Visualizing PI System Data

Version 2022

Feb 2022
Visualizing PI System Data

OSIsoft, LLC
1600 Alvarado Street
San Leandro, CA 94577

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Table of Contents

PI System Basics ..................................................................................................... 5

1.1 What is a PI System? ..................................................................................... 5
1.2 Building Blocks of the PI System ................................................................. 8

PI Time ....................................................................................................................10
2.1 PI Time Expressions ....................................................................................10
2.2 Rules to Remember .....................................................................................14

Course Simulator ...................................................................................................17

PI VISION ................................................................................................................20
4.1 What is PI Vision ..........................................................................................20
4.2 PI Vision Home Page ...................................................................................21
4.3 Creating a new display ................................................................................24
4.4 Features of PI Vision Displays ....................................................................56

Advanced Features in PI Vision ...........................................................................95

Recap of PI Vision ........................................................................................95
PI Vision Calculations .................................................................................95
Additional features in PI Vision ................................................................104
Managing PI Vision Displays ....................................................................113
Analysing and Comparing Related Events ............................................118

6. PI DataLink: Building Reports ............................................................................134

6.1 PI DataLink Introduction ...........................................................................134
6.2 Finding Data ...............................................................................................136
6.3 Functions Returning Data. ........................................................................139
6.4 Single Value Queries .................................................................................140
6.5 Multiple Value Queries ..............................................................................149
6.6 Element Relative PI DataLink Reports .....................................................158
6.7 Excel Arrays in PI DataLink ......................................................................164
6.8 Units of Measure and Descriptions as Context in Reports ...................166
6.9 More PI DataLink Functions ......................................................................167
6.10 Using Time Filtered Data in a Preventative Maintenance Example ......176
6.11 Filtered Data Using Custom Expressions ...............................................183
6.12 Event-related Features of PI DataLink .....................................................188
6.13 Functions using an Expression................................................................193

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7. Final Exercise ......................................................................................................199

8. OSIsoft Supporting YOU .....................................................................................202

Learning Platform @ learning.osisoft.com .......................................................202
OSIsoft Learning YouTube Channel @ youtube.com/OSIsoftLearning .........203
myosisoft.com and the Customer Portal @ customers.osisoft.com .............206
PI Square – The online PI System Community @ pisquare.osisoft.com .......207
Further Questions? .............................................................................................208

Appendix I: Solutions .................................................................................................................209

2. PI Time ..............................................................................................................209
4. PI Vision ............................................................................................................210
5. Advanced features in PI Vision ......................................................................219
6. PI DataLink .......................................................................................................223

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PI SYSTEM BASICS

1.1 What is a PI System?

Learning Outcomes
After completing this topic, you should be able to:
• Define the components of a PI System.
• Draw a diagram of the architecture of a PI System.

The PI System

The PI System was originally developed by OSIsoft to collect Plant Information from PLC, DCS
and SCADA systems. The PI System collects, stores, and manages time stamped data. This
data may have timestamps in the past, current or future.
Components of a PI System are:
• Computers with a PI Interface collect data (known as points or tags) from a data source.
These interface nodes get data from your data sources and send it to the Data Archive.
This data may be collected from a variety of places, such as:
o the plant, weather stations,
o IT networks,
o location data for trucks,
o telemetry from monitoring systems.
• Data is stored in the Data Archive in such a way as to make user retrieval as efficient as
possible. The data is accessible to users in different ways: directly or via tools providing
context.
• Accessing the data in context is provided by linking the data points to assets defined in
an Asset Framework (AF) system.
• To visualize the data collected and stored, users use tools in the Visualization Suite:
o PI Vision (browser-based graphs and symbols),
o PI Datalink (a Windows based Excel add in),

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This diagram shows the 3 main categories and components of a typical PI System:

Architecture of a PI System

The architecture varies from simple to complex; some customers may have only a single
interface sending data to a single Data Archive. There are many more combinations and
configurations of the PI software components, so make sure to ask your PI System
administrator about how your infrastructure is laid out.
Here is a conceptual diagram as an example:

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

 Quick Check
Having completed this topic, are you able to:
• Define the components of a PI System?
• Draw a diagram of the architecture of a PI System?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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1.2 Building Blocks of the PI System

LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Define the terms of Asset Framework (AF) and its components: elements and attributes.
• Define AF attribute types: static (none), PI Point, point array, formula, string builder,
table lookup and Analysis.

What is an AF Element/Asset?
In Asset Framework, company locations, sites, processes
and each piece of equipment is represented by an
Element. Company Assets may be defined with an AF
Element. The AF encourages organization of assets into a
structure that makes it easier to find information.
A self-explanatory element structure for assets goes a long
way to help users find the data they are seeking. With well-
defined elements showing context for the assets, data can
be located without the user needing to understand the
technical details of each piece of equipment. The AF
element structure assists in promoting a hierarchical and
logical organization of assets.

What is an AF Attribute?

Attributes represent a single property associated with an

asset element. Attributes hold values that can represent:
• static information, such as the diameter of a tank
• a PI point stored in the Data Archive, such as the
current temperature of the tank contents
• formulas
• values linked to tables in relational databases
• values held in internal AF tables
• values derived from AF analytics

Note: All relevant data about an asset is grouped together with AF Attributes on AF Elements.
This allows users to build displays and reports that maintain a complete view of the company’s
assets.

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What is a PI Point?

A PI Point (sometimes referred to as a tag) is a unique storage point for data in the Data
Archive. It is a single point of measurement and has a value with a timestamp, such as a
temperature of 31.2 oC on 2019-Dec-24 23:59.
Point name
Points stored in the Data Archive each have a unique name. It is a common practice to name
the PI Points based on Control Systems point names. Since the point is the name that identifies
the point to users, a consistent point-naming convention should be used that is meaningful to
people in your organization. Knowing the naming convention can be helpful in searching for
points.
Try to determine what the following point may refer to:
M03_E1P1_MOTDRV1202_RUNSTAT
It refers to - Machine3 Enclosure 1 Panel 1 Motor Drive 1202
Run Status.
Is this intuitive? Probably not, unless you have spent time
memorizing the equipment’s naming conventions.
Most of the time, the PI Points themselves are not going to be
easy enough for users to work with; therefore, OSIsoft
recommends developing your Asset Framework hierarchy to
leverage the very “human friendly” nature of AF Attributes on AF
Assets. Building an intuitive AF structure will make end users’
work much easier to accomplish.

Note: The PI Points are also known as PI Tag.

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PI TIME
LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Understand PI time expressions

• Explain the differences between fixed and reference times
• Use time offsets
• Understand the effect of DST on the retrieval of PI point data.

When searching for data in PI you will use a timestamp since most PI data is time series data
and this data has a timestamp associated with it. We can use a special syntax, called PI time, to
specify inputs for timestamps and time intervals in the PI client applications, for example PI
Vision. PI time uses specific abbreviations and rules in building valid time expressions.

2.1 PI Time Expressions

In PI there are two ways to specify time:
Fixed Time: An expression that signifies a specific date and time. Used when you want to
save a view of your PI System data for a specific time in history.
Example: A user is creating a report that investigates an equipment failure event which
occurred on the 15th of April 2020 at 11 am, so the date expression may be written as15-
Apr-2020 11:00:00 AM
Reference Time: An expression that signifies a date and time relative to the current date
and time. This may be used when you want to create a dynamic view of your data, which
can be used to view data in real-time, or re-used on a periodic basis to create periodic
reports.
Example: A user creates a report that summarizes weekly production totals. By using
relative time expressions, the user will be able to re-use this report every week, so define a
start date of “Monday”, meaning start the report from last Monday.

Both Fixed Time and Reference Time can be used with Time Offsets. Time Offsets may be
used alone.

Fixed Time Syntax

A fixed time expression is an expression which includes a date, and optionally a time.
When the time component is omitted, Midnight is assumed and it occurs at the beginning of the
day, not the end.

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Expression Meaning
26-jan-88 12:34 12:34 p.m. on January 26, 1988
25-sep-19 00:00:00 (midnight) on September 25, 2019

The PI System interprets many different formats for fixed time. In the event of an ambiguous
input, the Windows Region and Language settings of the computer where the PI client tool is
installed take precedence.

Note the following:

Expression Region and Language Format Meaning
1/5/2020 English (United States) 00:00:00 (midnight) on January 5th 2020
1/5/2020 Rest of the world 00:00:00 (midnight) on May 1st 2020

Reference Time Syntax

A reference-time abbreviation represents a time relative to the current time.

Abbreviation Meaning Reference time

* Now Current time

t or (T) today 00:00:00 (midnight) of the current day
y or (Y) yesterday 00:00:00 (midnight) of the previous day
Friday
fri 00:00:00 (midnight) on the most recent Friday
(Monday,
(mon,tue…) (00:00:00 (midnight) on the most recent Monday/Tuesday…)
Tuesday…)
May 00:00:00 (midnight) on the current day in May of the current year
may
(January, (00:00:00 (midnight) on the current day in January/February… of
(jan,feb, …)
February…) the current year)
apr-15 april-15 00:00:00 (midnight) on the 15th day of April in the current year
YYYY Year 00:00:00 (midnight) on the current day and month in year YYYY

M-D or M/D In USA

00:00:00 (midnight) on the Dth day of month M in the current year
In the Rest of
D-M, D/M
the world
15 00:00:00 (midnight) on the 15th day of the current month

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Time Offset Syntax

Time Offset
When specifying PI time use specific abbreviations that represent time units. These are used in
constructing Time Offsets as in the table.
Abbreviation Time Unit
s second
m minute
h hour
d day
mo month
y year
w week
Specify the abbreviation, the full-time unit or the plural version of the time unit, such as s,
second, or seconds. Time offset is any of the time units with a valid value and a + or – sign
included, e.g., +8h.
Time offsets can be used alone in a time field or come with a fixed time or reference-time
abbreviation.

Reference Time or Fixed Time and Offset Expression

When included with a reference-time abbreviation or with a fixed time, a time offset adds or
subtracts from the specified time (indicated by either + or -) and a time unit with a value
Expression Meaning
*-1h One hour ago
t+8h 08:00:00 (8:00 a.m.) today
y-8h 16:00:00 (4:00 p.m.) the day before yesterday
mon+14.5h 14:30:00 (2:30 p.m.) last Monday
sat-1m 23:59:00 (11:59 p.m.) last Friday
1-jan-20 – 1d Midnight 31 December 2019

Time Offsets Used Alone

Entered alone in a time field, time offsets specify a time relative to an implied reference time.
The implied reference time depends on the field where you enter the expression:
• For a start time, the reference time is the current clock time.
• For an end time, the reference time is the start time.
• For a single time stamp, the reference time is the current clock time.

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Time field Expression Meaning

Start time -1d One day (24 hours) before the
current clock time
End time +6h Six hours after the start time
End time -30m 30 minutes before the start time
Time stamp -15s 15 seconds before the current
clock time

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2.2 Rules to Remember

Rule 1: You can only include a single time offset in an expression. Including multiple
offsets can lead to unpredictable results. For example, the following time expressions
are not valid:
*+1d+4h
t-1d+12h
Rule 2: To define a time offset you must include a valid value with any time unit. Only for
seconds, minutes, or hours, you can specify a fractional value. You cannot specify
fractional values for other time units.

Rule 3: A fixed timestamp consists of the fields of Year, Month, Day and Time (hours,
minutes and seconds). If any of these fields are not specified in the PI time expression,
the following values will be assumed by default:

• If Time is not specified, then the default value would be Midnight.

• If Day is not specified, then the default value would be Current Day.
• If Month is not specified, then the default value would be Current Month.
• If Year is not specified, then the default value would be Current Year.

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2.2.1 Exercise – PI Time

This solo or group exercise is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you need
assistance during the activity.

Activity Description
Part 1 – Determine the “real” dates and times indicated by the PI Times in the table below:
Timestamp Input Meaning
* - 30m
y + 8h
T
Thu
Tuesday – 2d
18
y-2y

Part 2 – Express the following times in valid PI time expression:

Timestamp Input Meaning
Today at 6:00 AM
Monday at 6:30 am
12 hours ago
The first day this month
The end of the week (Friday morning)
7:00 am yesterday
15 minutes ago
First of March
25th of September 2021

Part 3 – List at least 4 ways you can “PI Abbreviate” 8 am today.

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 Quick Check
Having completed this topic, are you able to:
• Understand PI time expressions?
• Explain the differences between fixed and reference times?
• Use time offsets?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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COURSE SIMULATOR
Ideally this course uses data from your own site for the exercises. As this is not always possible
this manual uses a fictitious manufacturing plant, OSIsoft Plant, for its exercise data. Initially this
simple plant has two production lines; each line has one mixing tank and one storage tank.

The ‘It’s Not Real’ OSIsoft Plant

Each tank has different analogue process variables such as Internal and External Temperatures,
Flow Rate, Pressure and Level; values continuously collected from devices in the Plant.
Other data associated with these tanks such as the manufacturer, model and installation date are
stored in the maintenance sheets available on tables in an SQL Server. The information related
to the material flowing in these tanks is also kept in tables on the plant’s SQL Servers. Despite
the fact that these tables may be available in a relation database, this information cannot be easily
integrated with the historical data stored in the Data Archive. To integrate the time series data
with SQL based data, the Asset Framework with an asset hierarchy is utilised, bringing all the
data and information into one place - the PI System.

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A collection of PI Points has been built in the PI Data Archive for storing the process variable
values along with their timestamps. The plant hierarchy in the PI Asset Framework brings all the
important information and data into one place, as shown below.

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Note: All tank points that have colon ":" belong to the "OSIsoft Plant" AF database; for example
- "...MXTK2:Flow Rate".. All tank points that use dot "." belong to the "OSI Production Facility"
AF database - which is only used for the Final Project; for example "...MXTK2.Flow Rate".

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PI VISION
LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Operational overview of PI Vision

• Look at live data using PI Vision
• Build a basic and complex displays in PI Vision with static and dynamic symbols.
• How to search data
• Work with time ranges
• How to reuse displays and escalate displays
• Configure visual alarms, comparation tables.
• Correlational analyses

Now that you understand the terminology and concepts associated with the PI System, it’s time
to start driving value from our client tools. Let’s demonstrate some of the concepts we discussed
and create a display of live data in PI Vision.

4.1 What is PI Vision

PI Vision is a web browser-based application that lets you retrieve, monitor, and analyze
process information.

PI Vision allows users to:

• Search for and visualize time-series and other PI System data.
• Save displays for later use and further analysis.
• Reuse displays for multiple assets.
• Share displays with other members of a group or anyone with access to PI Vision.

PI Vision is supported by most modern browsers on a wide variety of computers, including

tablets and phones running iOS or Android operating systems.

The main components of a PI Vision installation are:

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1) Clients
Clients are individual PI Vision users accessing PI data. PI Vision is supported by most
modern browsers on a wide variety of devices, including tablets and phones running iOS
or Android operating systems.

2) PI Vision application server

The application server provides the execution environment for PI Vision. The application
server handles all application operations between users (clients) and PI Data Archive
servers, PI AF servers, and Microsoft SQL Server.

3) PI Data Archive server

The PI Data Archive is the heart of the PI System. It provides efficient storage and
archiving of time series data, enabling high performance data retrieval by client software.
PI retrieves PI System data from either PI Data Archive server or the PI AF server.

4) PI AF server
PI Asset Framework (PI AF) is a single repository for asset-centric models, hierarchies,
objects, and equipment. It integrates, contextualizes, refines, references, and further
analyzes data from multiple sources, including one or more PI Data Archive servers.
Together, these metadata and time series data provide a detailed description of
equipment or assets.

4.2 PI Vision Home Page

To start using PI Vision, navigate to the PI Vision application server set up by your
administrator. In a default installation, the address is: https://webServer/PIVision where
webServer is the name of the PI Vision web server, for example https://pisrv01/pivision.
The first page displayed on the web server is the PI Vision homepage. Here you are able to
view the thumbnails of ‘All Displays’ that you can access; displays that you create as well as
those displays your colleagues create and share with others.

Below is a typical home page for PI Vision.

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Number Name Number Name

1 Home 9 Quick display filter
2 Toggle touch-friendly experience 10 Folders
3 Create New Display 11 Display thumbnail
4 PI Vision Messages 12 Shared Display
5 Identity connected 13 Display tags
6 Help 14 Display settings
7 Show private displays 15 Favorite
8 Search display box

Note: Since this course was not though to be done on a laptop-tablet hybrid device, we are not
going deeper in the Toggle touch-friendly experience, but if you are interested, you can consult
the section Touch-sensitive device gestures in the PI Vision User Guide.

4.2.1 Exercise – Exploring the Home page

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Get familiar with the different buttons and functionalities of the Home page.

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Activity Description
Pair each number of the buttons of the PI Vision home page with its functionality.

Functionality Button
Folders let users more easily find displays and provide a place to store officially published
displays. Administrators can create other folders to organize displays. You can select a
specific group of displays to view.
Mark any display as a favorite. Displays marked as a favorite appear in the predefined
favorites group.
Search for displays with particular names, tags or owners.
Open an empty display in the display creator.
Control various facets of a display's visibility, ownership, and interactions. Create multiple
labels for the same display and label as many displays as you wish.
Click to open an existing display.
Identifies the identity that is connected to PI Vision.
If you are working on a laptop-tablet hybrid device such as a touch-sensitive laptop, you will
see this button on the top right corner of the application to enable the Touch mode. Touch
mode is designed to optimize touch experience when using a 2-in-1 hybrid device.
Make the thumbnails of private displays to be showed if we have the needed permissions.
Appears if the display has been tagged.
Takes you to the home page and it is always visible.
Select a specific group of displays to view. You can select:
• All Displays: All public and private displays to which you have access.
• Favorites: Displays that you have marked as favorites (starred displays)
• My Displays: Displays that you have created
• Recent: Displays that you used within the last seven days
When you select one of these groups, PI Vision shows the thumbnails from only that group
and filters the search box to search within only that group of displays.
Shows any error or warning messages in PI Vision.
Takes you to the help guide and you can use it to access videos and give feedback.
Shows if the display has been shared.

4.2.2 Directed activity – Create a Display Folder

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives

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• Create folders to organize better the displays

Activity Description
Imaging you have been hired by the Company “Industrial Plants of The World” to create all the
Displays and reporting for the company. The first thing they recommended you is to be very
organized, so you decided to create a new folder to order all the displays you will be creating.

Approach
Step 1 : On the Home page, click in the create new folder icon.

Step 2 : Create a new folder with your name.

Step 3 : Click on the just created folder. Since you have not created any display yet, the
folder will be empty.

4.3 Creating a new display

To create a new PI Vision display, click on in the Home page. A whole new
display will appear.

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LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Look at live data using PI Vision
• Build a basic display in PI Vision
• Use of PI Vision symbols
• Explain PI Vision components
• Explain the search mechanism
• List the dynamic and static symbols available
• Configure symbols
• Explain how to change the time range of a display
• Explain the options in the Design Mode toolbar

4.3.1 Searching for Data

PI Vision’s Assets pane shows a navigation tree to help you visualize your data hierarchy. You
can use the navigation tree to find assets and their attributes by drilling down through the data
hierarchy.
Let start exploring the hierarchy of the OSIsoft Plant, which is already set up as an AF database
for you. The exploration of the contents of different AF Data Bases can be done using the grey
right pane.
Click on the chevron (arrow) to the right of ‘OSIsoft Plant’ marked with a circle in the next picture
to start inspecting.

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In PI Vision you can also use the Search pane to locate data items in the PI System, such as PI
Points and AF elements and attributes. You can also search for previously saved PI Vision

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displays. Ensure the search is being performed at the PI System level. The filter search query
will attempt to find:
• PI points - Example: VPSD*Flow
• AF elements - Example: Mixing
• AF attributes - Example: temp
• Description of a PI Point - Example: *Tank1 in Production*
• Description of an AF Attribute - Example: *Net Flow*

The PI Vision search engine returns items that start with the search phrase by default and
includes the use of any spaces in the string.
The scope of your search can be limited by drilling down to a specific Data Archive or into a
specific AF Database and its subsequent element tree structure.
PI Vision searches the following fields:
• PI Point/Asset/Attribute Name
• PI Point/Asset/Attribute Description
You can use wildcards such as asterisks (*) when you do not know all the letters in the search
phrase. An asterisk is always assumed at the end of each entered search query. A question
mark (?) can be used when one character is unknown or when only a single character is
different inside the field being searched. A question mark (?) and asterisk (*) can be used in
conjunction based on the contents of the field.

4.3.2 Directed Activity – Search data in PI Vision

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Search for PI Points and AF Attributes in PI Vision

Activity Description
Building a display in PI Vision starts with finding the data items in PI System. As a new
employee you want to get familiar with the hierarchy, the assets and the attributes you will need
to work with.

Approach

Step 1 : Click on .

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Step 2 : Select the AF database named OSIsoft Plant.

Step 3 : Try the following combinations of search queries (for Flow Rate) and see how it
changes the search results
a. Flow
b. Rate
c. F? Rate

Step 4 : Try the following combinations of search queries (for Mixing Tank) and see how it
changes the search results
a. Mixing Tank
b. Tank
c. *tank
d. *Plant
Step 5 : Searching displays is limited to searching Display titles

4.3.3 Display Design

The Display Design bas is in the top of the display creator window and helps with the creation,
modification of the static symbols. It also permits arranging, copying, pasting, etc. all the
symbols in the display (static or dynamics). All the symbols are described below.

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Number Functionality
1 Name of the display. If it is still not saved it will show “Click Save Icon”
2 Edition button.
3 Saving Icon
4 Undo-Redo
5,6,7,8 Cut, Copy, Paste and delete
9 Arrange (Aling, bring forward, send back, distribute…)
10 Turn the grid on/off
11 Do selections
12 Insert a predefined shape (lines, squares, polygons…)
13 Insert Text
14 Insert pictures or Gifs

4.3.4 Directed Activity – The first display

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Create your first PI Vision Display
• Use the Display Design bar

Activity Description
In your new company “Industrial Plants of The World” no one have used PI Vision before and
they want to start by creating all the needed displays for one of the plants, the OSIsoft Plant.
Your fictitious manager wants you create a welcome display to the OSIsoft Plant, not containing
ant data yet. The managers want something like the display shown in the next figure

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Approach

Step 1 : If you are not in the display creation window, Click on .

Step 2 : Right click in any part of the display and select
Format Display. A new menu will open on the right side.

Step 3 : Change the background colour to be black.

Step 4 : Click on the Image icon in the Display Design Bar

and draw a square in the top left corner of the display.

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Step 5 : Click in choose file and navigate to "C:\Class\Images\” and select the file
“industrial-factory.jpg".

Step 6 : Click on the shape button and select the rectangle.

Step 7 : Draw a rectangle in the top left corner. Right click
on the rectangle and select Format shape.

