. For each cell, list the tag names that contain asset numbers. The Meridian Enterprise property where the tag numbers will be stored must already exist and it must be configured as the memo data type.

To configure tag extraction:

1. In Configurator, expand Environment in the configuration tree and select Application Link Settings. The settings for each application link appear in property pages in the right pane.
2. Click the MicroStation tab. The MicroStation link’s settings page appears in the right pane.
3. Click the Edit button to modify the settings.

Tip    To export the settings file to your computer, click the Export button. This can be useful if you would rather edit the file in your favorite text editor. You can then copy your changes to the Clipboard and paste them into Configurator.

4. Locate the section of the settings that begins with [TAGEXTRACTION] and locate the TagCellTypes setting. If the settings do not yet exit, create them at the bottom of the file. The value of the TagCellTypes setting contains the names of all cells that the Asset Management Module will search for tags to extract.
   

Tip    You can type comments in the file by beginning each line with a semicolon (;).

5. Edit the value of TagCellTypes to include the names of all cells that you want to extract. You can delete any unused cell names to simplify editing and increase synchronization performance. The setting should look similar to the following:
   

[TAGEXTRACTION]
TagCellTypes=INS002,INS010,INS014,60VS02

If multiple cell names begin with the same characters and will all use the same settings, you can type a single wildcard pattern to match the names, for example, INS* would be equivalent to specifying the individual cell names in the example above. However, if you want to specify different settings for each cell name, you must list each cell name separately and create a separate settings section for it as described below.

7. For each cell name in TagCellTypes, locate the section in the file with a label that includes the word TAGBLOCK followed by the cell name separated by an underscore, for example, [TAGBLOCK_6VS02] or [TAGBLOCK_INS*]. If one does not yet exist, create it at the bottom of the file.
8. On consecutive lines in each TAGBLOCK section, type settings using the descriptions in the following table.

Following is an example of one complete TAGBLOCK section for a single tag:

[TAGBLOCK_60VS02]
TagProperty=NAME
TagType=Instrument

9. Click OK to save your changes.
10. By default, tag extraction occurs automatically whenever a drawing is saved in MicroStation. This can be disabled by creating a DWORD value named SyncTagsOnSave at the following registry key on the client computers:
    

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\MicroStationLink

Set SyncTagsOnSave to 0 to disable extraction when the drawing is saved, set it to 1 (default) to enable extraction.

11. Test the link thoroughly by extracting each tag as described in the BlueCielo Meridian Asset Management Module User's Guide.

Note    When tag extraction occurs, a Meridian Asset Management Module Client Extension license is claimed.

Following is an example VBScript function for use with the TagProperty or TagType setting.

' Option Compare Text

' args - array of:
' 0: (In) layout name, string
' 1: (In) cell name, string
' 2: (In) array of tag names, strings
' 3: (In) array of tag values, strings
' 4: (Out) tag value, string
' function should return TRUE upon success or FALSE on failure


Function ReadTag(args)
   Dim fRes
    
   fRes = False

   If IsArray(args) Then
      Dim Layout
      Dim Cell
      Dim Names
      Dim Values
        
      Layout = args(0)
      Cell = args(1)
      Names = args(2)
      Values = args(3)
        
      If IsArray(Names) And IsArray(Values) Then
         Dim TagValue
         Dim Count
            
         Count = ubound(Values)
            
         For i = 0 To Count
            TagValue = TagValue + Values(i)
         Next
            
         args(4) = TagValue
         fRes = True
      End If
   End If

   ReadTag = fRes
End Function ' ReadTag