Step 8 : In the menu that has appeared on the right modify the fill
to be transparent and keep the other vales as default.

Step 9 : Click on the text icon and click inside the rectangle you have just drawn. A
new menu will appear in the right.
Step 10 : Enter the text OSIsoft Plant and change the Font Size to
be 36. In this menu you can edit font size, colour, fill, rotation, etc.

Step 11 : Change the size of the square to the text fit inside. At this
point the display should be like this:

Step 12 : Click on the shape button and select the rectangle. Draw a rectangle.
Right click over the rectangle and select “Format shape…”.

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Step 13 : On the right menu, select the Fill to be transparent

and the style to be dashed.

Step 14 : Click again in the shape button and select a line.

Step 15 : Draw a vertical line in the middle of the big square in the bottom of the display.
Holding down Shift while drawing will cause the Line shape to “snap” to the closest 45° angle
and will help you with the drawing.
Step 16 : Right click over the vertical line and select “Format
shape…” Select the style to be dashed.

Step 17 : The result of the steps taken up to here is a display like the one below.

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Step 18 : It is time to save the progress. Click in the save icon and click on save.
Step 19 : Select your folder, the
one you have created in 4.2.2 and
name the display “OSIsoft Plant
Overview <your_initials>”.Then click on
Save.

Step 20 : The first time you save the display, the orange border around the display will
disappear. That means that you are not longer in the edition mode. To continue editing the

display click on the Edit mode icon .

Step 21 : Click on the text icon and click inside the rectangle on the bottom of the
display. In the right contextual menu enter the text “Production Line 1” and change the Font Size
to be 26.

Step 22 : With the text “Production Line 1” selected click on the copy button and then
in the paste one . You can also use “ctrl+c” and “ctrl+v”. Edit the the text to be “Production
Line 2”.
Step 23 : Move the text “Production Line 2” to the other square. You can enable the grid

isung the grid icon to help you with the placement of the text.

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Step 24 : Select both text “Production Line 1” and “Production Line 2”. To select two
different elements in the display, click on the pointer icon , then you can either draw a
selection area containing all the elements you want to include or click on one element and click
on the others with the hitting ctrl key.
Step 25 : Click on the down arrow next to the arrange icon

and select “Align Top”.

Step 26 : Click on the text icon and click somewhere under the “Preoduction Line 1”
text. In the right contextual menu enter the text “Mixing Tank 01” and change the font size to be
20.
Step 27 : Copy and paste the text “Mixing Tank 01” four
times using the Copy and paste icons or the shortcut keys
“ctrl+c” and “ctrl+v”.

Step 28 : Modified the texts to be: Mixing Tank 01,

Storage Tank 01, Mixing Tank 02, Storage Tank 02. You can
do those modifications on the menu on the right for each piece
of text.

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Step 29 : Move the texts “Mixing Tank 01”, “Storage Tank 01”, “Mixing Tank 02”, “Storage
Tank 02” to be in a line under “Production Line 1” and “Production Line 2”, as in the image
below.

Step 30 : Select the texts “Mixing Tank 01”, “Storage Tank 01”, “Mixing Tank 02”, “Storage

Tank 02” and align them to the top using the arrange icon .

Step 31 : Click on
Save. The final result
should be the one
requested by our
fictitious manager.

4.3.5 The nine core

dynamic symbols

PI Vision includes nine core symbols to be used with dynamic data, but other custom
symbols can be programmed as needed. Creating custom symbols is out of the scope of
this training, but if you are interested, you can sign for the training PI Vision Extensibility:
Creating Custom Symbols.
The table below explains PI Vision symbols.

Data Items
Symbol Name Functionality
allowed

Trends show the value of one or more data items over

Trend a time period. Trends are typically used to display time Multiple
series data, though they may also include non-time

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Data Items
Symbol Name Functionality
allowed
series data. When exiting Design mode, you can view
trend cursors, pan across the time range, zoom in and
out and hide traces.
Right click to configure the value scale or remove
traces.

Used to the show data item value, at the end time of

the display. It is shown as a number, time stamp,
Value string, or digital state. Single
Right click to format how the value is displayed or to
add Multi-State.

The table symbol contains columns that include the

name, value, description, and other summary data
about a data item. These summary data values take
Table their intervals from the display's time range as defined Multiple
in the time bar.
Right click to configure table columns.

Vertical
Gauge These three symbols are identical in every way, except
their orientation. The zero and span of the symbol are
Horizontal from the PI point attributes. If the data item is an AF
attribute of formula type, the minimum and maximum Single
Gauge
traits on the attribute are used.
Radial Right click to format the gauge or to add Multi-state.
Gauge

Bar chart symbol compares multiple values through

graphical representation. Bar charts are often used to
compare multiple data sources, where one bar
Bar chart represents one data source. Multiple

Right click to format the bar chart or edit the search

criteria.

An XY Plot shows a correlation between one or more

paired sets of data. On an XY Plot (also called a scatter
XY Plot plot), the X scale shows possible values for one of the Multiple
items in the pair and the Y scale shows the value of the
other item in the pair.

The asset comparison table symbol allows you to

Asset compare measurements from similar types of
Comp. equipment by organizing your data by assets. Each Multiple
Table asset is assigned its own row while columns contain
the asset's selected attributes.

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Dynamic symbols support future data and do not require any special configuration.
When a display range is set into the future, a trace for future data continues to show new
values in a staircase pattern.

4.3.6 Directed Activity – Display to monitor a tank

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Familiarize yourself with the nine core dynamic symbols.
• Represent dynamic data in a Display.

Activity Description
Your manager in “Industrial Plants of The World” is delighted by the job you did with the
“OSIsoft Plant Overview <your_initials>” display. Now, they want to check if the dynamic
symbols can be useful for them. They want you to create a display called “Tank General
Overview <your initials>” containing the following items.

Measurement Display Symbol

Pressure Radial Gauge

Level
Trend
Level_Forecast
Mixing Tank1

External Temperature
Internal Temperature Value
Tank name
Product
Density
Table
Instalation date
Tank Volume
Percentage full Horizontal Gauge

Our fictitious manager created a diagram for us to know what is he/she expecting.

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Approach
Step 32 : Open your web browser to the PI Vision homepage if it is not already open.
Step 33 : Create a new display with
Step 34 : Drill down through the hierarchy in AF Server PISRV1 and database OSIsoft
Plant to determine the assets and their attributes.
Step 35 : Drill down to
Production Area > Production
Line 1 > Mixing Tank1. Select

the Radial Gauge icon

and drag the Pressure
attribute to the display area to
create the radial gauge.

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Step 36 : Right click over the Gauge and select “Format

Gauge …”. A contextual menu will appear on the
right.

Step 37 : Go to the Visibility section. In the Style section, Change the type to Arc. In the
visibility section Change the label to show only Pressure.

Step 38 : Select the Trend icon and drag the Level and Level_Forecast to create a
trend. To select both you can hit the ctrl key while clicking over them.
Step 39 : Right click and choose Configure Trend.

Step 40 : In the Value Scales section, select single scale as

scale type, Autorange of dynamic values as Scale Range
and Outside the plot Area as Scale Labels.

Step 41 : In the Trace Option, select Level_Forecast and

change the colour to be clear blue and the style to be
dashed.

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Step 42 : The result up

to this point should
be

Step 43 : It is time to save the progress. Click in the save icon and click on save.
Step 44 : Select your folder, the one you have created in 4.2.2 and name the display “Tank
General Overview <your initials>”. Then click on Save.
Step 45 : Remember, since the first time you save the display, the orange border around
the display will disappear. That means that you are no longer in the edition mode. To

continue editing the display click on the Edit mode icon .

Step 46 : Select the value icon and drag the External Temperature to create the value.
Step 47 : Right click over the value and click on “Format
Value…”. In the menu that appeared in the right, under
the Style section, select a lighter grey for the text and
under the visibility section change the value to be
External Temperature and uncheck the Timestamp.

Step 48 : Select the External Temperature, copy that and

paste it. Drag and drop the Internal temperature over the
element you have just copied. The value will change
automatically to show the internal temperature with the same
format.

Step 49 : Select the table icon and drag the Product and Density to the display area.

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Step 50 : Right click over the table an select “Configure Table…”.

In the right menu, under the column section unselect the
columns Description, Trend, Minimum and Maximum. To
unselect them, just click over the column name and unmark the
Show Column option. In the Style section select the black and
grey.

Step 51 : Drag and drop the Installation date over the table and check how the attribute is
automatically added to the table. Do the same with the volume.
Step 52 : Change the size of the
columns and order the attributes by
name by clicking in the header of the
name column. The table will look like
the image.

Step 53 : Click on save to save your progress.

Step 54 : Select the horizontal gauge symbol and drag and drop the Percentage Full.
Step 55 : Right click over the Gauge. In the right pane, under the visibility section modify
the Label to be percentage full.
Step 56 : Change sizes and arrange the different symbols included in the display using
what you have learned in directed activity 4.3.4. Remember to click on the pointer icon
and the arrange options . At this point the display should looks like this:

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Step 57 : Click on the value icon and drag and drop the Asset Name to the top of the
display.
Step 58 : Right click and select “Format Value …”. In the right menu under the style section
change the Font size to be 28. Under the Visibility unmark Label, Units and Timestamp
and keep marked Value. We are using this method to include the tank name, instead of
using the text icon in order to that name changing dynamically in future exercises.
Step 59 : If the display is similar to the one in the description of the activity, save your
display for the last time. If not, do the needed modifications or ask your instructor.

4.3.7 Directed Activity – Display to monitor a tank using PI Points

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Represent dynamic data in a Display using PI Points instead of AF attributes.
• Use the PI Points search
• Discover the advantages of using an AF Hierarchy

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Activity Description
Your manager is really happy again with the job you did building the display “Tank General
Overview <your initials>”. Now, they want to check if there is any difference between the
displays created using the AF elements and attributes or PI Points, so they want you to create a
display called “Tank Overview PI Points <your initials>” containing the following symbols.

Measurement PI Point Display Symbol

Pressure VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL1.MXTK1.Pressure Radial Gauge

Mixing Tank1

Level VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL1.MXTK1.Level
VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL1.MXTK1.Level_Foreca Trend
Level_Forecast
st
External VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL1.MXTK1.External
Temperature Temperature Value
Tank name Mixing Tank 1
Product BCS1717
Table
Tank Volume 4321 g/L

Your manager has created this picture for you to know what he/she is waiting to have.

Approach
Step 1 : Open your web browser to the PI Vision homepage if it is not already open.
Step 2 : Create a new display with

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Step 3 : Click on the black arrow next to the home

word in the left pane. That will take you to the menu
where all the AF Databases and PI Data Archives
are. Remember section 1.2. where it is explained the
differences between PI Data Archive and PI AF. The
PI Data Archive stores the historical dynamic data in
value-timestamp pairs and PI AF gives context,
metadata and a hierarchy to those values.

Step 4 : Unmark everything but the PI Data Archive called

PISRV01. Click on the dark arrow next to PISRV01. You
will notice that no attributes or hierarchies are shown,
because we are working with the PI Data Archive.

Step 5 : In the search

box, type
*MXTK1.Pressure.
Select the Radial Gauge

icon and drag and

drop the result to the
display area.

Step 6 : Right click over the Gauge and select “Format Gauge …”. Note that on Label,
under the visibility section there are not as many options as before and they are not as
descriptive.
Step 7 : In the search box, type * MXTK1.Level. There will appear two results. Select the

Trend icon and drag the both results to the display area. Remember you can select
multiple things by hitting the ctrl key while clicking.
Step 8 : As in the previous activity, right click and choose Configure Trend.

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Step 9 : In the Value Scales section, select single scale as

scale type, Autorange of dynamic values as Scale Range
and Outside the plot Area as Scale Labels.

Step 10 : The result up to

this point should be
something like what is
shown in the picture.

Step 11 : It is time to save the progress. Click in the save icon and click on save.
Step 12 : Select your folder and name the display “Tank Overview PI Points <your
initials>”. Then click on Save.

Step 13 : Remember to go back to the Edit mode .

Step 14 : In the search box, type *MXTK1.External*. Select the value icon and drag
the External Temperature to create the value.
Right click over the value and click on “Format Value…”. Under the visibility section,
notice that again the Label options are not as useful as before.

Step 15 : Since the Product and the density of the product that the tank contains are static
attributes, there is no PI Point for them in the Data Archive, so you will need to use the
Text Icon to include them in the Display. So click on the Text Icon , click in the
display area and enter the text: Product. Redice the size to be 16.
Step 16 : Copy and paste the text Product 3 times using the
copy parte icons or ctrl+c and ctrl+v.

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Step 17 : Edit the texts to have “Product”, “BCS1717”, “Density” and “4321 g/L”.
Remember that you can edit the text by right clicking. Place them in a table shape.

Step 18 : Use the arrange options to

place them correctly. Select “Product” and
“BCS1717” and use the option Align Top. Then
Select “Product” and “Density” and Align Left.
Select “Density” and “4321 g/L” and Align Top
and finally, “BCS1717” and “4321 g/L” and Align Left.

Step 19 : Click Text Icon to include the tank name “Mixing Tank 01” in the Display.
Change the font size to be 36.
Step 20 : At this point the display should looks like this:

Step 21 : Save your Display.

Discussion
• What differences did you notice when creating the display using PI Points instead of the
AF hierarchy?

4.3.8 Exercise – Improve the display “OSIsoft Plant Overview”

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This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will coach you if you need assistance during the activity.
Use your own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Use of gauges in different displays.
• Copy and pasting symbols
Activity Description
Your manager in “Industrial Plants of The World” wants to include some measurements in the
“OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>”. Specifically, he/she wants you to include under every
tank name:
Measurement Display Symbol
For all the tanks Pressure Radial Gauge
Percentage full Horizontal gauge

The result they want is like:

Approach
Step 1 : Open the display called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>”. Click on the

Edition Icon .
Step 2 : Insert radial gauges for the pressure for each tank and horizontal gauges for the
percentage full for each tank.

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Step 3 : Align them and save the display.

4.3.9 Graphics Library

PI Vision includes a complete graphics library containing most of the symbols you would need
when building a display. You can open Graphics Library pane by clicking the Graphics Library
icon in the left .
The graphics belong to a wide range of categories, industries, and themes. You can customize
their colour, fill type, and orientation. You can also configure a graphic's multi-state behaviour
and allow it to automatically change colour depending on the state of the associated asset. We
will see this in section 4.4.
The graphics are divided by categories to make them easy to find and they cam be added o any
display by dragging and dropping them.

4.3.10 Directed activity – Add Graphics to your displays

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Use the graphics library.

Activity Description
You show your manager the graphics library and now they want you to include a tank symbol in
the “Tank General Overview <your initials>” display for clarity. He/she also would like you to
include small thermometers next to the temperature as shown in the image.

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Approach

Step 1 : Go to the Home page by clicking on the top left corner.

Step 2 : Go to the folder with your name in the left pane and find the display called “Tank
General Overview <your initials>” and double click on the Thumbnail.

Step 3 : Click on the Edition Icon .

Step 4 : Click on the library icon and go the Tanks Category. They are in alphabetical
order, so Tanks is one of last.
Step 5 : Select one of the tanks.

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Step 6 : Put the tank symbol

over the radial gauge.

Step 7 : Select the Tank symbol, send that

to the back using the arrange button.

Step 8 : Since the value is barely visible, right click over the gauge and change the color
of the Value under the style section.
Step 9 : Go to the Graphics library and look for the Thermometer under the Laboratory
category. Drag and drop it in the display.
Step 10 : Make the thermometer smaller and put it next to the
external temperature. Copy and paste the symbol and put it next to
the Internal Temperature.

Step 11 : Click on save.

4.3.11 Time bar

The time bar control at the bottom of the display workspace shows the start and end time for all
symbols on your display. The duration of the display time range appears in the space between
the start and end times and is initially set to 8 hours. If the end time for the display time range is
set to Now (*), symbols on the display will dynamically update as information from their data
items changes.

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1. Start time
2. Revert display (and any trends) to original time configuration
3. Arrows shift the time range backwards or forwards
4. Duration button
5. Now button to return to current time
6. End time

The time bar control accepts valid PI System and Windows times and launches an error
message in the event you enter an unsupported time format.

4.3.12 Directed activity – Modify the time bar duration

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Use the timebar and the PI Time.

Activity Description
Someone told in the Company “Industrial Plants of The World”, told your manager about the PI
Vision Timebar. He/she wants you to get familiar with that timebar in case thy need to explore
the data of a particular time.
Approach
Step 1 : Open the “Tank General Overview <your initials>” display if it is not already open.

To open that display, go to the Home page by clicking on the top left corner. Go
to the folder with your name in the left pane and find the display called “Tank General Overview
<your initials>”. Bouble click on the Thumbnail.
Step 2 : Click on the start
time. As soon as you click on it,
the timestamp will change to “*-
8h”. This means is a relative
time.

Step 3 : Modify the Start Time to be “*-3h”. You will notice that the data contained in the
trend and the duration has changed

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Step 4 : Click on the duration button and select 1h. meaning 1 hour and observe how the
tren containing the level change.

Step 5 : Click on the arrow next to the duration button and observe how the start time, the
end time and the trend changes. These buttons move back and forward the showed data in 1
hour interval.

Step 6 : Click on the now button and the check the end time and the start time updates
every 5 seconds to show the current data, for all the values, because the end time has changed
automatically to “*”, which means “now”.

Step 7 : Change the End Time to be “*+15m”. You will see that the Level Forecast in the
trend is showing some data in the future. Notice that PI Vision is showing future data as it is
doing with the historical data.

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Step 8 : Finally, click on the Revert display button to return to the original status.

4.3.13 Exercise – Monitoring all vital measurement

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will coach you if you need assistance during the activity.
Use your own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Search for data in PI Vision.
• Add symbols to a display in bulk.
Activity Description
Your manager in “Industrial Plants of The World” is interested in building a PI Vision display that
shows all the vital measurements of the four tanks of OSIsoft plant in one place, for the past 4
hours until the next 15 minutes.
Approach
Step 1 : Build a PI Vision display including the following symbols for the key
measurements of each of the four tanks:

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Measurement Display Symbol

For both
Internal and external temperatures A single Trend
Mixing Tank1
and
Products Table
Storage Tank1
Asset Names Values

Production Area Asset Name Values

Production Lines Asset Names Values

Step 1 : Repeat the procedure for Production Line2

Step 2 : Add shapes and images to complete the display (perform a quick Google search
to find some images if needed)
Step 3 : Change the start and end time of the display to the desired values mentioned
above.
Step 4 : Save your display as Production Area Dashboard <your initials>
An example of what the display might look like is shown below. There are many possible
solutions – yours does not have to mirror it!

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 Quick Check of section 4.3

Having completed this topic, are you able to:

• Search for data in PI Vision?

• Add symbols to a display?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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Keyboard shortcuts

PI Vision lets you use several keyboard shortcuts to accomplish your tasks faster.

Some useful shortcuts:

Press Action
CTRL + C Copy an object
CTRL + V Paste an object
CTRL + X Cut an object
DELETE or BACKSPACE Delete an object
Arrow keys Move an object
CTRL + Click Select multiple objects
CTRL + A Select all objects
SHIFT + Drag Resize an object while maintaining its proportions
CTRL + Z Undo an action
CTRL + Y Redo an action
CTRL + S Save a display

4.4 Features of PI Vision Displays

Now that the basic functionalities are clear, and you were able to create some displays it is time
get advantage of some of the useful features in PI Vision.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
• How to reuse displays using asset switching
• Configure visual alarms using Multi-states
• Displays scalability and collection
• Compare important assets using assets comparation tables and bar charts
• Manage time contexts in trends
• Correlational analyses using XY plots

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4.4.1 Reusing Displays for Multiple Assets

PI Vision automatically finds and shows all the assets that are related to the existing assets in a
display. You can switch to these related assets to reuse displays. These related assets are
assets that are built upon a common template.

Swapping the related assets is achieved by

choosing the Switch Asset drop-down list

and choosing a related

asset from the list.

To configure which assets, appear in the asset list and

other context settings, click Configure asset context
switching. This will be examined in a later exercise .

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4.4.2 Directed Activity – Reusing displays

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Learn to reuse displays.

Activity Description
Your manager is totally pleased by the “Tank General Overview <your initials>” display. All the
data is clear for the Mixing Tank 01, and the tank operators find it useful. Now your fictitious
manager wants you to replicate the display for the rest of the tanks, but you tell him/her that
there is no need thanks to the asset switching, but you need to get familiar with that.

Approach

Step 1 : Go to the Home page by clicking on the top left corner.

Step 2 : Go to the folder with your name in the left pane and find the display called “Tank
General Overview <your initials>” and double click on the Thumbnail.
Step 3 : Have a look into the asset switching
menu and check that shows Mixing Tank1.

Step 4 : Click on the arrow and switch

between the tanks. Check that the values
displayed of temperature, pressure, level…
change when changing the Tank. Notice that,
since we added the name of the tank as an
AF attribute, it will change too.

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Step 5 : Click on the gear next to switch asset. A

menu will appear on the right side.

Step 6 : On the right menu select, under the “Configure

Context Switching” section select “Show search results” and
uncheck “Show Assets paths”. Under the “Search Criteria
section”, modify the Search Root to be “Production Area” and
mark “Return All Descendants” (otherwise PI Vision will only
browse the direct child of Production Area, which is Production
Line 1 and 2, and it will not find the tanks). Modify also the “Asset
Type” by selecting “Generic Tank Template” in the drop-down
menu.

Step 7 : After doing the changes in the “Configure

Context Switching” menu, click anywhere outside the menu for
it to close. If you look at the name of the display, there should
be an asterisk next to the display name, indicating that some
changes need to be saved. Click on the saving icon.

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Step 8 : Check that the tanks in the asset

switching menu are not showing the path.

Discussion
• Why is the Context switching useful?
• What is needed to use this asset switching feature?
• Can we use this asset switching feature if the data displayed is coming from PI Points?

4.4.3 Multi-states

Multi-states behaviour allows objects on the display to alter their colour based on dynamic data
values. Specific colours are assigned to ranges of values, corresponding to process states. When
the value of a multi-state object enters the assigned range, its colour will alter to indicate a change
of state. Many display objects can be configured as multi-state symbols - text, graphics, values,
gauges.

To add Multi-state behaviour to a Value or Gauge symbol,

right-click the symbol and select Add Multi-State. The
attribute inside your symbol will now act as a trigger that will
be associated with the multi-state behaviour. If desired, the
active attribute can be removed and replaced with a different
attribute (example, your level gauge can have a multi-state
based on whether a valve is open or closed).
To configure multi-state behaviour, right-click on the object
and select Configure Multi-State. To trigger the multi-state
with an alternate data item, find the item in the search results
and drag it inside the top area of the Multi-State pane.

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By default, the Multi-State pane contains five regular states, each

assigned a different colour. The Bad data state indicates when your
value is either out of range or contains no data. The Bad data state can
only be configured by a PI administrator, but any user can change its
colour. To modify the colour of any state, click on it to open the colour
palette. In the colour palette, you can also select Blink to call attention
to the symbol. You can change the maximum value for any state in the
value field. To add a new state, enter a maximum value in the empty
top field and click Add. To remove a state, click X next to it.
To uncouple the attribute from the multi-state, click on the trash can
icon at the top of the Multi-State pane .

Notice that you cannot change the Multi-State limits for

Mixing Tank 1|Pressure

If the AF attribute has assigned Limits, then multi-state will use the
limits defined in AF and the user will not be able to change them. The
user will only be able to change the colors associated with each state.
Pressure has been configured with AF Limits which are child attributes
with the corresponding limits
property:

4.4.4 Directed Activity – Add Multi-States to a gauge

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

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Objectives
• Add Multi-States to the display
• Multi-State Behaviour

Activity Description
Your manager loved the dashboard you did that shows the temperature and the information
about a tank, and she/he wants you to add a Vertical Gauge with the Pressure that changes its
color when reaching the different levels of pressure like Hi or Low.Thea are expecting
something like this:

Approach
Step 1 : If the display “Tank General Overview <your initials>” is not open, please open it
by going to the Home page (clicking on the top left corner), going to the folder with
your name in the left pane and find the display called “Tank General Overview <your
initials>” and double click on the Thumbnail. Click on the edition icon .
Step 2 : Switch the asset to be Mixing Tank1.
Step 3 : If the search and asset navigation pane is not open on the left
side, click on the cube under the Home Page icon.

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Step 4 : Select the AF database named OSIsoft Plant if it is not

already selected.

Step 5 : Drill down to Mixing Tank1. Select the Vertical Gauge icon and drag the Pressure
to the display area.

Step 6 : Right click over the Vertical Gauge and select Format Gauge. Under Visibility
change the label to show only Pressure.

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Step 7 : Right click again over the Vertical Gauge and select
Add Multi-State. On the right pane click on the cyan color next
to levels to modify them as in the picture.

Step 8 : Save the display and check that the vertical gauge changes its colour if you
switch the assets.

4.4.5 Directed Activity – Graphics and Multi-State Behaviour in PI Vision

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Add Graphics to the PI Vision display
• Add Multi-State behaviour

Activity Description

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Since adding visual alarms with multi states, you ask your managers if they would like to have
the thermometers next to the temperature changing the color depending on the temperature.
They think it is a great idea and ask you to do it. The result should look like:

Approach
Step 1 : If the display “Tank General Overview <your initials>” is not open in the edition
mode, please open it by going to the Home page (clicking on the top left corner), going to
the folder with your name in the left pane and find the display called “Tank General Overview
<your initials>” and double click on the Thumbnail. Click on the edition icon .
Step 2 : Right click over the thermometer icon text to the
Internal temperature. Select “Configure Multi-State…”. A
new pane will show up on the right side

Step 3 : Navigate back to the Asset pane . If you are not seeing the Mixing Tank 1
attributes, drill down to it and find the internal temperature. Drag and drop the internal
temperature to the right menu.

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Step 4 : Click on the colors to modify them as in the picture

Step 5 : Do the same for the thermometer next to externa temperature, but this time drag
and drop the external temperature.
Step 6 : Click on save.

4.4.6 Collections

Collections allow you to find and see all assets of the same type on the current display. With
collections, you can choose one or more data symbols and automatically find and view their
related assets and attributes on the same display, without having to search for each asset
separately.

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If, for example, there are ten tanks in one plant based on the same PI AF template. You can
view the attributes of tank 1 and then convert them into a collection that shows those attributes
for all ten tanks at the same time.
By changing the collection search criteria, you can then customize your collection to see only
those assets whose parameters fall within a desired range or which are in a specific state. The
collection will update automatically as the parameters or state of the asset changes.

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4.4.7 Directed Activity – PI Vision Collections

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Create a Collection

Activity Description
The Production Area operators would love to see some important tank information in the same
display, so they can have a general idea about how things are going. They know that so many
attributes are going to be involved for so many tanks, so they think is going to be a difficult task.
You have recently learnt about collection, so you let them know that they no need to worry and
you will handle it. They are expecting something like:

Approach
Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and create a new display with
.
Step 2 : Drill down through the hierarchy in the database OSIsoft Plant to find the Mixing
Tank 1.

Step 3 : Select the Value symbol and drag and drop the Asset name to the display.

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Step 4 : Right click over the asset name and select Format
Value. Change the font size to be 14 and remove everything from
the visibility section but the Value.

Step 5 : Copy and paste the text “Mixing Tank1”.

Step 6 : Drag and drop over the copied text the asset location. If you do it correctly, when
you put the mouse over Mixing Tank1, a green square with the name of the attribute will
appear. Before appearing the name of the attribute, you will see the value symbol.

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Step 7 : With the Value symbol still selected, drag and drop the
internal temperature. Right click over the value and select Format Value.
Increase the Font Size to be 14. In the Visibility section unmark the
timestamp and change the label to be Internal Temperature.

Step 8 : Do the same with the external

temperature.

Step 9 : Go to the graphic library

and select one of the tank

symbols and drag and drop it into
the display.

Step 10 : Go back to the asset browsing pane by clicking the cube icon . Click on the
radial gauge Symbol and drag and drop the flow rate over the tank symbol.
Step 11 : Right click over the radial gauge and select Format Gauge. Under the visibility
section select the label to be Flow Rate.

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Step 12 : Right click again over the gauge symbol and select “Add
Multistate”. Remove the values 200 and 100 by clicking on the x
next to them and change the colours to be like in the image.

Step 13 : Time to save your progress. Save the display in your

folder and name it “All Tanks <your initials>”. Remember to click in the edition mode icon to
continue editing.
Step 14 : Arrange all the symbols. Select the
text and values and align them to the left.
You should have at this point something like
this.

Step 15 : Select all the symbols, do right

click and “Convert to Collection...”

Step 16 : Resize the collection canvas so the collection covers as much area as possible.
Step 17 : Right click on the new collection and
choose Edit Collection Criteria… Expand Search
Root and enter Production Area; select the
Return All Descendants checkbox.

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Step 18 : Click on refresh. You should be seeing all the tanks each one with its values as
requested.
Step 19 : Add the title Production Area Tanks using the Text Icon. Increase the size to 36.
Step 20 : At this point you should have something like the image of the activity description.
Click on save.
Discussion

• Can we create a collection using PI Point instead of AF attributes?

• What do we need to create a collection?
• If you performed exercise 4.3.8, what method to include all the information about the
tanks would be better in scalation terms?

4.4.8 Directed Activity – Modify and filter a Collection

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Modify collections
• Filter the showed values

Activity Description
The Production Area operators are so thankful for the display “All Tanks <your initials>”. The
have been using it for a while and they feel the display can be improved by including a vertical
gauge to show the pressure and change the colour depending on it. They are also interested in
seeing only tanks with a flow rate over 50 L/min, because smaller flows means that the tank is
not active. They are expecting something like:

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Approach
Step 1 : If it is not already open, open All Tanks <your initials>.
Step 2 : If you ar not in the edition mode, click on the edition icon.
Step 3 : Right click over the collection area and select modify collection. You will see only
the values for one of the tanks.

Step 4 : Select the vertical gauge symbol and drill down into the hierarchy to the
Mixing Tank1. Then drag and drop the pressure.
Step 5 : Resize the vertical gauge to fit the rest and right click over it. Select Format
gauge and change the label to be Pressure.
Step 6 : Right click again over the vertical gauge and select “Add
Multistate…”. Modify the colours to fit the image.

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Step 7 : Click in the small door on the top right corner of the collection area.

Step 8 : Resize the collection canvas to see all the tanks and click on save.
Step 9 : Right click on the collection area and select “Edit Collection Criteria…”
Step 10 : In the right pane, expand the asset type and click on
the + symbol.

Step 11 : Under Asset Attribute select Flow rate, then select

“>” and write “50”.

Step 12 : Click on refresh. Now you should be seeing only the tanks wit a flow rate over 50
L/min.
Step 13 : Click on Save.

4.4.9 Asset comparation tables

Use an asset comparison table to compare measurements and other process information by
organizing data by assets. Each asset has its own row. To include them in a display, use .

Each column contains the asset's selected attributes or asset-based calculations. If an attribute
stores a URL, then the cell becomes an active hyperlink, indicated by .

A dynamic search criteria can be added to an asset comparison table to automatically find and
show data from similar assets or asset-based calculations inside one table.

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4.4.10 Directed activity – Create an asset comparation table

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Create an asset comparation table
• Use the search criteria in the table
• Add multi-state in an asset comparation table

Activity Description
Your manager in “Industrial Plants of The World” is glad about your progress using PI Vision.
He/she was expecting you to need weeks to prepare all the displays you have already created
in some hours. Your manager now remembers that welcome display to the OSIsoft Plant, you
created called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your_initials>” that did not contain data. He/she wants
you to add a table to that display with the following information for all the tanks: Name of the
tank (asset name), asset location, External Temperature, and Internal Temperature. He/she
also wonders if any visual alarm could be included for the temperatures. They are expecting
something like:

Approach
Step 1 : Open the called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>” display. To do that go to

the Home page by clicking on the top left corner. Go to the folder with your name in the left

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pane and find the display called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>” and double click on the

Thumbnail. Click on the Edition Icon .

Step 2 : Select the asset comparation
symbol . Drill down in the Production area
hierarchy to the Mixing Tank1. Select “Asset
Location” and drag and drop them in the display
area.

Step 3 : Drag and drop over the table the

external and the internal temperature. Increase
the size of the table area to see the whole table.
In crease also the width of the columns to see the
whole header.

Step 4 : Right click on the table and select

“Configure Table…”. A menu will appear in the right. In the
Column section you can add as many attributes as you want,
but you have already in the table what you were requested.
Click on the External temperature and click in show units. Do
the same for the Internal Temperature.

Step 5 : In the stile section select the grey and black

table.

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Step 6 : Right click on the table area again and select “Add
Dynamic Search Criteria…”. In the menu expand the Search root
section and modify it to be “Production Area”. Check the “Return
All Descendants” box.

Step 7 : Confirm under Asset Type that the “Generic Tank

Template” is selected.

Step 8 : Click on refresh. Now you

should be able to see the information for
all the tanks. If not, increase the area of
the table.

Step 9 : Right click again on the table area and select “Add
Multistate …” In the right pane select the External Temperature and
check the box “Enable Multistate” and modify the multistate colours as
you wish.

Step 10 : Do the same for the internal temperature (check the box
“Enable Multistate” and modify the multistate colours as you wish).

Step 11 : If you did is correctly,

the table should look like this but with
different colours.

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Step 12 : Click on save.

4.4.11 Exercise – Create a dynamic dashboard to Monitor the Tank temperature

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you need
assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Create a PI Vision dashboard using dynamic symbols.
• Use the collection feature

Activity Description
The Production Area operators love the finished display “All Tanks <your initials>” but now they
have a new request for you. The operators would like to see only tanks that are overheated at
any given time (Internal Temperature > 150°C). They are expecting something like:

Approach
Step 1 : Build a PI Vision display including the following symbols From Production Line2,
Mixing Tank2, utilizing the Collection symbol:
Collection

Measurement Display Symbol

Asset Name Value

Tank Graphic

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Value (Multi-State Use default

External Temperature
values but change colours)
Internal Temperature Gauge
Internal Temperature
Trend
External Temperature

Step 2 : Select all components and Convert to Collection

Step 3 : Edit collection criteria → Search Root, select Return All Descendants, and Asset
Type.
Step 4 : Edit Collection Criteria to only show overheated tanks (Internal Temperature >
150°C), add an Asset Attribute to the Asset Type (Generic Tank Template). (If not data displays,
change the greater than symbol (>) to the not equal to symbol ( ).)
a. How many tanks were overheated at 8am today?
_____________
b. How many tanks were overheated at noon yesterday?
_____________

Step 5 : Save your display as Tank Temperature Dashboard <your initials>

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4.4.12 Bar Charts

The bar charts are meant to compare

multiple values through graphical
representation. Bar charts are often used
to compare multiple data sources, where
one bar represents one data asset.

To add a bar chart to a display, select the

bar chart symbol from the Symbol
Gallery and then drag a data item from the
search results onto the display. The image
shows a sample bar chart.

Hover your mouse over each bar to see the label, value, units, and time for the data source
associated with that bar. When you resize the chart, the bars and the spaces between them
adjust automatically.

The bar chart does not require configuration, but you can use the options available in
the Configuration pane to customize the chart. The default orientation is vertical, but you can
change it to be horizontal.

Scale: Data values on a bar chart appear within a range of values that is referred to as the
scale. The scale indicates the highest high and lowest low values of the data items. The scale
defaults to the maximum and minimum values of the combined database settings. At each scale
value, a vertical grid line extends across the plot area.

Multi-state: When you enable multi-state, there are five (5) equally spaced ranges for numeric
values. The range of numeric values for a multi-state chart defaults to the same numeric range
as the value scale. You can use the options available in the Multi-state Configuration pane to
customize the chart. The display author can select whether to apply the multi-state definition to
the bars or to define colored bands on the background of the bar chart.

4.4.13 Directed activity – Add a bar chart to a display

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Create an asset comparation table

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• Use the search criteria in the table

• Add multi-state in an asset comparation table

Activity Description
Your manager in “Industrial Plants of The World” is glad about your progress using PI Vision.
The look of the display “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your_initials>” after adding the table was
impressive to your manager and he/she wants you to add a barchart containing the flow trate of
the different tanks next to the table. They are expecting something like:

Approach
Step 1 : Open the called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>” display. To do that go to

the Home page by clicking on the top left corner. Go to the folder with your name in the left
pane and find the display called “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>” and double click on the

Thumbnail. Click on the Edition Icon .

Step 2 : If the asset browsing pane is not open, click on the cube icon .

Step 3 : Select the bar chart symbol . Drill down in the Production area hierarchy to the
Mixing Tank1. Select “Flow rate” and drag and drop them in the display area. Resize the bar
chart to fit in the empty space, you may want to reduce the picture of the plant as well.

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Step 4 : Right click on the bar chart. Select “Format Bar

chart...”. Select the horizontal orientation and the plain grid under
the Style section.

Step 5 : Under the visibility section uncheck Value and under

the bar section Select the Bar label to be Mixing Tank1.

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Step 6 : Right click on the bar chart and select “Add

Dynamic Search Criteria…”. On the right menu that appeared,
modify the Search root to be “Production Area” and check the
return all descendant option. Click on refresh.

Step 7 : Resize the bar chart and click on save.

4.4.14 Multiple Time Context Trends

The Start and End Time of a trend can be configured for all the trends individually. For each
trend there are three options:
• Display time range
Set the trend time range to what is configured for the overall display. Trends configured
with the Display time range option update when you change the display time.
Conversely, changing the trend's time range by panning or zooming the trend will also
update the display time.
• Duration and Offset
Set the time range for the data displayed in the trend and the offset from the overall
display's end time. Trends configured with the Duration and Offset option update when
you change the display time. Updating the time range for a trend configured with
the Duration and Offset option by panning or zooming the trend detaches it from the
display's time.
• Use custom time range
Set a custom start time and end time for the trend. Relative PI Time is also acceptable.
Trends configured with the Use custom time range option do not update when you
change the display time.

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4.4.15 Directed activity - Monitoring assets in different Time with Trends

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time.

Objectives
• Lean how to use multiple time context trends.

Activity Description
The Production Area workers like to compare the temperature of the tanks in the same period of
time from yesterday and today. They know they can use the time bar to see the data from
different periods, but it would be really useful if they could see the data for the same period of
the yesterday and today at first sight. Having a trend with all the data of the last 48 hours would
be helpful too. They are expecting something like:

Approach
Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and create a new display with
.

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Step 2 : Click on the Text Icon and enter the text “Temperature – Comparation by
time”. Increase the font size to 24.

Step 3 : Select the Trend symbol . Drill down through the hierarchy in the database
OSIsoft Plant to find the Mixing Tank 1. Drag and drop the Internal and external
temperature to the display.
Step 4 : Copy and paste
the trend symbol twice.
Resize and arrange the
tree trends until you have
something as in the
image. Remember you
can arrange them using
the arrange icon All
of them are showing the
same time context yet.
Step 5 : Save the display
as “Tank Temperature – Comparation by time <your_initials>”. Click on the Editing icon
to continue editing.
Step 6 : Right click on the top right trend and select
“Configure trend”. Under the Trend option section check the
Title box and write “Yesterday’s temperature”. Under the
time range section for start and end times select “Duration
and offset”, fill the duration box to be 8 hours and the Offset
before end time to be 1 day.

Step 7 : Right click in the bottom trend and select “Configure

trend”. Under the Trend option section check the Title box
and write “48h temperature”. Under the time range section
for start and end times select “Use custom time range”. Fill
the start box to be “*-48h” and the End box to be “*”.

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Step 8 : Right click on the top left trend. Right click in the bottom trend and select
“Configure trend”. Under the Trend option section check the Title box and write “Today’s
temperature”.
Step 9 : You should have something like the display required, so click on save.
Step 10 : Turn off the display edition by clicking on the edit icon.
Step 11 : Click on the trends to create bars and check specific values in specific times,

4.4.16 Exercise – Displaying trends with different times

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you need
assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Create trends with different time ranges
Activity Description
Your manager loved the display you built with multiple times for the temperature, and he/she
thinks it is a good idea to do something similar with the flow rate. He/she ask you to display an
8-hour trend, a 24-hour trend and a 7-day trend on the same display, to have something like
this:

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Approach
Step 1 : Create a display called “Tank Flow Rate – Comparation by time <your_initials>”.
Step 2 : Create the title “Flow rate – Comparation by time”.
Step 3 : Select the trend symbol, then a data point and drag on to the display area. If the
time range down the bottom of the display is 8h this will be your 8-hour trend. If not, then set the
time range to 8h.
Step 4 : Drag the same point on the display in another trend. Right click the trend and
select Configure Trend option.
Step 5 : Open up Time Range and select Duration and Offset. Make the Duration 24 hour
and offset 0. This will give a trend with the same end time as the previous trend but with a start
time 24 hours previously.
Step 6 : Create another trend, this time with the start 7 days previous.

Symbol Enhancements
• Outside Scales on Trend: Display the Y-axis value scale outside of the trend plot area to
improve data visibility.
• Configurable Grid Style on Trend: Use two additional grid styles for blank grid and
horizontal/vertical gridlines.

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• Data Markers on Trend: Use newly added trace styles to see data markers for recorded
values on your trend and configure the marker visibility and shape for each trace.

4.4.17 XY Plots

The XY plot correlates one or more X-axis data sources with one or more Y-axis data sources.
On an XY plot, each axis shows possible values from their respective data sources. The plot
matches recorded values from the X-axis data source with recorded values from the Y-axis data
source and marks each matched pair with a data point. For example, the following image shows
a basic XY plot.

The example shows 10-minute intervals of two data items, A and B, for the last hour. Item A had
12 recorded values; item B had 16 recorded values. The number of plotted data points equals
the number of pairs. Since A had fewer recorded values, the plot shows only 12 data
points. PI Vision ignores the extra recorded values from point B. You can configure the method
to pair values.

Correlation measures the strength of the relationship between two variables. The plot indicates
correlation by the spread of the data points around a fitted straight line (for example, a straight
line that indicates the trend of the data). In general, the closer the points are to the fitted line, the
stronger the correlation. The following plot shows perfectly correlated data.

4.4.18 Directed activity – Analyzing correlation between assets

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or have a go yourself.

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Objectives
• Create a PI Vision XY Plot.
Activity Description
You listen the analysis team in “Industrial Plants of The World” talking about a possible
correlation between Flow and Pressure in the tanks and between Pressure and Internal
temperature. You anticipate your manager will request you a display to analyze that for the
tanks, so you decide to start working on that and you think the display should be like this:

Approach

Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and create a new display with
.

Step 2 : Click on the Text Icon and enter the text “Tank Attribute Correlation
Analysis”. Increase the font size to 24.

Step 3 : Select the XY plot symbol .

Step 4 : Drill down through the hierarchy in the database OSIsoft Plant to find the Mixing
Tank 1.

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Step 5 : Select the Flow rate and the Pressure while pressing CTRL (remember that to
select two attributes at the same time you only need to press CTRL while clicking over
them).
Step 6 : Drag and drop the Flow
rate and the Pressure to the
display. Plot may look like the
picture.

Step 7 : Based on your observations, you see a relationship between flowrate and
pressure of the mixing tank. Add a Regression Line and Correlation Coefficient. Right
click on the XY and select Configure XY Plot.
Step 8 : On the right menu expand the Format section.
Step 9 : Select Regression Line and Correlation Coefficient.

Step 10 : Your plot may look

something like the picture. You
are pleased with your initial plot
and the correlation between the
attributes, as the closer to 1 the
Correlation Coefficient, the
better the correlation.

Step 11 : Click on save and name your display “Tank Attribute Correlation Analysis <your
initials>”. To continue editing click on the edit icon (the ruler and the pencil).

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Step 12 : Check if the the XY plot symbol is selected, if not, select it .

Step 13 : Select the Flow rate and the Internal Temperature while pressing CTRL.
Step 14 : Drag and drop the Flow rate and the internal temperature to the display. This
time you don’t see any correlation so there is no need add a regression line.
Step 15 : Save the display.

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4.4.19 Exercise - Monitoring the Mixing Tanks’ Key Performance Indicators

This activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic area. Your

instructor will help you if you need assistance during the activity. Use your
own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Create a PI Vision dashboard using dynamic symbols.
• Add Multi-State behaviour to symbols
• Reuse the PI Vision dashboard for multiple Assets
Activity Description
Your manager would like you to create another display to view details of each tank in your
Production Area. With your large knowledge in PI Vision, you know that we don’t need to create
a new display for each Tank. We can easily use the Asset Swap functionality so that we only
need to build one display and then re-use it for each tank. The information included in the
display should be the following.

Measurement Display Symbol

Asset Name Value

Asset Location Value
Internal Temperature Value (Multi-State)
External Temperature Value (Multi-State)
Installation Date Value
Mixing Tank1

Internal Temperature
Table
External Temperature
Level • Trend
Level_Forecast • XY Plot (10-minute interval)
Percentage Full Horizontal Gauge (Multi-State)
Pressure Radial Gauge (Multi-State)
Product
Diameter
Table
Height
Density

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Here is a picture of what is your manager thinking about:

Approach
Step 1 : Create a new display called Tank Details <your initials>. Including all the simbols
in the description.
Step 2 : Answer the questions:
a. What is the Maximum External Temperature for Mixing
Tank1 over the last 12 hours? _____________
b. What is the Minimum Internal Temperature for Mixing Tank1
over the last 12 hours? _____________
(Hint: Tables in PI Vision have columns for the maximum and minimum values).
Step 3 : Add shapes and images to the display

Step 4 : Go to Configure asset context switching in the asset drop-down list and select
Show search results. Set the Search Root to Production Area\Production Line2.
Step 5 : Reuse the same display to monitor the other mixing tank
a. What is the Maximum External Temperature for Mixing
Tank2 over the last 12 hours? _____________
b. What is the Minimum Internal Temperature for Storage
Tank2 over the last 12 hours? _____________
Step 6 : Update the asset context switching to Show assets of the same type.

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Discussion

• Answer the following questions using your display

a. What is the Maximum External Temperature for Mixing
Tank1 over the last 12 hours? _____________
b. What is the Minimum Internal Temperature for Mixing Tank1
over the last 12 hours? _____________
(Hint: Tables in PI Vision have columns for the maximum and minimum values).
c. What is the Maximum External Temperature for Mixing
Tank2 over the last 12 hours? _____________
d. What is the Minimum Internal Temperature for Storage
Tank2 over the last 12 hours? _____________

 Quick Check of section 4.4

Having completed this topic, are you able to:

• Use visual alarms with Multi-states?

• Make reusable displays using collections, asset comparation tables and taking
advantage of assets switching?
• Adding Bar charts and XY plots to the display?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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ADVANCED FEATURES IN PI
VISION

Recap of PI Vision
PI Vision is a web browser-based application that lets you retrieve, monitor, and analyse
process information.

PI Vision allows:
• Searching for, and visualising time-series data and other PI System data.
• Saving displays for later use and further analysis.
• Reusing displays across multiple assets.
• Sharing displays with other members of a group, or anyone with access to PI Vision.

PI Vision is supported by most modern browsers on a wide variety of computers, including

tablets and phones running iOS or Android operating systems.

Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding PI Vision Calculations and use the Calculation Editor
• Create and use navigation links
• Organize and share displays
• Consume Event frames in Pi Vision

PI Vision Calculations

Displays in PI Vision can utilize simple calculations on the fly and use the results to analyze
data in real time. This includes the use of summary calculations like Min, Max, and Avg and
simple calculations that use basic mathematical operators such as +, -, *, and / on data within
the display.
PI Vision calculations enable values to be calculated immediately, without an AF Analytics that
may not be used again in other displays. Depending on the element used, we can divide the
calculations in:
• Tag-based (PI Vision) calculations
Are requested and executed at PI Data Archive server side. If PI Data Archive is
heavily requested, it might have performance issues for PI Vision and other
applications requesting to PI Data Archive. It is important to observe the amount of
data requested.

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• Asset-based (PI Vision) calculations

Are executed at PI Vision server and it can impact the performance if heavily used.
The PI AF attributes configuration and nesting level can affect the input attributes
evaluation time. So before creating an asset-based (PI Vision) calculation, it is
recommended to verify if the input attributes are following the PI Analysis Service Best
Practices.
Additionally, as data is interpolated in trends, asset-based (PI Vision) calculations may
not present all the outliers for high density data, so it may not be applied for this use
case.

IMPORTANT NOTE: As a general recommendation, complex expressions or calculations that

will be reused can be created leveraging PI AF Analysis, whenever possible. PI Vision
calculations might be used for Ad Hoc calculations use cases.

Learning Outcomes:
• Understanding PI Vision Calculations
• Using the Calculation Editor

Equation syntax

To help in the development of calculations in PI Vision, there are three (3) rules to remember:

Rule 1: Numbers and operators require no special syntax

Rule 2: Tag names and timestamps are contained in apostrophes: 'CDT158'
Rule 3: Strings are contained in quotation marks: "This is a string"
Example:
If ('CDT158'+2*'Sinusoid')>100 Then "Good" Else "Bad"
More complex expressions for tag-based calculations are also possible. For additional details,
see Performance equations (PE) syntax and functions reference in the PI Server
documentation.

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Directed Activity – Create a Tag-based calculation.

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Create and use a tag-based calculation

Activity Description
Your manager has just heard about the calculations in PI Vision. He/she is aware of OSisoft
recommendations of keeping the calculations in the PI Server instead of doing them in PI Vision
but for testing purposes, he/she wants you to create a calculation to add the mixing tank flows to
get a resultant flow. Once you have the calculation, he/she wants you to represent it on a
display like this:

Approach

Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and create a new display.

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Step 2 : Mark PISRV01 from the list of available assets

and drill down using the arrow.

Step 3 : In the search pane enter “*mxtk?:flow*”

Step 4 : To open the calculation editor, on the left

side of the screen, click Calculations and then

click Add Calculation .

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Step 5 : Give the new calculation

a Name “Total mixing flow” and a Description
“Sum of the total flow of the two mixing tanks”
to the calculation. Select the symbol of the PI
Data Archive.

Note: Your calculation Name needs to be

unique for the current display. You may reuse a
Calculation Name on different displays.

Step 6 : Click on the cube in the top left

corner to see again the PI Points you have just found.

Step 7 : Drag and drop the PI Points into the area

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Step 8 : The calculation editor will add the

two PI Points automatically create a sum
calculation. Which is exactly what you are looking
for. Click on Preview to check how the calculation
looks like and if everything looks correct click on
save.

Note: You can only use PI Points from one Data

Archive in a single Calculation

Step 9 : Your calculation will appear in the left

pane. To open and edit a calculation, double click on it.

Step 10 : Expand “Advance Options”. Configure the Time Interval for the calculation. By
default, this is set to Auto, but you can choose a Custom Time Interval if needed. Keep the
interval as auto. The Total Conversion Factor for the calculation; this only applies to
the Total summary Column. Check the Stepped Plot box to display the calculation with stepped
data.
Step 11 : Click Save again to finish configuring your calculation.
Step 12 : Select the trend icon, then drag the “Total mixing flow” calculation on the new
display.
Step 13 : Click on the cube to see the PI Points you searched and drag and drop to the
trend both points.
Step 14 : Right click on the trend and select the scale type to represent all the data with
only one scale.
Step 15 : Save the display as “Total Mixing Tanks Flow <your initials>”.
Step 16 : Add a text on the top of the display and write “Total Mixing Tanks Flow”, increase
the font size to be 26.

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Step 17 : Represent the calculation result, and the two PI Points in radial gauges by
selecting the radial gauge icon and dragging and dropping.
Step 18 : Save the display.

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5.2.3 Directed Activity – Asset base a Tag-based calculation

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Create and use an asset-based calculation

Activity Description
Your manager has just remembered the display tank general overview and he/she thinks that
doing a calculation to know the differences between the level and the level forecast and
represent it on the same trend would be nice, so he/she asks you to create it. The result should
be like this:

Approach

Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open the display Tank
General Overview <your initials>. Click on the edit icon.
Step 2 : Select the trend and click on the

calculation icon . In the calculation menu you

will see a number 2, next to the “+” symbol. That
means that PI Vision automatically detected that
the attributes in the trend are meant to be in a
calculation and added them for us.

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Step 3 : Click on the . Name the

calculation “Level Forecast discrepancy”
and fill the description. Change the
expression to be “'Level' -
'Level_Forecast'”. Click on preview and
save the calculation. Check that this time
the cube is selected because we are using
an asset instead of a PI Point.

Step 4 : Drag and drop the

calculation to the trend.

Step 5 : Save the display.

Discussion
• What is the difference between using PI Points and AF attributes in the calculations?
• Where is the calculation done in each case?
• Change the asset, does the calculation change?

 Quick Check section 5.2

• Do you understand PI Vision Calculations?
• Can you use the Calculation Editor?
If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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Additional features in PI Vision

Learning Outcomes:
• Adding Navigation links
• Display URL parameters
• Ad hoc displays

Add Navigation Links to PI Vision Symbols

You can assign a hyperlink to any symbol, shape,

or image on your display. The hyperlink can point
to another PI Vision display or to an external
website. Once you add a hyperlink, you can
navigate from that hyperlink to your linked display
or website. There is the option to have the linked
display automatically match the asset and time
context of the original display containing the
hyperlink.
You may also add a hyperlink directly to the
display by choosing the Text icon and then
clicking anywhere in the display. The text menu
opens. Select ‘Sync text to navigation’ link to enter
a URL.

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PI Vision URL Parameters

You can use a URL to open PI Vision displays programmatically from other applications.
You can use the URL to:
• Create a temporary display that shows a single trend populated with specified data
items; the URL can also specify a time range for the display. This is called an Ad Hoc
display.
• Specify a display time range.
• Specify kiosk mode to open a display with limited interactivity.
• Configure an existing display to use other assets that share the same AF template.
• Set the time zone for a display so that users see data in the time zone you specify,
rather than in the time zone of their client machine.
• Hide the toolbar or time bar, or both, in a display.
• Prevent automatic redirection for users of PI Vision on mobile devices

Rules for adding a URL Parameter:

Rule 1: Separate query string parameters from the preceding base URL with a question
mark (?).
Rule 2: Separate each query string parameter with an ampersand (&).
Below are some commonly used URL parameters:

StartTime=<PI Time> and EndTime=<PI Time>

Specify the start and end time of the display. Any valid PI Time format is acceptable.
Example:
http://PISRV01/PIVision/#/Displays/339/MyDisplay?StartTime=*-1h&EndTime=*

Mode=Kiosk
Specify kiosk mode to open a display with limited interactivity.
Example:
http://PISRV01PIVision/#/Displays/339/MyDisplay?mode=kiosk

HideToolbar and HideTimebar

Hide the toolbar or toolbar from the display
Example:
http://PISRV01/PIVision/#/Displays/339/MyDisplay?HideToolbar
http://PISRV01/PIVision/#/Displays/339/MyDisplay?HideTimebar
You can combine these parameters with other URL parameters. Example:
http://PISRV01/PIVision/#/Displays/339/MyDisplay?mode=kiosk&HideToolbar&HideTimeb
ar

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For more information, see “URL parameters for controlling the presentation of
displays” in PI Vision Installation and Administration Guide.

Directed Activity – Adding Hyperlinks

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Create links to PI Vision displays
Activity Description

Navigating between displays using the home button is a little bit annoying for operators,
Your manager asked you to add a navigation link in the All tanks display to the Tank
general overview display, and a link to go back.

Approach

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Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open the display “All Tanks
<your initials>”. Click on the edit icon.
Step 2 : Right click and select modify
collection.

Step 3 : Right click on the name “Mixing Tank1” and select add navigation link.

Step 4 : In the menu that has appeared in the right click on

search for displays.

Step 5 : In the search box write “Tank general“ to find the “Tank general overview” display
and select it.

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Step 6 : Mark the boxes “Set start and end time”, “Set asset
context” and “Use current asset”

Step 7 : Click on the door icon to exit the edit collection mode . Click in the save icon.
Click on any of the names to check the links are working.
Step 8 : Go PI Vision open the display “Tank General Overview <your initials>”. Click on
the edit icon.

Step 9 : Select the Text icon and

add the text “All Tanks”. Change the
fill to a navy blue and change the
font size to be 18. Put the text in the
top right corner of the display.

Step 10 : Right click on the “All Tanks

Text” and select “Add navigation Link…”
Step 11 : Click on search for displays and write “all tanks” in the search box. Select the
display “All Tanks <your initials>”.

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Step 12 : Mark ONLY the “Set start and end time” box.

Step 13 : Click on save.

Step 14 : Click on the “All tanks link to check the link is working”

Exercise – Using URL Parameters and Hyperlinks

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you need
assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Use URL Parameters to create links to PI Vision displays
Activity Description
Early today the operations team reported that there was an issue from noon yesterday until
midnight today with Mixing Tank1. They need to look at the data for this time period.

Approach
Step 1 : Open your Tank Temperature Dashboard display <your initials> and modify
Collection to Add a Navigation Link to the display Tank Details <your initials>.
Step 2 : Test the link and try to hide attributes.

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Step 3 : Make the display read only by placing it in Kiosk mode. Append ?mode=Kiosk to
the end of the URL.
Step 4 : Retest the link. Are you able to make changes?

Directed Activity – Add Hyperlinks in a table

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Create links to PI Vision displays
Activity Description

After seeing how useful links are, your manager wants you to add a navigation link in
the table of the OSIsoft Plant Overview display to the Tank Temperature comparation
display, and a link to go back.

Approach

Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open the display “OSIsoft
Plant Overview <your initials>”. Click on the edit icon.
Step 2 : Right click on the asset name Mixing Tank1 and select “Add Navigation Link...”
Step 3 : On the right Pane click on “Search for display” and search Tank Temperature.
Select the “Tank Temperature – Comparation by time <your initials>” display. Mark “Set start
and end time”, “Set Asset context” and “Use Current Asset”.
Step 4 : Click on save and check if the link works.
Step 5 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open the display “Tank
Temperature – Comparation by time <your initials>”. Click on the edit icon.
Step 6 : Click on the add text icon. Enter the text “OSIsoft Plant Overview”. Reduce the
font size to be 16. Change the fill colour and place the text in the top right corner of the display.
Step 7 : Right click on the text “OSIsoft Plant Overview” and select Add Navigation link.
Click on Search for displays on the right pane and look for the display called “OSIsoft Plant
Overview <your initials>”.
Step 8 : Mark ONLY the “Set start and end time” box.

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Step 9 : Click on save and check if the link works.

Ad hoc Displays

The Ad Hoc Workspace is the area where you can view and explore the trends of the data you
select for analysis. You can interact with the trend by setting up the trend scales to see the right
view of data, using cursors to view values at specific times, and changing the time range of the
trend.
You have created your dashboard, but your team would like to select a few different items from
the displays and do some additional analysis when they investigate specific issues. If they
identity something of interest, they would like to be able to share their findings by saving the
display. Let’s use the ad hoc display functionality!

Directed Activity – Demonstrating Ad Hoc Analysis

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Create an ad hoc display
Activity Description
You have recently heard an increasing interest in comparing the external temperatures for all
the tanks in trends, but you feel that creating a display only for that is not needed so you decide
to check if it is possible to compare the external temperatures of all the tanks in the plant with an
ad-hoc trend.

Approach:
Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open any of your displays
with multiple tank variable, like “OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>”.
Step 2 : Click Replace Ad Hoc trend. This will start a new ad
Hoc display.

Step 3 : Toggle off the Summary

Table.

Step 4 : The display will busy with all the trends from the attributes.

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Step 5 : Click on the summary table icon again and click on the trash bin icon to remove
all the undesired trends. The goal is to keep only the temperatures.

Step 6 : Click anywhere in the trend, then click again somewhere else to demonstrate
multiple trend cursors.
Step 7 : Play around with the icons on the top f the display. Select one scale for all the
temperatures.

Step 8 : Click on the Convert button to place the Ad Hoc Workspace contents into an
Editor Display that can be permanently saved and shared:

Step 9 : Click on the asset switching wheel. Select “Do not show” in the configure Context
Switching menu. Click Save As icon and give your display a name it “All temperatures <your
initials>”. You can now share.

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 Quick Check section 5.3

Having completed this topic, are you able to:
• Add a Navigation links?
• Use display URL parameters?
• Create ad hoc displays?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

Managing PI Vision Displays

Learning Outcomes:
• Organize displays
• Change who can see a display

Manage Role-Based User Access Level

Your PI Vision Administrator can give users different level of

access by assigning and managing user roles on the PI Vision
Administration website. PI Vision provides two access roles
based on PI AF identities:
• Publisher: users have full access to the application and
can save displays.
• Explorer: users have access to the application but
cannot save or share displays. An Explorer can still export data from a display.

For more information, see “Manage role-based user access level” in PI Vision
Installation and Administration Guide.

PI Vision Homepage

In the homepage of PI Vision, you can View and Search All Displays that you have access to,
Filter displays by Labels, or navigate logical groups to find displays. These groups are listed
below:
• ALL DISPLAYS: lists all public and private displays
• FAVORITES: filters the thumbnails to show only favourites (starred displays)

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• MY DISPLAYS: shows all displays that you have created.

• RECENT: PI Vision automatically remembers displays that you used within the last
seven days.
• FOLDER HOME: shows the folders that your administrator has configured for you to
access PI ProcessBook displays. Below this option, the list of folders for accessing PI
ProcessBook displays will be listed. In the example shown in the screenshot, on the
right, this folder is named “PB Displays” (PI ProcessBook Displays).

You can navigate to PI Vision Homepage from any display by clicking on the
upper left corner.

Organizing PI Vision Displays

PI Vision offers new options for the organization of displays to provide a quicker way of finding
displays of interest.
• Search All Displays: Displays are
searchable by name or owner.
• Favorites: You can mark displays as
"favorites" by clicking the star icon .
Favorites are a user-specific property.
• Keywords: You can apply keywords to
displays to categorize them. The
keywords can be viewed in a keyword cloud by selecting "Filter by Keywords." Within the
keyword cloud, the keywords are sorted alphabetically, and their size is determined by
their relative frequency. Keywords applied by one user are visible to the rest of the
users.
• You can add a keyword by clicking the Display Settings icon and typing in the
keyword in the Keywords box. Once you start typing the keyword, the matching available
keywords become available in a list, as shown in the previous screenshot.

Editing PI Vision Displays

Some of the editing options are available from the PI Vision homepage and some from the PI
Vision display itself.

From the homepage, clicking on the Display Settings icon you will see the following options:
• Keyword: You can enter text in the Keywords field and use a semicolon (;) to separate
multiple keywords.
• Display Owner: You can make anyone else in your organization the owner of any
display. (Only visible to the Administrators)
• Delete Display: Currently, you can only delete displays that you created in PI Vision,
and not the PI ProcessBook displays.
• Share with: As the creator of a display, you can keep these displays private, or to share
them with other users in your organization.

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The groups displayed in the Shared with section are AF Identities, only the AF Identities
that a user is a part of will display except for Administrators which is a share option for
any user.
As a user you can create a display that you use
to home in on a set of data and then quickly
and easily share that display with others across
your organization. You can also send the URL
for a shared display in an email or instant
message to someone else in your organization
for them to see as a public display. By default,
all PI ProcessBook displays are automatically
shared with World. You can also give
team members WRITE permission for a
display, allowing collaboration on the creation
and maintenance of displays with your team, in
case you want the day off.

Exercise – Manage and share your PI Vision Displays

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic

area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you need
assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Work with different options available in managing PI Vision displays
Activity Description
Your corporate PI Vision homepage has a long list of displays shared by others. You also have
a lot of wonderful displays that you would like to share with your team members. You want to
make the management of your displays and displays of your interest easy and label your
displays in a way that your team members can find them easily.
Approach
Earlier, you built a PI Vision display, Tank Details <your initials>. Find it from the homepage by
searching for it.
Step 1 : Share your display with everyone (World), so that everyone else can view it. If
your user ID ends in an odd number (ex. Student05) then also share your display with
Operators. If your user ID ends in an even number (ex. Student08) then also share your display
with Engineers.
Step 2 : Add the keyword of VPSD to it (stands for Visualizing PI System Data)
Step 3 : Choose 2 or 3 colors (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Purple) and add
those as keywords. Be sure to separate keywords with a semicolon (;).

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Step 4 : Find all the displays that have the label of VPSD or that match one of the colors
you chose. Pick your favorites and add them to your favorites list.

 Quick Check section 5.4

Can you:

• organize displays?
• change who can see a display?
If you answered NO to either of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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Analysing and Comparing Related Events

Events are important processes or business time periods that affect your operations. For
example, an event can capture asset downtime, process excursions, operator shifts, or batches.
You can analyze your data in the context of these events rather than by continuous time
periods. Each event has a name, start time, end time, and associated data items (event
attributes).
PI Vision enables you to view and analyze your data during the time range of a particular event.
For example, you may want to examine the performance of an asset during an operator shift or
compare the data for several assets during a downtime period. You can compare multiple
events on a single trend, analyze root causes, investigate an event by examining it in detail, and
annotate it with notes that you can share with colleagues.
Each event has a severity level associated with it. The severity level is marked in the Events
pane with a color-coded bar in front of each event. Severity levels have the following default
levels, names and color codes:
• Level 5: Critical
• Level 4: Major
• Level 3: Minor
• Level 2: Warning
• Level 1: Information
• Level 0: None (no color)

Learning Outcomes
• Retrieving Events
• Finding Related Events
• Comparing Events
• ‘Pinning’ Events
• Event frame table

5.5.1. Find Related Events

PI Vision enables you to view and analyse PI data during the time range of an event. For
example, you may want to examine the performance of an asset during an operator shift or
compare the data for several assets during a downtime period.

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To view events, open the

Events tab on the left side.
Here you will find events
related to your process, the
color to the left of each event
indicates its severity. By
default, the time range of the
display and the context of
the symbols in the display
determine which events are
shown in the Events list. To
discover additional events,
modify the time range or
choose Edit Search Criteria.
When editing the search
criteria, there are a number of filtering options to find the Event Frames
you are looking for, as shown at left.

Select an event to find its Data Items (event attributes) and its start
and end time.

By right clicking on an event, you can choose Apply Time Range apply the event’s time range to
the display.

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5.5.2. Directed Activity – Find Events

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Display Events based on Search criteria.
Activity Description
In “Industrial Plants of The World”, the process engineer has set up Downtime tracking using AF
Event Frames. An Event is created when the tank level drops below 10% full. You have been
asked to provide details on how much production was lost in the last event.

Approach:
Step 1 : Create a New Display
Step 2 : Select Events

Step 3 : Select Edit search Criteria

Step 4 : Set Database dropdown to OSIsoft Plant
Step 5 : Under Asset Name select ANY, then click APPLY.

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What is the last value for Lost Production? (Hint: the event highest in the list is the last one)
____________
When did it occur? _____________
What was the Reason Code? ______________
How many minutes did the Event last for? ___________

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5.5.3. Get Event Details

Choosing Event Details will create a trend and table with

information about the event, click an item to add it to the
trend. On the right, will also see the Actions and Comments
associated with an event. If you have access to do so, you
can add a new comment to the Event Frame and
‘Acknowledge’ it. The access is controlled in PI System
Explorer with the Annotate permission.

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5.5.4. Exercise – Event Details

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• Display the Event details
Task Description
You have been asked to provide more details about the event you have analysed in the last
directed activity including:

• % Full for the beginning and end of the event

• Event duration

• Reason Code at the start of the event

• Tank status at the beginning and end of the Event.

Approach:
Step 1 : Follow steps in Directed Activity 5.9.1 to obtain a list of Events. Right click an
Event and select Event Details.
Step 2 : Acknowledge the event with the Green Acknowledge button in the top right-hand
corner. Why might you do this?
Step 3 : Click the top two graph symbols.
What happened?

Step 4 : Fill in the table:

% Full for the beginning and end of the event

Event duration

Reason Code at the start of the event

Tank status at the beginning and end of the event.

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5.5.5. Compare Similar Events by Name or Type

PI Vision lets you compare events such as process downtime, process excursions, operator
shifts, or batches. With the event comparison feature, you can analyse process data across
multiple events on a single overlay trend. The feature is designed to help you identify similarities
and differences between events, assess sub-events, and determine root causes.
Choosing Compare Similar Events will open a list of similar events with overlaid trends and a
Gantt chart. You can hide events or highlight an event in the overlay trends. Additionally, you
can drag more attributes to the display area to create more overlay trends.

5.5.6. Directed Activity – Compare Events

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Comparing events.
Activity Description
The visualization and acknowledge of the events have been found really useful by managers
and operators but they have asked you to show them how to compare the most recent event
with similar events in the past for the same asset.

Approach:
Step 1 : Create a New Display
Step 2 : Select Events

Step 3 : Select Edit search Criteria

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Step 4 : Set Database dropdown to OSIsoft Plant

Step 5 : Under Asset Name select ANY, then click APPLY.
Step 6 : Right click on the first
event and select “Compare Similar
Events by Type”.

Step 7 : A Gantt diagram will appear in the lowest part of the display.

Step 8 : Drag and drop the lost production into the display

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Step 9 : Do the same with the external and internal temperature.

Step 10 : Click on save, select your folder and save the display as “Downtime Comparation
<your initials>”.
Step 11 : If you click in different events the trends related to that event will be highlighted.

5.5.7. Pinning Events

Once you created an event comparison screen, you can pin events from the search results as
your reference event. Pinned events are your benchmark events that remain at the top of the
Events pane even after you perform new event searches. Once you no longer want an event to
be pinned at the top of the pane, you can remove it from the Pinned events list.

5.5.8. Exercise – Pinning an Event

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• Pin an Event

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Task Description
While investigating these tank events you noticed that the shortest event is the event against
which you can compare all other events. You want to highlight so you can easily compare this
event against others.

Approach:
In your display from the previous exercise right-click the event in the Events pane
corresponding to the shortest event on the Gantt chart and click Pin Event. The pinned
event appears at the top of the pane in the Pinned section and have yellow legend marker
next to them.
After you pin an event, you can perform the following operations:
• To highlight the pinned event on the Overlay Trend, select the event in the Events pane.
• To add another pinned event, right-click that event and click Pin Event.
• To save the pinned event, save the event comparison display by clicking the Save
button.
To unpin your pinned event, right-click it and click Unpin Event.
Here you have an example.

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5.5.9. Event tables

The events table provides a dynamically updating, tabular view of events that meet specified
criteria. Upon creation, the table shows the events from the Events pane, based on the criteria
in the Edit Search Criteria menu. After you create an events table, you can change the events
inside the table by changing the criteria in the Search Criteria pane. You can sort events in the
table, and the sorting options on the events table are saved with the display.
Use the Configure Table pane to configure the columns, style, and criteria for events of an
events table. Upon creation, the table shows the events from the Events pane, and those
search settings are copied to the Configure Table pane. After you create the table, use the
Search Criteria menu to change the search criteria that sets the events that appear in the table.
The Configure Table pane opens automatically when you create an events table.

5.5.10. Directed Activity – Add an event table

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section

Objectives
• Use an event table
Activity Description
Your manager found very interesting all the event configuration, but he/she would love to see
those events related to one tank in the tank display together with the rest of attributes. You talk
them about the event frame tables and they ask you to add one into the Tank General overview
display. They want something like:

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Approach:
Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and open the display Tank
General Overview <your initials>. Click on the edit icon.
Step 2 : Open the event frame icon. It should have a blue star indicating that there are

some event related to the asset on the display.

Step 3 : Mark the box next to “Automatically
refresh the list”.

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Step 4 : Click on “Create Event Table” and move the table to the
lower part of the display.
Step 5 : A menu is opened on the right, on the Columns
section, remove the asset by selecting it and clicking on the down
arrow.

Step 6 : Attributes can also be added directly by dragging and dropping from the event
details. Add the Temperature Difference to the table.

Step 7 : Click on save.

Step 8 : Now the events can be acknowledged using the display. Click on the green
acknowledge button in the table (you should be out of the edition mode). Every time you
acknowledge an event you need to click on save.
Step 9 : Use the asset switching to see the different events for the other tanks.



 Quick Check

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Having completed this topic, are you able to:

• Retrieve Events?
• Finding Related Events?
• Compare Events?
• ‘Pin’ Events?

If you answered NO to either of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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Administrative Tasks of some Importance

Reports of PI Vision display usage:

When performing updates to displays or deleting ‘unused’ displays, their current usage
could be reviewed by PI Vision administrators.
PI Vision administrators can view or export five different reports about the usage
of PI Vision. The reports are available under the Reports tab on the PI Vision
Administration site. Information about each of the report types is defined as follows.
Detailed display content information
Provides a summary of the contents of displays created during a specified time
range. This can include information about data items, symbols, display visibility,
and display ownership.

Display Access
Provides a count of total views and unique users that have accessed a display in
the specified time range

Users who have accessed PI Vision within a specific time range

Provides a count of users who have opened PI Vision displays each month
during the specified time range

List of all PI Vision users

Provides a count displays owned by each PI Vision user

Get the count of Publishers and Explorers

Provides a count Publisher and Explorer licensed users that have
accessed PI Vision in the specified time range

For details about how to generate each of the reports, refer to LiveLibrary

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Essential Patch to PI Vision

If your site is running PI Vision and having issues with elements and attributes
being renamed and not appearing in your displays, running a patch by an
administrator could correct the issue.

PIVisionPatchDisplayAFids patches existing PI Vision displays so that elements

and attributes renamed or moved on a PI AF Server automatically update if the display
is newly opened or actively running. The utility requires one parameter to specify the PI
Vision server. An optional second parameter specifies the path to a CSV file. If you
don't specify one, output is logged to PIVisionPatchDisplayAFidsOutput.csv in the
current directory.

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6. PI DATALINK: BUILDING
REPORTS

6.1 PI DataLink Introduction

Learning Outcomes:
• Why use PI DataLink?
• Common terms.

PI DataLink is an OSIsoft add-in for Microsoft Excel. It lets you retrieve information from your PI
System directly onto a worksheet. Combined with the computational, graphic, and formatting
capabilities of Microsoft Excel, PI DataLink is a powerful tool for gathering, monitoring,
analysing, and reporting PI System data.

For more information see "Introduction" in PI DataLink User Guide

PI DataLink has different functions for extracting PI System data into Excel. It is important to
understand the following nomenclature when working with PI DataLink and its data retrieval
functions.

Term Meaning
Data item
A PI Point name or AF attribute name, for which the PI DataLink function
returns property values.
Root path
The common path to specified data items within PI System. It is optional for PI
DataLink functions. Valid entries include:
• Data Archive name if the data item is a PI Point.
• AF server and database if the data item is an AF attribute. For a data item
of AF Attribute, root path can also include the name of parent elements.
• Blank if the data item is on the default Data Archive or the default AF
Server and default database.
Output cell
The worksheet cell where the function writes the result.

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If you select a cell before you open the function task pane, PI DataLink inserts
the selected cell into the output cell field.


 Quick Check
• Why would you want to use DataLink?
• What is a Root path?

If you are unsure of the answer to these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.2 Finding Data

Learning Outcomes
• Demonstrate searching for PI Points
• Demonstrate the different ways of finding element and element attributes within the PI
Asset Framework (AF) hierarchy.

PI DataLink offers two ways to search for data items:

1. Search tool
2. Asset Filter Search function (this will be covered in a later section)

Search for Data Items

On first use, the tool starts at the Home

node, which shows all the Data Archives
and AF servers listed in Connection
Manager. You must limit the search to a
single Data Archive or single AF server,
and can limit the search further to a single
database on an AF server, and then to
specific elements and parent attributes.

When your search scope

is a Data Archive, the top
search field is applied to
the PI Point Name, only.
Set the fields under Filters
to specify any additional
criteria the retrieved PI
Points must match. You
can use wildcard
characters to augment
your search.

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When your scope is an AF Server or Database, the top search field is applied to AF Attribute
name as well as the name, description and categories of the parent element.

You can change columns displayed in the results pane by right clicking
a column name in the results pane and selecting which column you
would like to be displayed.

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6.2.1 Directed Activity – Searching in PI DataLink

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to such data

Objectives
• Perform a search for PI Points and AF Attributes in PI DataLink

Activity Description
We will need to demonstrate how to use the search functionalities.

Approach
Step 1 : Open Microsoft Excel.
Step 2 : On the PI DataLink ribbon, select Search.

Step 3 : Select a Data Archive

a. Search for *temper*
b. Select an item and then OK.

Step 4 : Select the AF Server >

a. Search for flow*.
b. Choose all items in the list.
Step 5 : Select OK

 Quick Check
• Can you demonstrate searching for PI Points?
• Can you demonstrate the different ways of finding element and element attributes within
the PI Asset Framework (AF) hierarchy?

If you answered NO to either of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.
.

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6.3 Functions Returning Data.

With PI DataLink functions, you can query any Data Archive or AF server, apply calculations to
retrieved results and return values to worksheet cells. These functions return results in function
arrays, which you can recalculate to update values as needed.

Query Function
What It Returns
Category Name
Current Value The current or most recent value of a Data Item
Value of a Data Item at a specified time stamp
Single value
Archive Value Computed value of a performance equation at a specified
time stamp
All the values of a Data Item for a specified time period
Compressed
Data A specific number of Data Item values beginning at a
certain time
Evenly spaced, interpolated values for a Data Item over a
regular interval
Sampled Data
Multiple value Evenly spaced, interpolated values of a performance
equation over a regular interval.
Actual or interpolated sample values for a Data Item at
specified time stamps
Timed Data
Values of a performance equation computed at specified
time stamps
One or more evenly spaced, calculated values based on a
Data Item’s values and specified calculation preferences
Calculated
Data One or more evenly spaced, calculated values based on
Calculation an evaluated performance equation and specified
calculation preferences
The amount of time that a performance equation evaluates
Time Filtered
to true during a specified time period

For more information see “PI DataLink Functions” in PI DataLink User Guide

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6.4 Single Value Queries

Learning Outcomes
• Retrieve a current value for a data item
• Retrieve an archived value for a data item
• Describe the different retrieval modes
• Retrieve data item attributes

Quick Steps to Get Started

Most of the functions in PI DataLink can be done using these simple steps

Step 1 : Select the Target cell

Data/Information will be inserted below and to the right of the target cell
Step 2 : Choose the Function
Search/Snapshot Value or any other function
Step 3 : Fill out the required parameters, or use cell references to make
later editing easier

Obtain a Current Value

For the Current Value function no timestamp is required, as it is always assumed to be NOW (*
in PI time or =NOW() in Excel time).

You can retrieve PI data from any PI System currently connected to your client machine. You
must specify:
• Data item(s)
o Can specify 1 or more, explicitly or via a cell reference

• Output cell
o Any data currently in this cell will be replaced.

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The result of this query will be the most current value and timestamp of the data item specified.

Note: Current Value is a volatile function: the function recalculates and updates values
whenever Excel calculates or recalculates any cell in the worksheet. To force an immediate
recalculation, press F9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98vxolhsR_M

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Obtain an Archive Value

The other PI DataLink function that returns a single value is the Archive Value. This function
retrieves an archived value at a specific timestamp.

You specify:
• Data item(s)
o 1 or more
• Time stamp
o Excel Time Format or
o PI Time Format

The result being:

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6.4.1 Directed Activity – Single Value Query

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to such data.

Objectives
• Perform Single Value Queries in PI DataLink

Activity Description
We would like to prepare a report that shows the current value of External Temperature,
Pressure and Flow Rate of Mixing Tank2. You are also interested in knowing the value of these
measurements at 7 am yesterday.
If you have access to your own data

Approach
Part 1 – Get Current Values
Step 1 : Open Excel and in cell A1 type Current Values as a heading.
Step 2 : Click on cell A2. Select Current Value function.
Step 3 : Click on the magnifying glass next to Data Item(s) box.
Step 4 : Search for the External Temperature of Mixing Tank2.
Step 5 : Select Time at Left and click OK.
Step 6 : Repeat these steps for Pressure and Flow Rate in cells A3 and A4, respectively.
Part 2 – Add Archive Values
Step 1 : In cell C1 type Archive Values as a heading.
Step 2 : Click on cell C2. Select Archive Value function.
Step 3 : Click on the magnifying glass next to Data Item(s) box.
Step 4 : Search for the External Temperature of Mixing Tank2.
Step 5 : Type Y+7h in the Time stamp box. What time stamp will be retrieved?
___________
Step 6 : Select Time at Left and click OK.
Step 7 : Repeat these steps for Pressure and Flow Rate in cells C3 and C4, respectively.
Part 3 – Do you think this is an efficient way to search for the data item every time a value is
retrieved?

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6.4.2 Directed Activity – Single Value Query Using Cell Reference

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to such data.

Objectives
• Perform Single Value Queries in PI DataLink

Activity Description
You would like to include the current value of External Temperature of Mixing Tank1 in your
daily report. You are also interested in the value of this tank’s Internal Temperature at 7 am
today.

Approach
Part 1 – Build a Template
Step 1 : Open Excel and click on cell A2. Click on Search.
Step 2 : Select the AF Database of OSIsoft Plant. Type Ext*Temp* in the search box and
click ‘Enter’. The External Temperature of all four tanks should show up on the search results
list.
Step 3 : Select the external temperature of Mixing Tank1 and click OK.
Step 4 : In cell B1 type Current Value. In cell D1 type Archive Value as headings.
Step 5 : In cell A4 type Timestamp, in B4 type t+7h. What time do you expect to see?
___________
Step 6 : Your report template will look similar to this:

Part 2 – Query PI Data

Step 1 : Select cell B2 (this will be your Output cell). Click on Current Value function.
Step 2 : Refer to cell A2 in the Data Item field and select Time at left. Click OK.
Step 3 : Select cell D2 (this will be your Output cell). Click on Archive Value function.
Step 4 : Refer to cell A2 in the Data Item field. In the Time stamp field refer to cell B4.
Do not change any of the other options. Select Time at left and click OK.

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6.4.3 Exercise –Temperature at a Glance

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity. Use your own data if you have access
to suitable data.

Objectives
• Extract values and attributes from the PI System using the following functions:
o Current value.
o Archive value.

Activity Description
You would like to include the current value of the External Temperature of all Tanks in your daily
report. You are also interested in knowing the value of the tanks’ Internal Temperature at
midnight.

Approach
Step 1 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx.
Step 2 : Save it as<your initials>_ PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet
Temperature at a Glance and fill in data into all of the fields.
Step 3 : Use the Current Value and Archive Value queries to fill in the template. We
should base our PI DataLink queries on cell references whenever possible.

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Retrieval Mode

When bringing the archive value to our report, we saw that a timestamp needs to be specified
and the archived value will be retrieved for that timestamp. There may or may not be a value
archived at the specified timestamp; how does PI DataLink decide just what data is retrieved?
You can decide the data retrieval behaviour by selecting different options from the Retrieval
Mode drop down list. The default option is Auto. Different modes will retrieve the value differently,
as listed in the following table:

Retrieval Mode Data retrieval behaviour

Auto (Default) Interpolates at the exact timestamp provided, unless
the data item is a step point, which would retrieve the previous
value.
Interpolated Always interpolates at the exact timestamp provided.
Previous, Next Retrieves the previous or next compressed event from the
timestamp specified. If a compressed event does exist at the
exact timestamp, it is retrieved.
Previous Only, Next Only Same as Previous, Next, except it will ignore any event at the
exact timestamp specified.
Exact Time Retrieves the value if and only if an archived value exists at that
exact timestamp (down to the second).

The graph and table below exemplify the different retrieval modes.

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Retrieval Mode Timestamp Value

Interpolated 13:00:00 1.8

Previous 12:30:00 2.5

Next 13:30:00 1

Exact No events found. No events found.

The next graph shows the difference between Auto and Interpolated for a step point and an
analogue point.

Auto Interpolated

Step OFF (Rate point) 13:00:00 - 2 13:00:00 - 2

Step ON 12:30:00 – 2.8 13:00:00 – 2.8

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6.4.4 Exercise – Activity Report

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity. Use your own data if you have access
to such data.

Objective
• Extract values and attributes from the PI System using the following functions:
o Current value.
o Archive value.

Activity Description
Your manager needs a report they can open each afternoon to see the current values of KPI’s
for Mixing Tank2, which are:
• External Temperature
• Internal Temperature
• Level
• Flow Rate
Your manager needs to see the KPIs values at midnight today. Not trusting this new “PI Thing”
your manager wants to see archive values around midnight as well as be able to type in a
timestamp and see if there is an archive value at an exact time.

Approach
Step 1 : Open <your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Activity
Report and fill in the data in all fields.
Step 2 : Use the Current Value and Archive Value queries to fill in a template.

 Quick Check
Can you:
• retrieve a current value?
• retrieve an archived value?
• describe the different retrieval modes?
• retrieve data item attributes?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.5 Multiple Value Queries

Learning Outcomes
• Retrieve compressed data for a point.
• Retrieve sampled data for a point.
• Retrieve timed data for a point.

There are three types of queries that return multiple values.

Compressed Data Actual archived data and is more properly

termed Archived data, as not all data may be
compressed.

Sampled Data Evenly spaced interpolated data

Timed Data Interpolates events to match existing

timestamps

Below is a graph of Compressed Data compared to Sampled Data. The Compressed Data
function returns all the data that had been archived for the data item of interest. Time intervals
between the compressed data values are uneven and depends on when the data was received
and archived by the PI System.

You may need to know the value of a data item at specific timestamps, for example at the
beginning of every shift. Or you may need to compare the values of two different data items and
having unevenly spaced time intervals would not be that helpful. In these cases, using the
Sampled Data function is helpful in creating a PI DataLink report.

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Retrieving Compressed Data

The Compressed Data function retrieves the actual archived data from the Data Archive.
You must specify:
• Data item(s)
o Can specify 1 or more
• Output cell
o Any data currently in this cell will be replaced
• Start Time and End Time.

Note: If you switch the timestamps for Start and End Times, the data will be returned in
reverse order.

There are several optional checkboxes that will affect what is displayed, none of which are
selected by default:
• Hide count: When this box is unchecked, the top line of your results will return the number
of events found within that time range. When this box is checked, this count is not
displayed and only the results are shown.
• Show time stamps: This checkbox determines if only the point values are returned, or if
the corresponding timestamp is also retrieved.
• Show Value Attributes and Show Annotations: will return additional fields if there are
any annotations or quality bits associated with the compressed events within the time
range specified.
• Column and Row: This pair of radio buttons determine if the results are returned in
columns or rows.
• The Number of Values option for this query behaves
similarly, but rather than a specific time range, you will specify
a Start Time and the Number of Values that you would like
to retrieve. You can also check the box to have this go
backwards, rather than forwards in time.

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Obtaining Sampled Data

Sampled Data retrieves evenly spaced interpolated values from the archive. You specify:
• Data item(s)
o Can specify 1 or more
• Output cell
o Any data currently in this cell will be replaced
• Start Time and End Time.
• Time Interval
o Used to divide the time range into discreet intervals.

Timed Data

The Timed Data function retrieves interpolated events to match existing timestamps. These time
stamps are already in your spreadsheet and may be as a result of a related data item query.
The Data item, Retrieval mode, and Output cell need to be specified. In this case, the times
used to retrieve events will be a range of cells containing timestamps. This is typically done by
querying one point for events, and then using those timestamps to find the values for other,
related points. The graph below shows an example of the External Temperature for Mixing
Tank1 queried for Compressed data, then going to Mixing Tank2 and getting the Compressed
Data then the Timed Data matched to Mixing Tank1 External temperature timestamps.

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6.5.1 Directed Activity – Archived, Sampled and Timed Data Functions

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Retrieve archive data with the different multiple value functions

Activity Description
You would like to analyse the archived values of the External Temperature of Mixing Tank1 in
your daily report for the first two hours of every day. You would also like to see this temperature
value every 10 minutes during these two hours.
You are also interested in doing a comparison between Mixing Tank1 and Mixing Tank2 at the
timestamps where there is a value archived for external temperature of Mixing Tank1.

Approach
Part 1 – Build a Template
Step 1 : In Excel, create a Template for your report by typing Data Item, Start Time, End
Time and Time Interval in cells A1, A3, A4 and B5, respectively.
Step 2 : Using Search, find the attribute External Temperature for Mixing Tank1 and
Mixing Tank2 and place them in cells B1 and B2, respectively.
Step 3 : Type the Start Time of T (in cell B3), End Time of T+2h (in cell B4) and time
interval of 10m (in cell B5).

Part 2 – Query PI Data

Step 1 : Obtain the compressed data for Mixing Tank1 External Temperature and list it in
cell C3.
Step 2 : Do the same for Mixing Tank2 in cell G3.
Step 3 : Obtain the sampled data for Mixing Tank1 External Temperature in cell E3.
Step 4 : Comparing the timestamps of the compressed data for the two mixing tanks you
notice they are not the same so the comparison can’t be accurately done. To have a better

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comparison, use Timed Data function and get the External Temperature of Mixing Tank2 at the
timestamps in Column C.

6.5.2 Exercise – Tank Analysis Report

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity. Use your own data if you have access
to suitable data.

Objective
• Extract values and attributes from the PI System using the following functions:
o Compressed Data.
o Sampled Data.

Activity Description
Show the archived values of the Pressure of the two Mixing Tanks listed in your daily report for
the past 24 hours. When retrieving the raw archived data for this process variable, you prefer
to see one value each hour for the past 24 hrs.
You will use this report to do some analysis on this critical process variable of the mixing tanks.

Approach
Step 1 : Spend a few minutes and fill out the following table:

Data Item

Start Time

End Time

Time Interval

Step 2 : Open <your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Tank

Analysis Report and fill in data for all of the fields.
Step 3 : We will use the Compressed Data and Sampled Data queries to fill in a
template.

Bonus 1
Using Excel functions, modify your report such that you get one value at the top of each hour for
the past 24 hours.

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Bonus 2

The Excel Insert tab in the Sparklines section has several options to show lines and columns
as well as additional options to format the axes and colors.
To use this functionality, first select the cell where you want to place the Sparkline. Then choose
the Sparkline type. For Data Range, select the cells with the data (just select the values, not the
timestamps). Verify your output cell and choose OK. The result is a small trend of your data,
with an assumption of evenly spaced values over time.

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6.5.3 Directed Activity – Multiple Value Queries

Instructor led class discussion

Objectives
• Determine the best multiple value query for the job
Activity Description
You have just built a report to analyse the values for the pressures of all mixing tanks in your
plant for the past 24 hours.

Approach
Part 1
Do you think the report you built is efficient? Since the same analysis would be done on the
values retrieved for the internal and external temperatures of each of the mixing tanks, do you
think your report can be built in a better way?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

Part 2
What would you do if there were 50 mixing tanks in your plant and you needed to repeat the
same process for each of them?
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

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 Quick Check
Can you:
• Retrieve compressed data for a point?
• Retrieve sampled data for a point?
• Retrieve timed data for a point?

If you answer no to any question, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.6 Element Relative PI DataLink Reports

Learning Outcomes
• Create Asset reports based on AF element templates
• Use Filters to search for Assets.

PI DataLink promotes the reusability of PI DataLink reports and the creation of Element Relative
PI DataLink Reports.
This functionality is provided via Search.
You will need to:
• Set the Root path length to the mark before Name Only
• Insert root paths in: Drop-down list

resulting in:

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Search for Assets by Filtering

The Element Relative search functionality is provided in PI DataLink through the Asset Filter
search option. The Asset Filter is helpful for searching the AF database for elements and
filtering the returned elements by the attribute values. Note that you must select an element
template to filter elements if using attribute values.
The Asset Filter Search function returns assets that meet specified filter criteria. The returned
assets can be used in the worksheet as a function array which can update automatically, or as
static values.
The filter criteria include:
• Element name
• Element template
• Element category
• Element description
• Value of attributes

Using the Asset Filter, you will have the option of returning the search
results in a Drop-down list which would be used in building reusable reports.

Note: The Asset Filter option provides more options in filtering different assets and attributes
when creating an Element Relative Report. However, it requires a template for filtering the
related assets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUOW1yVBLnk

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6.6.1 Directed Activity – Element Relative PI DataLink Reports

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section. Use your own data if you have access to suitable data.

Objectives
• Create an element relative PI DataLink report

Activity Description
You want to create a report to review the internal and external temperatures for all of the tanks.

Approach
We will follow two approaches in creating this report. The first approach is to use the Search
functionality while the second approach is to use the Asset Filter functionality.
Method 1: Using Search
Step 1 : Choose cell A1 in Excel

Step 2 : Select the AF Server > OSIsoft Plant > Production Area in Search.
Step 3 : Search for *TEMP*
You will notice that the results include all the attributes because their parent elements are based
on the template named “Generic Tank Template”.
Step 4 : Repeat the search for *TEMPER*
Step 5 : Select all eight (8) results using the <Shift> Click (or individually with Ctrl Click).
Step 6 : Use the Root path length slider set to the mark before Name Only.
Step 7 : Set ‘Insert root paths in:’ to Drop-down list.
Step 8 : Choose cell B2 and select the Current Value function.
Step 9 : Select the cells for Data item(s) and Root Path.
Step 10 : Now the Tank path can be modified with the drop-down list.

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Method 2: Using Asset Filter

Step 1 : Add a new sheet.
a. Choose cell A2.

When working with Asset Filter and selecting the Drop-down

Important list, the drop-down list will appear in the cell above your
Output cell. The selected Output cell is where the selected
attributes will start being listed.

Step 2 : Click on Asset Filter from the Search section.

Step 3 : Under the Root path specify the path to the Production Area Element in the form
of \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant.
Step 4 : Under the Element template, select “Generic Tank Template”.
Step 5 : Under the Attributes to display, select External Temperature and Internal
Temperature.
Step 6 : Select Drop-down list.
Step 7 : Click Apply.

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6.6.2 Exercise – Operational Start Up

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity. Use your own data if you have access
to suitable data.

Objective
• Retrieve data using the Compressed Data and Sampled Data functions.

Activity Description
You want to determine if there is any deviation between start-up of operations for today
compared to yesterday, during the same period of time. Four tanks exist on your plant and you
want to be able to build and reuse a single report for both tanks.
• Your daily shift starts at 6:30 am and the critical start up time is the first 2 hours after the
start up.
• Gather the values for the external temperature for this period of time for today and
yesterday
• Compare the two by calculating the ratio of the two days’ values (ideally, the ratio should
stay as close as possible to 1).

Approach
Step 1 : Spend a few minutes to fill out the following table:

Root Path

Data Item
Yesterday’s Start Yesterday’s End
Time Time
Today’s Start Time Today’s End Time
Time Interval 4 Minutes
Excel function for
Comparison (ratio)
Step 2 : You will use the template provided in sheet Operational Start Up of the file <your
initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx.
Step 3 : Use both PI DataLink functions of Compressed and Sampled data in retrieving
the values and doing the comparison.
Step 4 : Which PI DataLink function, do you think, would be more suitable for the purpose
of comparison of yesterday’s and today’s values?

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 Quick Check
• Can you create Asset based reports?
• Can you use Filters to search for Assets?

If you answered NO to either of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.7 Excel Arrays in PI DataLink

Learning outcomes
• Identify when it is necessary to resize an array.
• List the ways to resize and edit an array.

Resizing an Excel Array

When using the PI DataLink product, end users

may see this message below:

The Multiple Value functions just discussed actually return an array of values and timestamps.
This array cannot be modified cell by cell, but the entire array can be modified. These values
can change in size based on the point used, the time range specified, and exception and
compression settings. Therefore, it can be necessary to resize the array.
If too many values are returned, you will receive the message “Resize to show all values” at
the bottom of the array.
The easiest way to resize an array is to right click anywhere in the array, and choose
Recalculate (Resize) Function

For more information see "Array Management" in PI DataLink User Guide

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 Quick Check
Understand? If not consult your friendly instructor.

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6.8 Units of Measure and Descriptions as Context in Reports

It is possible to add Units of Measure (UOM) and Descriptions to reports. Doing so will add
more context to consumers. It is possible to retrieve these attributes, and any other attributes,
for a data item using the Properties function.

Different Properties will be shown depending on the Data Item listed. For both PI Points and AF
Attributes, the Units of Measure are shown as UOM in PI DataLink Properties list.

Data Archive AF Server

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6.9 More PI DataLink Functions

Learning Outcomes
• Obtain calculated values.
• Obtain filtered values.
• Understand Conversion factors.

In the previous chapters, we used different PI DataLink functions to access the raw data stored
in PI Server. However, you may not be interested in bringing all the raw data but instead apply
calculations on these raw values as they are retrieved from PI Server.
PI DataLink offers two ways to bring in calculated values:
1. Use different predefined calculation modes in PI DataLink as part of the Calculated Data
function.
2. Use custom expressions in defining your desired calculation. The syntax used in these
calculations is the same as Performance Equations syntax which is explained later.

Calculated Data

The Calculated Data function returns a single calculated value or evenly spaced calculated
values for a PI Point or an AF Attribute. Calculation modes are:
• Total
• Minimum
• Maximum
• Standard deviation
• Range
• Average
• Count
• Mean
These summary calculations provide statistical information for data over a specified time
period.
Selecting the Data Item radio button of the Calculated Data Function, you will see most of the
fields are similar to the other PI DataLink functions you have already worked with.
Some of the fields specific to this function are:
• Time interval: An optional field. If used, it allows the behaviour to be similar to the Sampled
Data function and the calculations will be done for the evenly spaced time intervals.
• Calculation mode: The available modes are the ones listed above.
• Show percent good: Checking this option displays the percentage of good data for the
calculation time range. You can use this to determine if you want use data that may not be
100% ‘good’.

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Note: A Bad value for PI System is defined as any of the digital states from the System Digital
State Set in the Data Archive. Examples are I/O Timeout, No Data, Shutdown, No Sample, Intf
Shut and Arc Off-line. It makes no inferences about the Quality of the data in the plant.

• Conversion Factor: If the calculation mode is set to Total, the conversion factor may need
to be changed to a number other than 1.
For time-weighted total calculations, use the Conversion Factor calculator. From the
dropdown make a selection based on the units of measure of the process variable. The
required conversion factor number will then be calculated and placed in the Conversion
factor field.
When you click on the calculator icon next to the Conversion factor entry field you will get a
popup that lets you select the appropriate conversion factor:

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6.9.1 Directed Activity – Calculated Data

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Use the calculated data function in PI DataLink
Activity Description
We want to practice how to use Calculated Data and obtain the Average, Maximum and
Minimum of Flow Rate for Mixing Tank1 for the period of past two hours and for the past one
day.
Approach

Step 1 : In Excel create a template with

a. Root Path: \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production
Area\Production Line1\Mixing Tank1
b. Data Item: Flow Rate
c. Start Time: *
d. End Time: *-2h
Step 2 : Obtain the Average, Maximum and Minimum of Flow Rate for this tank and for
the past one day.
Step 3 : Change the End Time to *-1d to see the PI Server recalculate these values.

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Calculating Total and the Conversion Factor

The conversion factor is a multiplier used to change a number from one unit of measure to
another.
Ex: 1000 g per kg, 2.54 cm per inch, 24 hours per day, 1440 minutes per day
Since the Data Archive is not aware of engineering units, it assumes that rate points are in
terms of units per day. Typically, this assumption is inaccurate as many points are measured in
terms of units per second, units per minute, or units per hour. When using the Total function in
Calculated Data, a conversion factor must be used to correct PI's assumption that the data is in
units per day. The conversion factor is equal to 1.0 when the source data are in units per day.

Engineering Unit
Actual Engineering Unit of Conversion
Assumed by Data
the Rate Point Factor
Archive

units / day units / day 1

units / hour units / day 24

units / minute units / day 1440

units / second units / day 86400

Example: Flow rate is measure in litres per minute (l/m) and stored in the Data Archive. We are
interested in calculating total litres for an 8-hour period. Shown in the following illustration, flow
rate is:
• 3 l/m for 3 minutes
• 5 l/m for 2 minutes
• 1 l/m for 3 minutes

Total flow, is the area below the flow rate line (the area of the three rectangles added up).

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The expected total flow would, therefore, be:

(3 l/m x 3 min) + (5 l/m x 2 min) + (1 l/m x 3 min) = 22 litres

Data Archive, however, assumes the unit of measure of the flow rate is gallons per day. Without
applying the conversion factor, the total flow calculated by Data Archive is returned as:
(3 litres per day x 3 min x 1 day/1440 min) + (5 litres per day x 2 min x 1 day/1440 min) + (1 litre
per day x 3 min x 1 day/1440 min) = 0.01528 litres

The total computed by the Data Archive must be multiplied by the conversion factor of 1440 to
get 22 litres:
0.01528 litres x 1440 = 22 litres
When the calculation mode is Total and part of the archived data within the range is bad, the
reported value is equal to the calculated total value divided by the fraction of the time period
with good archived data. This data normalization is equivalent to the assumption that for the bad
data time range, the point value takes on the average value of the entire range. However, this
assumption may not be valid when a large fraction of the time range contains bad data.
Therefore, we recommend that you always look at the percent good value before using the
calculation result.

For more information see "Calculated Data" in PI DataLink User Guide

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6.9.2 Directed Activity – Calculating the Total

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Calculate the Total value using the Calculated Data function
Activity Description
We want to calculate the total Flow and the Average Flow Rate of Mixing Tank1 for yesterday.
To know what conversion factor to use, we need to bring the UOM of Flow Rate for Mixing
Tank1.
Approach
Step 1 : In Excel create a template with
a. Root Path: \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production
Area\Production Line1\Mixing Tank1
b. Data Item: Flow Rate
c. Start Time: Y
d. End Time: T
Step 2 : Add a cell to your report template titled UOM and get this value for Flow Rate
using Properties.
Step 3 : Add a cell to your report template titled Conversion Factor and write the
appropriate value there.
Step 4 : Calculate the Average
Step 5 : Calculate the Total of Flow for the time range (don’t forget the Conversion
Factor!)
Step 6 : Add the percent good.

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6.9.3 Exercise – Production Summaries

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objective
• Extract calculated values using the Calculated Data function.

Activity Description
As the production manager, you want to create a report showing last week’s production
statistics. You want to display the following for the production from each day of the past week:
• Total
• Average
• Maximum
You also want to do the same calculations for the entire week.

Approach
Step 1 : On the PI Server, the production is the sum of the productions from the two
production lines and is stored as an attribute named Production under the element of
Production Area. It is defined as the sum of the flows of the two Mixing Tanks in litres per
minute.
Step 2 : Spend a few minutes and fill out the following table:

Root Path

Data item

Start time:

End time:

Time
interval:

UOM

Step 3 : You will use the template provided in sheet Production Summaries of the file
<your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx. Use the values of your table in the provided
template.

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Note:

When working with the weekly total, do not use the time interval. Only use it for the daily total
(hint).

Be sure to show the Start Time for the daily Calculations.

The percent good field is located to the right of an aggregate calculation, so use
with the Maximum.

 Quick Check
Can you:
• Obtain calculated values?
• Understand Conversion factors?

If you answered NO to any of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.10 Using Time Filtered Data in a Preventative Maintenance Example

Learning Outcomes
• Using the Time Filtered Function

Time Filtered Data

You have a Pump and would like to implement a Preventative Maintenance program. Firstly, you
need to determine the period that the pump was running. These total hours can then be checked
against the replacement period as indicated in the pump manufacturer’s datasheet; every 10,000
hours, for example.
If you have a PI Point recording the status of the pump (when it is ON or OFF) you can report
your Preventative Maintenance program by using the Time Filtered function. This function returns
the amount of time that a performance equation evaluates to true during a specified time period.
You need to specify the following fields for this function:
• Expression(s)
o Can specify 1 or more and it would follow the Performance Equation format. Data
items permitted in expressions are:
PI points
AF attributes that store data references to PI points
AF attributes that store constant values
• Start Time and End Time.
• Time Unit
o i.e., The pump was running for 5 seconds/minutes/hours/days

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6.10.1 Directed Activity – Controller State

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Extract Time Filtered data in PI DataLink

Activity Description
We want to determine the amount of time a controller has been in the CASCADE state. The
controller is a digital point, named CDM158, and has five (5) discrete states. We are only
concerned with the CASCADE state at this time.

Approach
Step 1 : In Excel create a label for the output cell Time in Cascade mode (hours).
Step 2 : Choose an empty output cell.
a. Select the Time Filtered function.
Step 3 : Use the following values for different fields:
a. Expression(s): ‘CDM158’ = “CASCADE”

b. Start Time: T-3d

c. End Time: T
d. Time Units: Hours

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6.10.2 Directed Activity – Mixing Tank Level Control

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Use an expression in the Time Filtered function

Activity Description
Mixing tank1 level going above 7 is an indication of malfunctioning of the pump. In our analysis
report, we want to find out for how many hours the pump was malfunctioning during yesterday.

Approach
Step 1 : In Excel create a report template similar to the screenshot at the end of the
activity.
Step 2 : Select cell B1 and search for the Mixing Tank1 Level attribute.
Step 3 : Modify the expression and apply the PE syntax rules to ‘level’>7

Important Note: The first ‘ in an Excel cell is used to signify that the cell content is text and that
no Excel formulas should be interpreted. To include an expression in a cell, you need to put a ‘
at the beginning of the expression.

Step 4 : Complete the report template with these values:

a. Start Time: T
b. End Time: Y
c. Time Units: Hours
Step 5 : Select the Time Filtered function and use the output cell as B6.

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6.10.3 Exercise – Condition Based Inspection

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objective
• Calculate the operating time with the Time Filtered function.

Activity Description
The pumps on our mixing and storage tanks need to be visually inspected every 4 months only
if they have been running for over 2,000 hours. As the person in charge of the Preventative
Maintenance program, you want to know the operating time for the pumps on the tanks.
A PI Point does not exist to determine if the pump is ON or OFF, but the pump only runs when
the tank Level is greater than 1.2. Find the amount of time the pumps on each of the tanks have
been running for the past 4 months and find out if any of the pumps need to be inspected.

Approach
You will use the template provided in sheet Condition Based Inspection of the file <your
initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx. Get the total Operating Time of the pumps associated with
tanks.
Step 1 : Use Asset Filter Search to bring the list of Assets without any attribute.
a. Specify the appropriate Root Path and Element Template in
the search dialogue box and without selecting any attributes,
click Ok.
Step 2 : Use Time Filtered function to calculate the number of hours each pump was
running.

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 Quick Check
• Can you use the Time Filtered function?
• Obtain filtered values?

If NO, then ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.11 Filtered Data Using Custom Expressions

Learning Outcomes
• Using Filtered expressions

When using different PI DataLink functions, we noticed an optional field of Filter Expression.

This option is available for the functions of:

• Compressed Data
• Sampled Data
• Calculated data
PI DataLink applies the filter expression to the raw data retrieved and only the values that make
the specified expression True, would be included. Therefore, for the two functions of
Compressed Data and Sampled Data, only the values that make the specified filter expression
True would be listed in the output cell. For the Calculated Data function, only the raw values that
make the filter expression True, would be considered in the calculations. With the use of Filter
Expression, an option of Mark as filtered becomes available for the Compressed and Sampled
Data functions; if the Mark as filtered option is selected, a Filtered status is returned for each
group of values that does not satisfy the filter expression.
The Filter Expression is a performance equation and follows the formatting rules discussed in
the previous section.

Note: When using a cell reference for your Filter Expression, be sure that if the Filter Expression
begins with a timestamp or point name that you use two single quotes. The first single quote is
used in Excel to identify a text string, rather than a value, and will not be seen by the filter
expression. Another option is to enclose the entire filter expression in parenthesis, in which case
the extra single quote is not needed.

For more information see the “Expressions” section in the PI DataLink User
Guide.

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Excel Conditional Formatting

This topic is not specific to PI DataLink, but the Conditional Formatting found in Microsoft
Excel can give your PI DataLink reports a great perspective. It is useful for visually comparing
values extracted from PI. Conditional Formatting is found in the Home Ribbon in the Styles
section. You can use this functionality to provide highlighted maxima or minima, bar graph
backgrounds, and many other visual cues about the data being displayed.
To use this functionality, first highlight the group of cells you wish to format. Then click on the
Conditional Formatting button and choose a group and rule. For the Highlight Cells Rules
and Top/Bottom Rules, you will see a preview of the formatting once you configure the
appropriate limits. For Data Bars, Colour Scales and Icon Sets, simply hover the mouse over
each preconfigured option to preview its effect on the cells you selected. Click the desired rule
to select it.
If none of the preconfigured rules suit your needs, you can configure additional rules using
Conditional Formatting > New Rule. Multiple rules can be applied in configurable order using
Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules.

Note: The MS Excel TODAY() function returns the serial number of the current date. The serial
number is the date-time code used by Microsoft Excel for date and time calculations. Microsoft
Excel stores dates as whole number of days starting at 1900. Dates and times are values and
therefore can be added, subtracted, and included in other calculations.

Syntax: =TODAY()

Example: =(TODAY() - 10 + 16/24) is today minus 10 days at 4 PM

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6.11.1 Directed Activity – Filtered Data Value Queries

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Apply a filter expression to the values retrieved using Compressed Data function

Activity Description
Retrieve data using the Compressed Data function and filter out all values below 150 because
they are irrelevant to our report.

Approach
Part 1
Step 1 : In Excel create a sheet with
o Data Item: CDT158
o Start Time: T
o End Time: T-1d
o Filter Expression: ‘‘CDT158’ > 150
Step 2 : Retrieve the Compressed Data and verify there are no values less than 150.
Step 3 : Values below 150 are unnecessary and we would not need to include them on
our report.
Part 2
Step 1 : On a new sheet, create a sheet with
o Tank: \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production Area\Production Line1\Mixing Tank1
o Process Variable: External Temperature
o Start Time: T
o End Time: T-1d
o Filter Expression: ‘‘External Temperature’ > 200

Step 2 : Retrieve the Compressed Data and verify there are no values less than 200; the
filter expression removed them.

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6.11.2 Exercise – Production Level Report

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Use the Filter Expression option of the Sampled Data function to constrain the values
that are extracted.

Activity Description
As a quality control manager, you want to examine the level of product in Mixing Tank1. Since
this is an analogue point, it is better to perform a Sampled Data query rather than a
Compressed Data query.
You want to build a report for the level yesterday over 10-minute intervals. The report filters
out mean tank levels, which is defined as a level between 4 and 6.

Approach
Step 1 : Spend a few minutes and fill out the following table:

Root Path

Data Item

Start Time

End Time

Interval

Upper Limit

Lower Limit

Filter Expression

Step 2 : You will use the template provided in sheet Production Level Report of the file
<your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx.

Note: Are you familiar with the Excel function of CONCATENATE? 

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

 Quick Check
Having completed this topic:

• Do you understand the use of Filtered Expressions?

If you answered NO, ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.12 Event-related Features of PI DataLink

Learning Outcomes
• Understanding the Event Explore and Compare

Explore and Compare PI Events

PI DataLink allows browsing and comparing PI Events within Microsoft Excel.

These two Events functions return events that meet specified criteria in an AF database.
• Explore Events: this function returns one event per row and nests child events under
parent events. This function is useful to show child events under a parent event while
preserving the hierarchy structure.
• Compare Events: this function returns one event per row but can return attributes from
related events in that same row. Specifically, to facilitate event comparison, the function
can return attributes from child events or parent events in the same row as the returned
event. This function is useful to flatten the hierarchy to show a particular child event that
is common for each parent event.

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6.12.1 Directed Activity – Monitoring downtime events

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Retrieve Event Frames in PI DataLink
Activity Description
Operations manager needs a report that lists the amount of time that the tanks at your site had
been down due to mechanical issues (and not due to scheduled maintenance). Learn how to
use event frames data in excel reports.
Approach
Step 1 : In Excel select an Output cell
Step 2 : Select Explore from the Events tab
Step 3 : Make the following selections:
a. Database:

\\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant
b. Event name: *
c. Search start: *-1d
d. Search end: *
e. Event template: Downtime
f. Element name: *
Step 4 : Expand the More search options section. On the Attribute value filters select the
“Reason Code” for the Attribute:
a. Reason Code = mechanical

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Step 5 : From Columns to display select Event name, Start time, End time, Duration,
Primary element, Maximum External Temperature, Maximum Internal Temperature, Reason
Code and Temperature Difference.

Step 6 : Click Ok.

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6.12.2 Directed Exercise – Analyzing downtime events

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing. If you know Pivot
Charts, have a go yourself.

Objectives
• Analyze Event Frames retrieved from PI DataLink using PivotChart and PivotTable

Activity Description
The operations manager now needs a report that shows which downtime reason is most
prevalent and a comparison showing which tanks are the most problematic. He also would like
to see information about the total production loss from the tanks.
Approach
Step 1 : Use the template provided in sheets Downtime Raw Data and Evaluating Tank
Downtime of the file <your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx.
Step 2 : Open the Downtime Raw Data Tab Select cell A7 as your Output cell
Step 3 : Select the Compare from the Events tab
Step 4 : Make the following selections:
Step 5 : Database:
\\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant
a. Event
name: *
b. Search
start: *-1d
c. Search
end: *
d. Event template: Downtime
e. Element name: *
Step 6 : From Columns to display select:
Event name, Start time, End time, Duration, Event Template,
Primary element, Event Duration, Maximum External Temperature,

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Maximum Internal Temperature, Reason Code, Lost Production, and

Temperature Difference.

Step 7 : Open the Evaluating Tank Downtime sheet.

Step 8 : Select the PivotTable under Comparing Reason Codes, then, from the Analyse
tab, select Refresh

Step 9 : Select the PivotTable under Comparing Tanks, then, from the Analyze tab, select
Refresh
Step 10 : Which Reason Code caused the most production loss overall?
__________________
Step 11 : Which Reason Code caused the most production loss for the Storage tanks?
__________________
Step 12 : Which Tank has caused the most production loss? __________________


 Quick Check
• Do you now understand the Event Explore & Compare functions?

If you answered NO ask your instructor for assistance.

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6.13 Functions using an Expression

Learning Outcomes
• Use an Expression instead of a Data Item
• Understand why Expressions are provided.

As we saw earlier, some PI DataLink functions accept either a data item or an expression as
input. These functions have Data item and Expression options at the top of the task pane. So
far, we only worked with the Data Item option. In PI DataLink, expressions are performance
equations that you can use to incorporate mathematical operations and calculations based on
PI System data items.
PI DataLink functions that can use Expressions (as well as Data Item) include:
• Archive Value function
• Sampled Data function
• Timed Data function
PI Expressions behave much the same way that PI PE do. They follow the same expression
syntax and can use one or many of the following Data items:
PI points
AF attributes that store data references to PI points
AF attributes that store constant values
The benefit to PI Expressions is that they only calculate on demand. However, the downside is
that, unlike PI PE, there is no history of these calculations stored on the PI Server, so it is more
difficult to see historical trends.

How is Calculated Data Function Different from PI Expressions?

One difference between PI Calculated Data and PI Expressions is shown in an example below.
The PI Calculated Data computes the maximum of the point over each 1-day period for the last
7 days. The PI Expression shown computes the maximum of the Sampled Data of point for the
most recent 8 hours of every 1-day period, for the last 7 days.

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The format for the PI Expression is: TagMax('TagName','*-8h','*')

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Just like the PI Calculated Data, it would be configured with a start time of *-7d, an end time of *,
and an interval of 1 day (1d). Keep in mind that the ‘*’ in the expression does not always go to
the current time of the machine, the ‘*’ in this case is represented by the right side of the 8-hour
bar below. If the PI expression was changed to TagMax('tag','*-1d','*'), the results of
the PI Calculated Data and the PI Expression would be identical. However, the PI Expression will
contain an extra interval at the start time of the expression when compared directly with PI
Calculated Data.

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6.13.1 Directed Activity – Expression Queries

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Use Performance Equations in PI DataLink
Activity Description
We showed how we would be able to see the values of the Flow Rate of Mixing Tank2 for the
past one day at the top of each hour, using Sampled Data function.
Here, instead of bringing the raw values of the flow rate, we are interested in getting the
difference between the flow rate value and its average for the past day, and have it included in
our Excel report.
Note: For simplicity, we will use PI Points in this example. You would be able to do this exercise
using the AF Attribute and the Concatenate function in Excel for building the expression.
Approach
Step 1 : Open Microsoft Excel.
Step 2 : Create a Template with:
a. Start Time: y
b. End Time: t
c. Time Interval: 1h
d. Expression: TagVal(‘VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL2.MXTK2:Flow
Rate’)-TagAvg(‘VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL2.MXTK2:Flow Rate’, ‘*-
24h’,’*’)
Step 3 : Use Sampled Data function and use Expression in retrieving the data
Step 4 :

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6.13.2 Exercise – Material Balance Report

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Use Performance Equations in PI DataLink

Activity Description
Two products, named Product A and
Product B are being mixed in a tank, as
shown in the following schematic.
The flow of Product A is stored in a PI Point
named VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL1.MXTK1:Flow
Rate

and the flow of Product B is stored in a PI

Point named
VPSD.OSIsoftPlant.PL2.MXTK2:Flow Rate.

You are interested in including the Percentage of Product A in the mix, as it is a critical indicator.
There is no PI Point storing this value and you need to calculate it.
You are building this report for the past 7 days and would like to list this percentage for the
period of every 2 hours.

Approach
Step 1 : Develop the expression for calculating the Percentage of Product A in the
resulting mix.
Step 2 : Spend a few minutes and fill out the following table:

Expression

Start Time

End Time

Time Interval

Step 3 : You will use the template provided in sheet Material Balance Report of the file
<your initials>_PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx.

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Step 4 : How would you change the expression if one of the two Products was not flowing
and the associated point was showing a bad value of “Shutdown”? (Hint: If Then Else)

 Quick Check
• Can you use an Expression?
• Do you understand why Expressions are provided?

If you answered NO to either of these questions, ask your instructor for assistance.

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7. FINAL EXERCISE
Now that you have the Visualization tools in your toolkit, it is time to put them to work. Your plant
is so successful it has expanded and has a new database. It is now called the OSI Production
Facility, or you may be using your own company assets if you have access to them. Your task
is to create new displays and reports for the production engineers.

Learning Outcomes
• Demonstrate Familiarity of the OSIsoft Visualization tools

7.1 Global Recap Exercise

This solo activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific topic area.

Your instructor is available to assist if you need assistance during the
activity

Objectives
• Demonstrate understanding of the fundamentals of the PI System technology
• Access data in the PI System
• Demonstrate the use of PI Vision and PI DataLink client applications
Activity Description
The production facility has grown beyond company’s wildest expectations resulting in an
upgrade to a bigger plant. The old displays and reports are no longer acceptable. You have
been asked to completely redesign the displays and reports from the previous environment.
Design a set of dashboards, displays and reports using the skills learned in this class. Creativity
is highly encouraged. This is intended as a fun, open-ended exercise, and a friendly competition
to wrap up the class. Feel free to work in small teams or alone. At the end of the session, all
groups will give a brief presentation of their displays.
Work will be graded on:
1. Conveying your understanding of as many skills/concepts as possible.
2. Use of all the products, including PI DataLink and PI Vision.
3. Creativity in your design.
4. Your presentation to the class.
You may use any aspects of PI DataLink, and PI Vision discussed in class. This is open book,
so feel free to consult the workbook as well as relevant documentation (all the relevant user
guides are available in your learning environment). You are encouraged, but not required, to
use all three products in your final design.

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Approach
Step 1 : In the PI client tools - PI Vision and PI Datalink - set the database to OSI
Production Facility.
Step 2 : Explore the AF Structure to see the data available. If you are using your own PI
System, take note of the data surrounding your job role or your ideal business use case.
Step 3 : Build displays using the tools studied in this course to show potential solutions for
the business case you chose. Below are some of the things you need to implement.
PI Vision
a. Build a display with Tables, Trends, Values and Gauges
b. The use of collections is a must, incorporating all production
lines.
c. Re-use displays for similar assets and add text, images, links,
and multi-state behavior to enrich your PI Vision Display.
d. Create a pinned Event Frame representing an ideal run.
Remember - pinned events are benchmark events that remain
at the top of the Events panel.
e. Share the display, add keywords to sort displays and find your
favorite displays.
f. Display your knowledge of multiple time contexts within a
display.
g. Demonstrate the use of PI Vision calculations.
PI DataLink
a. Display Current Values and archived data for PI Points and AF Attributes
b. Calculate totals, averages, and other statistical values for your data
c. Report on Event Frames, particularly regarding Downtime & Lost Production
d. Re-use reports for multiple assets using drop-down lists
Share your displays and reports with the class, explaining how each fulfils the business case (or
your own use case).
Additionally, show how what you have learned, will help you when you return to your normal
role.

If you don’t know where to start here is what we are expecting:

• PI Vision (3 displays)
o Display 1: General display containing information about all the tanks inside a
production line (collections will make this easy).
▪ Include an asset comparation table.

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▪ Don’t forget about multi-states.

▪ Include symbols form the graphic library.
▪ Include a bar chart.
▪ Link this display to the detail display.
▪ Share the display, add keywords to sort displays and find your favorite
displays.
o Display 2: Specific display to monitor tanks details (remember to use data from a
single tank so it will be reusable with asset switching).
▪ Include Tables, Trends, Values, XY plots and Gauges
▪ Add a calculation like the difference between the level and level forecast.
▪ Include multi-states and graphics
▪ Include an event table.
▪ Link this display to the generic one.
▪ Share the display, add keywords to sort displays and find your favorite
displays.
o Display 3 (bonus): Event frames comparation display.
▪ Include some event attributes.
▪ Pinn an event.

• PI DataLink (3 reports)
o Report 1: Tank data
▪ Use drop-down lists o be reusable
▪ Sigle value: Display Current Value and archived data for AF Attributes
▪ Multiple values: Display sampled data for the last 2 hours data sampled
every 10 minutes and display the archived data for the same period.
▪ Create an excel graphic for the multiple values colums.
o Report 2: Calculations
▪ Use drop-down lists o be reusable
▪ Calculate totals, averages, and other statistical values for your data
▪ Be careful with the formats and take advantages of MS Excel features.
o Report 3 (bonus): Event frames
▪ Report on Event Frames, particularly regarding Downtime & Lost
Production

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8. OSISOFT SUPPORTING YOU

Learning Outcomes

• Show the OSIsoft Learning Platform

• Explore the OSIsoft Learning YouTube Channel
• Introduce PI Square and the Customer Portal

Learning Platform @ learning.osisoft.com

The best place to learn more about the PI System is through the OSIsoft Learning platform. We
have curated our online courses, instructor-led training, and hands-on labs in an easy to browse
website, so you can keep learning about the PI System long after PI World concludes.
The platform is separated into learning paths, and for beginners, we suggest the User path.

Online Courses

Take a few minutes to click into the different learning paths and see the types of online courses
offered for:
• Users – who need to see the data in real time or build reports with PI System data.
• Administrators – who keep the data flowing and support end users. These courses dive
into the backend components of the PI System.
• Developers – who write code to interact with the PI System programmatically.

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• Power Users – who are adept with the basics of the PI System and can boost their
organization’s efforts through building an enhanced Asset Framework structure.
Our online courses cover a wide range of topics and are on-demand. When you sign up for an
online course, you will immediately gain access to the course material for 30 days along with a
Training Cloud Environment for you to practice the concepts discussed in the course.
You can also purchase a Training Cloud Environment separately from the courses if you want a
place to explore the PI System outside of your company’s production environment; however, we
recommend using your own development system whenever possible to create meaningful
results with your company’s data as you learn from our online materials.

Instructor Led Courses

If you prefer having an instructor, you will want to check out our instructor-led Virtual or
Classroom Courses. We have several training centers around the world for you to visit, so pick
a location that is convenient for you (or combine some PI education with a vacation)!
To browse the available training centers and courses, follow these steps:
1. Click on “All Content”
2. Use the filter on the left to select “Classroom” under “Content Type”
3. Expand the “Location” category to browse our training centers
4. View the available courses offered at your selected location
a. Some training locations offer course taught in languages other than English, feel
free to use the “Language” filter to further refine your course options.
5. Click on the course that matches your interest and follow through registration

If you want to view the course calendar, you can click on the calendar icon
in the All Content page.

OSIsoft Learning YouTube Channel @ youtube.com/OSIsoftLearning

Visit our YouTube Channel to Learn about the PI System by watching any of our 1000+ free
videos on You Tube!
Playlists for various topics are available to help guide you through your training topic of choice
from start to finish.

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8.1 Exercise – Search the OSIsoft Learning Channel

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Find a video on the OSIsoft YouTube Learning Channel to learn about a topic not
covered in the Visualizing PI System Data Course
• Demo accessibility features and playback settings in YouTube
Activity Description
You want to learn how to navigate a PI Vision display and make use of Ad-Hoc trending
functionality.
Approach
Step 1 : Use a web browser to navigate to YouTube.com
Step 2 : Search for the OSIsoft Learning Channel
Step 3 : Run a search to find a video about migrating PI ProcessBook displays to PI
Vision, sample search: “PI Vision” or “ad hoc trending” or search for any other topic of interest to
you.
Step 4 : A video covering the utility is “PI ProcessBook to PI Vision Migration Utility”
Step 5 : Turn on the Subtitles by clicking on the button
Step 6 : Change the quality of the video by clicking on the Settings icon
Step 7 : While in Settings, choose Subtitles and
notice that you can have Google auto-translate to the
language of your choice AND you can submit subtitles in
other languages for the OSIsoft YouTube team to review
Step 8 : To get notified when OSIsoft releases new
videos, make sure to and click on
the bell icon for updates

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8.2 Directed Exercise – Find a playlist on YouTube

You are invited to watch what the instructor is doing or perform the same
steps at the same time to explore the different concepts presented in this
chapter or section.

Objectives
• Search the OSIsoft YouTube Learning Channel for a playlist that interests you
• Use the playlist links to share structured content with your colleagues
Activity Description
You want to learn as much about a product as possible, or you want to audit an online course
for free.
Approach
Step 1 : Use a web browser to navigate to YouTube.com
Step 2 : Search for the OSIsoft Learning Channel.
Step 3 : Identify several playlists on the channel’s “Home” tab.
Step 4 : Click on the PI Vision Playlist.
Note the playlist sidebar on the right side of
the page. Now you can click into several
related videos.

Step 5 : Share the URL for the video with a colleague by selecting the entire URL on your
page. If you use the share button on the video, it does not share the entire playlist.
Step 6 : Go back to the OSIsoft Learning channel homepage by clicking on the channel
icon below the video player.

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Step 7 : Scroll down until you see the section titled “Audit our Online Courses” and click
on the title.
Step 8 : Take note of all the free online course videos that you can view and share after
PI World with your team!
Follow up: What are 2 ways you can find playlists on the OSIsoft Learning YouTube Channel?

myosisoft.com and the Customer Portal @ customers.osisoft.com

The myosisoft.com website has many tutorials on how to support related activities as well as
quick links to take you to commonly used support pages:

OSIsoft Customer Portal Hints

• How to Get an OSIsoft Customer Portal Login
• How to Create a New Case
• How to Download Products and Generate Licenses
• How to Search for Articles
• How to Manage Users

From the Customer Portal, you can also:

• Download any PI product your company is licensed for using.
• View the PI System Roadmap to get information about the most current releases and
what new features and products are on the horizon.
• Login and view your open and previously closed Support Cases or create a new one.
• Search through our Knowledge Base to try and troubleshoot any issues you may be
having by referring to the rich collection of available KB Articles.

Here are the general phone number and email address for the OSIsoft Technical Support:
Phone: +1 510 297-5828 in North America
E-mail: techsupport@osisoft.com

Support may be provided in languages other than English in certain centres based on
availability of attendants. If you select a local language option, we will make best efforts to
connect you with an available Technical Support Engineer with that language skill. If no local
language tech support engineer is available to assist you, you will be routed to the first available
attendant.
Before you contact Technical Support, it is helpful to have certain information readily available.
OSIsoft technical support engineers will ask:
• name of the product

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• version number
• the time that the difficulty started
• the computer platform (CPU type, operating system, and version number)

PI Square – The online PI System Community @ pisquare.osisoft.com

PI Square is OSIsoft’s community where you can get Technical Support for your questions,
access the PI Developers Club (PI DevClub) for your coding projects, and connect to PI
Systems users worldwide to get more value out of your PI System.
The PI Square community has places you go to collaborate, called Spaces. These spaces are
generally named for a specific topic or purpose. Each space can contain multiple types of
content, including discussions, documents, blog posts, polls, and more. Currently, PI Square
has the following four spaces:
• All Things PI - A general forum where OSIsoft Technical Support will keep watch to help
answer questions and contribute to discussions. Use the product-specific spaces like PI
Server or PI Visualization to find relevant content for whatever your needs may be.
• PI Developers Club - Here we have tools and support for developers to create applications
for the PI System.
• Learn PI - Our hub for students to interact and learn from each other while they pursue
certificates in our on-demand online courses.
• PI Square Groups – Join a group that speaks to your specific industry’s needs and learn
from others in your field of their recommended best practices for projects on your horizon.

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8.3 Exercise – Navigating PI Square

This solo or group activity is designed to maximize learning in a specific

topic area. Your instructor will have instructions and will coach you if you
need assistance during the activity.

Objectives
• Create a PI Square SSO Account and find answers about Visualization topics
• Discover the online course forums
Approach – Part 1
Step 1 : Using a web browser, navigate to the PI Square website:
https://pisquare.osisoft.com
Step 2 : Log in to the PI Square community
a. If you don’t have an OSIsoft SSO account, create one now.
You’ll use the same account for PI Square, the OSIsoft
Learning platform, and the Customer Portal.
Step 3 : Search for a post for each of the topics:
a. Future Data in PI DataLink | URL Parameters in PI Vision
Step 4 : Read through past posts, comment, or ask your own question.
Approach – Part 2
Step 5 : Navigate to the “Learn PI” space either by clicking on Spaces>Learn PI in the
page header, or by clicking on “Online Courses” from the homepage.
Step 6 : Click on “Visualizing PI System Data with PI Vision” under the “User” learning
path, and explore the questions posed and the answers given by the community for our on-
demand Online Courses.

Further Questions?
For questions about Licensing, you can find your account manager listed at
http://www.osisoft.com/ > Contact Us
For questions about existing Support Issues, contact technical support or visit my.osisoft.com
For questions about unresolved training issues, contact your instructor or email
learning@osisoft.com.
For all other questions, please contact our Customer Service group via email at
customerservice@osisoft.com.

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APPENDIX I: SOLUTIONS
Here are the step-by-step solutions to the proposed exercises. Please try to do the exercises by
yourself before consulting this section.

2. PI Time

2.2.1 Exercise – PI Time

Part 1
Timestamp Input Meaning
* - 30m 30 minutes ago
y + 8h 8 am yesterday
T Today at midnight (start of today)
Thu Midnight of the most recent Thursday
Tuesday – 2d Sunday at midnight
18 18th day of the current month at midnight
y-2y 2 years before yesterday at midnight

Part 2
Timestamp Input Meaning
T+6h Today at 6:00 AM
Mon+6.5h Monday at 6:30 am
*-12h 12 hours ago
1 The first day this month
Mon+5d The end of the week (Friday morning)
Y+7h 7:00 am yesterday
*-15m 15 minutes ago
3/1 or 3-1 or mar-1 First of March
25-sep-2021 25th of September 2021

Part 3

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8: t+8h 8:00:00 8 am

4. PI Vision

4.2.1 Exercise – Exploring the Home page

Functionality Button
Folders let users more easily find displays and provide a place to store officially published
displays. Administrators can create other folders to organize displays. You can select a 10
specific group of displays to view.
Mark any display as a favorite. Displays marked as a favorite appear in the predefined
favorites group.
15

Search for displays with particular names, tags or owners. 8

Open an empty display in the display creator. 3
Control various facets of a display's visibility, ownership, and interactions. Create multiple
labels for the same display and label as many displays as you wish.
14
Click to open an existing display. 11
Identifies the identity that is connected to PI Vision. 5
If you are working on a laptop-tablet hybrid device such as a touch-sensitive laptop, you will
see this button on the top right corner of the application to enable the Touch mode. Touch 2
mode is designed to optimize touch experience when using a 2-in-1 hybrid device.
Make the thumbnails of private displays to be showed if we have the needed permissions. 7
Appears if the display has been tagged. 13
Takes you to the home page and it is always visible. 1
Select a specific group of displays to view. You can select:
• All Displays: All public and private displays to which you have access.
• Favorites: Displays that you have marked as favorites (starred displays)
• My Displays: Displays that you have created 9
• Recent: Displays that you used within the last seven days
When you select one of these groups, PI Vision shows the thumbnails from only that group
and filters the search box to search within only that group of displays.
Shows any error or warning messages in PI Vision. 4
Takes you to the help guide and you can use it to access videos and give feedback. 6
Shows if the display has been shared. 12

4.3.8 Exercise – Improve the display “OSIsoft Plant Overview”

Step 1 : Go to the Home page by clicking on the top left corner.

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Step 2 : Go to the folder with your name in the left pane and find the display called
“OSIsoft Plant Overview <your initials>” and double click on the Thumbnail.

Step 3 : Click on the Edition Icon .

Step 4 : If the asset browsing pane is not open, click on the cube in the
left.

Step 5 : Select the radial gauge icon . Drill down in the AF hierarchy and select The
Mixing Tank1. Drag and drop the Pressure in the display area under text “Mixing Tank 01”.
Step 6 : Right click over the gauge and click on “Format Gauge”. Under the Style section,
select Pointer as Type and under the visibility section modify the label to be “Pressure.
Step 7 : Resize the radial gauge to fit in
the place assigned for it

Step 8 : Select the horizontal Gauge Symbol and drag and drop the “Percentage full”
under the radial gauge. Resize it to fit in the in the place assigned for it.
Step 9 : Right click on the horizontal
gauge and select “Format Gauge..”. Go to the
visibility section and uncheck value. Modify the
label to be Percentage full.

Step 10 : Select both gauges, you can

either click on both while hitting the control key or select the pointer in the display design bar
and draw a square that contains both gauges.
Step 11 : Copy and paste the symbols. You can either use the icons in the display design
bar or use ctrl+c and ctrl+v. Move the symbols under the text Storage Tank 01.
Step 12 : In the asset browsing pane select the Storage tank 01.

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Step 13 : Drag and drop over the

copied radial gauge the pressure. If you
do it correctly, when you put the mouse
over the radial gauge, a green square
with the name of the attribute will
appear. Before appearing the name of
the attribute, you will see the horizontal
gauge symbol.

Step 14 : Do the same for the

horizontal gauge. If you did it correctly,
when you hover the mouse over the radial
or horizontal gauge you will see that in the
path of the showed attribute includes the
name Storage Tank 1.

Step 15 : Perform steps 12, 13 and

14 for the thanks in the “Production line2”, the Mixing Tank2 and the Storage Tank2.
Step 16 : Save the display.

4.3.13 Exercise – Monitoring all vital measurement

Step 1 : Create a new display .

Step 2 : Make sure the Value symbol is selected at the top of the Search Pane
Step 3 : Click the arrow next to the OSIsoft Plant database. Then click on the
Production Area element. Drag the Asset Name attribute onto the display.
Step 4 : Right-click on the value and click Format Value. Under the Visibility section,
unselect the options for Label, Units, and Timestamp:

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Step 5 : Enlarge this value and move it to the top middle of the display near the Editor
Toolbar.
Step 6 : It’s a good habit to save the display early on. Save the display a Production Area
Dashboard <your initials>.

Step 7 : Click the Image icon in the Display Editor Toolbar. Click anywhere in the
display and create a square the size that you want your image to be. (After saving, you may
need to go back into edit mode.)
Step 8 : Perform a Google image search for “Mixing Tank”, choose one you like, and save
it to your desktop.
Step 9 : Back to your display, in the image box, click Choose File and navigate to the
image saved above. Open this image.
Step 10 : Resize the image to your liking and move it to the top left corner of the display.

Step 11 : Use the Editor Toolbar buttons (or Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) to Copy and Paste the
image. Move the copied symbol to the right-hand side of the display.
Step 12 : Perform a Google image search for “Factory”, choose one you like, and save it to
your desktop.
Step 13 : Double click on the copied Mixing Tank image. This should open up the Windows
File Explorer. Navigate to the image saved above. Open this image.
Step 14 : Change the size of the Factory image to roughly approximately the same
proportions as the Mixing Tank image. Move the Factory image to the top right corner of the
display.
Step 15 : Click on the Mixing Tank image. Hold down Ctrl and then select the Production

Area Value and the Factory image. Click on the Alignment Button
Step 16 : Click Align to Top. This will re-align all symbols with the top edge of the highest
placed symbol. Next, click the Alignment Button again and click Distribute Horizontally.

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Step 17 : Find the element named Production Line1. Drag the Asset Name attribute onto
the Display and create a value symbol. Once again, format the symbol so that the Label, Units,
and Timestamp do not appear.
Step 18 : Resize the Production Line1 Value symbol to be slightly smaller than the
Production Area Value symbol.
Step 19 : Copy the Production Line1 Value symbol and paste it on the right-hand side of
the display
Step 20 : Select the Production Line2 element in the Search Pane. Drag the Asset Name
attribute over to the copied value symbol. This will overwrite the current value and replace it with
Production Line2.
Step 21 : Using the Shapes button, add a line underneath Production Line1 and
Production Line2. After the line has been drawn, click the red circle at the end of the line and
hold the Shift key to easily snap the line horizontally.
Step 22 : Focusing on Production Line1, we need to create detailed information about the
Internal and External Temperature, Level and Level_Forecasts and the Products. Create a
Value symbol for the Asset Name attribute for each tank in Production Line1 utilizing the
copy/paste buttons as well as the Format Value Configuration Pane.

Step 23 : Select the Trend symbol at the top of the Search Pane
Step 24 : Drag the Internal Temperature attribute for Mixing Tank1 onto the Display
Step 25 : Add the other Temperature attributes for the Production Line1 tanks onto the
same trend
Step 26 : Similarly, create one Trend for the Level and Level_Forecast attributes for each
Tank

Step 27 : Click the Table symbol at the top of the Search Pane
Step 28 : Drag the Product attribute for Mixing Tank1 onto the Display
Step 29 : Right-click on the table and select Configure Table

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Step 30 : In the Configuration Pane, make sure only Name and Value are checked in
Columns:

Step 31 : Drag the Product attribute for the other tank on Production Line1 onto the table
Step 32 : All pertinent data is now displayed for each tank on Production Line1!
Step 33 : Don’t forget to Save!
Step 34 : Repeat Steps 22 through 31 for the tanks on Production Line2.
Step 35 : Challenge! (Optional): Use the Alignment Button (from Steps 15 and 16) in order
to align all data items! Can you mimic the display above?
Step 36 : Change the start time and end time of display to *-4h and *+15m, respectively.

4.4.11 Exercise – Create a dynamic dashboard to Monitor the Tank temperature

Step 1 : Create a new display .

Step 2 : Make sure the Value symbol is selected at the top of the Assets Pane
Step 3 : Select the OSIsoft Plant database. Then click on the Mixing Tank1 element.
Drag the Asset Name attribute onto the display.
Step 4 : Right-click on the value and click Format Value. Under the Visibility section,
unselect the options for Label, Units, and Timestamp. Resize the value as appropriate
Step 5 : Open the Graphics Library Pane and navigate to the Tanks category. Choose a
tank graphic and drag it onto the display.

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Step 6 : Return to the Assets Pane and drag the External Temperature to the display as
a value. Format the value to remove the timestamp and set the label to say only the attribute
name.
Step 7 : Right click on the External Temperature value and select Add Multi-State.
Modify the colors.
Step 8 : Select the Radial Gauge symbol and drag Internal Temperature to the display.
Position the gauge on top of the Tank Graphic. Right click and choose Format Gauge and
change the Type to Arc. In the visibility section, change the label to include only the attribute
name. Modify the colors to ensure the gauge is visible.
Step 9 : Select the Trend symbol and drag both Internal Temperature and External
Temperature onto the display. Resize the trend as needed. Right click the trend and choose
Format Trend and change the Single or Multiple Scales option to Show Single Scale.
Step 10 : Resize and position the symbols to fit in the top left corner of the display. Use the
rubber band selection to select all items on the display, right click and choose Convert to
Collection. Resize the collection to fill most of the display space.
Step 11 : Select the Asset Comparison Table symbol and drag both Installation Date
and Asset Location to the display.
Step 12 : Right Click the table and choose Add Dynamic Search Criteria. Change the
search root to Production Area and select Return All Descendants.
Step 13 : Right click the Collection and choose Edit Collection Criteria. Change the
search root to Production Area and select Return All Descendants. In the Asset Type
section, ensure the Asset Type is set to Generic Tank Template then click the + symbol to add
an Attribute. Choose Internal Temperature and set to > 150. Click Refresh to update the
collection.
Step 14 : Save your display as Tank Temperature Dashboard <your initials>
Step 15 : Change the end time of your display to t+8h to see how many tanks were
overheated at 8am today.
Step 16 : Change the end time of your display to y+12h to see how many tanks were
overheated at noon yesterday.

4.4.16 Exercise – Displaying trends with different times

Step 1 : Go PI Vision homepage if it is not already open and create a new display with
.

Step 2 : Click on the Text Icon and enter the text “Flow rate – Comparation by time”.
Increase the font size to 24.

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Step 3 : Select the Trend symbol . Drill down through the hierarchy in the database
OSIsoft Plant to find the Mixing Tank 1. Drag and drop the Flow Rate to the display.
Step 4 : Copy and paste the trend symbol twice. Resize and arrange the tree trends Fit in
the display. Remember you can arrange them using the arrange icon All of them are
showing the same time context yet.
Step 5 : Save the display as “Tank Flow Rate – Comparation by time <your_initials>”.
Click on the Editing icon to continue editing.
Step 6 : Right click on the top trend and select “Configure trend”.
a. Under the Trend option section check the Title box and write
“8 hours Flow Rate”, select the data markers trace and select
the grids to be “Line”.
b. Under the Value scale section, select the scale label to be
outside the plot area.
c. Under the Trace option select dashed.
Step 7 : Right click on the trend in the middle and select “Configure trend”.
a. Under the Trend option section check the Title box and write
“24 hours flow rate” and select the grids to be “Line”.
b. Under the Value scale section, select the scale label to be
outside the plot area.
c. Under the time range section for start and end times select
“Use custom time range”. Fill the start box to be “*-24h” and
the End box to be “*”.
Step 8 : Right click on the lowest trend and select “Configure trend”.
a. Under the Trend option section check the Title box and write
“7 days flow rate” and select the grids to be “Plane”.
b. Under the Value scale section, select the scale label to be
outside the plot area.
c. Under the time range section for start and end times select
“Use custom time range”. Fill the start box to be “*-7d” and the
End box to be “*”.

4.4.19 Exercise - Monitoring the Mixing Tanks’ Key Performance Indicators

Step 1 : Create a new display .

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Step 2 : Drill down the AF Hierarchy by clicking the arrow next to OSIsoft Plant >
Production Area > Production Line1 and select Mixing Tank1
Step 3 : Click the Value symbol. Select the Asset Name and select Asset Location from
the attributes pane and drag them onto the display
Step 4 : The value symbols will be placed on the PI Vision display side by side and will
both contain the Asset Name, Asset Value, and the Timestamp. Right click on the first value,
and select Format Value. A new pane will pop up on the right-hand side. Under the Visibility
section of the Format Value pane, we can uncheck the boxes for Label, Units, and Timestamp.
Step 5 : Click on the next value symbol. The Format Value pane should stay open.
Uncheck the same boxes.
Step 6 : Add the Installation Date to the display as a Value symbol. Remove the
timestamp and edit the label so that only Installation Date is displayed.
Step 7 : Use a Square shape and a Line shape to create a table around your values.
Leave some extra space between the values so that when you perform an asset swap elements
with longer names don’t run into each other! (Hint: You’ll need to use Format Shape in order to
remove the fill color in the square)
Step 8 : Add the External Temperature and Internal Temperature to the display as
Value symbols. Remove the timestamp, change the font size to be 14 and edit the labels so that
only the attribute name is displayed with the value and units.
Step 9 : Right click on the internal temperature and select Configure multistate and
change the colors as you wish. Do the same with the external temperature. At this point you
should have something like this.

Step 10 : Save the display as Tank Details <your initials>.

Step 11 : Click the Table button in the Search Pane.
Step 12 : Drag Internal Temperature and External Temperature onto the display. They
both should now be populated in one table. Right-click the table and choose Configure Table.
Under Columns, select only Name, Value, Units, Trend, Minimum, and Maximum.
Step 13 : Drag Density, Diameter, Height, and Product onto the display. These attributes
should now populate in a separate table. Right-click the table and choose Configure Table.
Select only Name, Value, and Units.
Step 14 : Click the Trend button in the Search Pane.

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Step 15 : Drag Level and Level_Forecast on the display to create one trend. Right-click
the trend and select Format Trend. Select Show Single Scale under Single or Multiple Scales.
Step 16 : Click the XY Plot button in the Search Pane.
Step 17 : Select Level_Forecast, then Level, and drag them onto the display. They both
should now be populated in one plot, with Level_Forecast on the X-Axis. Right-click the plot and
choose Configure XY Plot. Under X Data Options, change the interval to 10 minutes.
Step 18 : Click on the Horizontal Gauge button. Drag Percentage Full onto the display to
create a horizontal gauge. Right-click and choose Format Gauge. Under Visibility, modify the
label so that it only contains the attribute name (and not Mixing Tank1). Resize the gauge so the
label fits.
Step 19 : Click on the Radial Gauge button. Drag Pressure onto the display. Right-click
and choose Format Gauge, change the Style Type to Arc and modify colors as desired.
Change the label to show only Pressure.
Step 20 : Right click the Pressure Radial Gauge and select Add Multi-State. Notice the
limits for this multi-state behavior are already set. Change the colors as desired.
Step 21 : Add shapes and images to the display
Step 22 : Save your display
Step 23 : Select the Asset Dropdown List to change the context of your display and
answer the discussion questions refering to the Mixing Tank1
Step 24 : Select the Asset Dropdown List to change the context of your display and
answer the discussion questions refering to the Mixing Tank1

5. Advanced features in PI Vision

5.3.4 Exercise – Using URL Parameters and Hyperlinks

Step 1 : Open your Tank Temperature Dashboard display <your initials>.

Step 2 : Enter Design mode and right-click and choose Modify Collection.
Step 3 : Right click on the Tank Graphic and choose Add Navigation Link…
Step 4 : Leave the Action as Open hyperlink to another page and click the Search for
displays… link. Search for your Tank Details <your initials> display
Note: The same search functionality rules applies in searching for a display.
Step 5 : Save your display.
Step 6 : Test the link.
a. Select an attribute to hide, right click on the trend, select Hide
Trace.

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b. Navigate back to the main display. A message about losing

changes without saving the display.
Step 7 : Make the display read only by placing it in Kiosk mode. Append ?mode=Kiosk to
the end of the URL.
a. To make the ‘Tank Details’ display read only, you will need to
repeat Steps 2.
b. Then select Edit Navigation hyperlink (click in the tank where
the link was originally inserted), at the end of the hyperlink add
?mode=Kiosk
c. Save the display
Step 8 : Retest the link. Are you able to make changes?

5.4.5 Exercise – Manage and share your PI Vision Displays

Step 1 : From the PI Vision homepage, choose the settings icon on your Tank Details
<your initials> display.
Step 2 : Check the boxes for the appropriate groups: World and either Operators or
Engineers (depending on your user ID)
Step 3 : Add VPSD to the keywords section
Step 4 : Add 2 or 3 colors to the keywords section, separating the keywords with a
semicolon (ex. VPSD;Red;Blue)

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Step 5 : Choose Save

Step 6 : Use the Filter by Keywords option to select the VPSD label
and view all matching displays.

Step 7 : Click on the star icon to ‘favorite’ a display, a ‘favorited’ display will show a

yellow star and display in the Favorites list.

5.5.4 Exercise – Event Details

Step 1 : Follow steps in Directed Activity 5.9.1 to obtain a list of Events

Step 2 : Right click an Event and select Event Details. You might have a display like this:

Step 3 : Acknowledge the event with the Green Acknowledge button in the top right-hand
corner. Why might you do this?
Step 4 : Click the top two graph symbols.
What happened?

Step 5 : Slide down to the bottom of the details and click the graph icon next to Pressure.
Step 6 : Add back the Percentage Full and Tank Status.

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Step 7 : Fill in the table:

% Full for the beginning and end of the event

Event duration

Reason Code at the start of the event

Tank status at the beginning and end of the event.

5.5.8 Exercise – Pinning an Event

In your display from the previous exercise right-click the event in the Events pane
corresponding to the shortest event on the Gantt chart and click Pin Event. The pinned
event appears at the top of the pane in the Pinned section and have yellow legend marker
next to them.
After you pin an event, you can perform the following operations:
• To highlight the pinned event on the Overlay Trend, select the event in the Events pane.
• To add another pinned event, right-click that event and click Pin Event.
• To save the pinned event, save the event comparison display by clicking the Save
button.
To unpin your pinned event, right-click it and click Unpin Event.

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6. PI DataLink

6.4.3 Exercise - Temperature at a Glance

Step 1 : Open Excel.

Step 2 : Select Cell B3.
Step 3 : From PI DataLink tab, select Search.
Step 4 : Make sure you have selected AF Database OSIsoft Plant.
Step 5 : In the search box type *Ext*temp*
Step 6 : Select all four data items. Click OK.
Step 7 : Select Cell BC3 and click on Current Value function.
Step 8 : Refer to cell B3-B6 in the Data Item field.
Step 9 : Select Time at left. Click OK.
Step 10 : Select Cell B10.
Step 11 : From PI DataLink tab, select Search.
Step 12 : Make sure you have selected AF Database OSIsoft Plant.
Step 13 : In the search box type *Int*temp*
Step 14 : Select all four data items. Click OK.
Step 15 : In Cell B14 type t+7h.
Step 16 : Select Cell C10 and click on Archive Value function.
Step 17 : Refer to cell B10-B13 in the Data Item field.
Step 18 : Refer to cell B14 in the Time stamp field.
Step 19 : Select Time at left. Click OK.

6.4.4 Exercise - Activity Report

Step 1 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Activity Report.
Step 2 : Select on the cell A8.
Step 3 : On the Ribbon, click on PI DataLink > Search
Step 4 : Drill down to the AF Server > OSIsoft Plant > Equipment Maintenance > Tanks >
Mixing Tank2
Step 5 : Select the following Attributes:

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a. External Temperature
b. Internal Temperature
c. Level
d. Flow Rate
Step 6 : Select on the cell C8.
Step 7 : On the Ribbon, click on PI > Current Value.
Step 8 : In the task pane click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 9 : Click and drag through cells A8 through A12 to select the cell range.
Step 10 : Select the time at left radio button.
Step 11 : Click on the OK button.
Step 12 : Select on the cell B20.
Step 13 : On the Ribbon, click on PI DataLink > Archive Value (not on the drop-down
menu).
Step 14 : In the task pane click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 15 : Click and drag through cells A20 through A24 to select the cell range.
Step 16 : In the task pane click in the Timestamp field.
Step 17 : Select the cell D15.
Step 18 : In the Retrieval Mode drop down list select interpolated.
Step 19 : Select the time at left radio button.
Step 20 : Click on the OK button.
Step 21 : Repeat steps 18 – 26 for the columns to the right, changing the Retrieval Mode
to the appropriate selection from the heading (e.g., change the Retrieval Mode drop down list
to previous for the Previous column, etc.).

6.5.2 Exercise - Tank Analysis Report

Step 1 : The table could be filled out as:

\\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production Area\Production Line1\Mixing

Tank1|Pressure
Data Item
\\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production Area\Production Line2\Mixing
Tank2|Pressure

Start Time *-24h

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End Time *

Time
1h
Interval

Step 2 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Tank Analysis
Report.
Step 3 : Select Cell B3.
Step 4 : From PI DataLink tab, select Search.
Step 5 : Make sure you have selected AF Database OSIsoft Plant.
Step 6 : In the search box type Pressure
Step 7 : Select the pressure of the two mixing tanks from the Data Item list. Click OK.
Step 8 : Type *-24, * and 1h in cells B5, B6 and B7, respectively.
Step 9 : Obtain the Compressed Data and Sampled data for the pressure of the two
mixing tanks and list in the appropriate columns. Include the timestamps when retrieving these
values.

6.6.2 Exercise - Operational Start Up

Step 1 : The table could be filled out as:

Root Path \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production Area\Production Line1\Mixing

Tank1

Data Item External Temperature

Yesterday’s Start Y+6.5h Yesterday’s End Y+8.5h

Time Time

Today’s Start Time T+6.5h Today’s End Time T+8.5h

Time Interval 4m

Excel function for =G14/I14

Comparison (ratio)

Step 2 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises_<YourInitials>.xlsx then work on sheet

Operational Start Up.

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Step 3 : Select cell B3.

Step 4 : On PIDATALINK ribbon, click Asset Filter
a. Root Path: \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant
b. Element Name: *mix*
c. Element Template: Generic Tank
d. Attributes to display: External Temperature

Step 5 : Select Drop-down list

Step 6 : Click OK

Step 7 : Select cell A11.

Step 8 : On the Ribbon, Click PI DataLink > Compressed Data.
Step 9 : In the task pane click in the Root path (optional) field.
Step 10 : Click on cell B2.
Step 11 : In the task pane click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 12 : Click on cell B3.
Step 13 : In the task pane click in the Start time field.
Step 14 : Click on cell B4.
Step 15 : In the task pane click in the End time field.
Step 16 : Click on cell D4.
Step 17 : In the task pane select the Show time stamps and Hide count check boxes.
Step 18 : Click on the OK button.
Step 19 : Select cell C11.
Step 20 : Repeat steps 6-16 for Today’s start-up with the start time and end time in cells B5
and D5, respectively.
Step 21 : Repeat steps 5-18 for PI DataLink > Sampled Data.
Step 22 : Select cell B7.
Step 23 : In the Formula Bar, select all content except the single quote at the beginning of
the expression.
Step 24 : Paste the expression without the single quote into cell K11.
Step 25 : Propagate the result down dragging the cell by the lower-right corner (cursor will
change to a black cross).

Step 26 : Change the tank context by using the next to B2

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6.9.3 Exercise - Production Summaries

Step 1 : The table could be filled out as:

Root Path \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production Area

Data item Production

Start time: y-7d

End time: y

Time 1d
interval:

UOM Litre/sec

Step 2 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Production

Summaries.
Step 3 : Select cell B9.
Step 4 : Use Properties function and bring the UOM to your report.
Step 5 : Select cell A19.
Step 6 : On the Ribbon, Click PI > Calculated Data.
Step 7 : Make sure the Data Item radio button is selected near the top of the task pane.
Step 8 : In the task pane click in the Root path (optional) field.
Step 9 : Click on cell B3.
Step 10 : In the task pane click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 11 : Click on cell B4.
Step 12 : In the task pane click in the Start time field.
Step 13 : Click on cell B5.
Step 14 : In the task pane click in the End time field.
Step 15 : Click on cell B6.
Step 16 : In the task pane click in the Time Interval (optional) field.
Step 17 : Click on cell B8.

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Step 18 : In the Calculation Mode drop-down select total.

Step 19 : Since the UOM of the production is per min, select minute from the conversion
factor drop down.
Step 20 : Click OK to have 1440 entered in the Conversion Factor field for the total
calculation mode only. For all other calculation modes leave this field to one or 1.
Step 21 : For column A only, check the show end time check box to fill the Time stamp
column.
Step 22 : Click on the OK button.
Step 23 : Repeat steps 5-22 for columns C through D using the appropriate selection for
Calculation Mode (e.g., select Average in column C). When you get to column D, make sure the
show percent good check box is checked.
Step 24 : Select cell B32.
Step 25 : On the Ribbon, Click PI > Calculated Data.
Step 26 : In the task pane make sure the Data Item radio button is selected.
Step 27 : In the task pane click in the Root path (optional) field.
Step 28 : Click on cell B5.
Step 29 : In the task pane click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 30 : Click on cell B6.
Step 31 : In the task pane click in the Start time field.
Step 32 : Click on cell B7.
Step 33 : In the task pane click in the End time field.
Step 34 : Click on cell B8.
Step 35 : In the Calculation Mode drop-down select total.
Step 36 : Since the UOM of the production is per min, select minute from the conversion
factor drop down.
Step 37 : Click OK to have 1440 entered in the Conversion Factor field for the total
calculation mode only. For all other calculation modes leave this field to one or 1.
Step 38 : Click on the OK button.
Step 39 : Repeat steps 24-38 for columns C through D using the appropriate selection for
Calculation Mode (e.g., select Average in column C). When you get to column D, check the
show percent good check box to fill the Pct Good column.

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6.10.3 Exercise - Condition Based Inspection

Step 1 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Condition Based
Inspection.
Step 2 : Fill in the values for cells B3-B5 as:
a. Start time: *-4mo
b. End time: *
c. Expression: ‘’level’>1.2
Step 3 : Select cell A9.
Step 4 : On the Ribbon, Click PI DataLink > Asset Filter
Step 5 : Make the following selections:
a. Root path: \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant
b. Element template: Generic Tank Template
c. Do not select any attributes
d. Select Column and Values and click ok.
Step 6 : Select Cell B9.
Step 7 : On the Ribbon, Click PI DataLink > Time Filtered.
Step 8 : In the task pane click in the Root path (optional) field.
Step 9 : Click on cells A6.
Step 10 : In the task pane click in the Expression(s) field.
Step 11 : Click on cells B5.
Step 12 : In the task pane click in the Start Time field.
Step 13 : Click on cells B3.
Step 14 : In the task pane click in the End Time field.
Step 15 : Click on cell B4.
Step 16 : In the Time Units field choose Hours
Step 17 : Click on the OK button.
Step 18 : Repeat these steps for cells B10-B12.

6.11.2 Exercise - Production Level Report

Step 1 : The table could be filled out as:

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Point Name \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant\Production

Area\Production Line1\Storage Tank1
Start Time =NOW()-7
End Time =NOW()
Interval 4h
Upper Limit 6
Lower Limit 4
Filter Expression 'level'>8 OR 'level'<4

Step 2 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Production Level
Report.
Step 3 : Select cell C13.
Step 4 : On the Ribbon, Click PI > Sampled Data.
Step 5 : In the task pane, click in the Root path (optional) field.
Step 6 : Click on cell B3.
Step 7 : In the task pane, click in the Data item(s) field.
Step 8 : Click on cell B4.
Step 9 : In the task pane, click in the Start Time field.
Step 10 : Click on cell B5.
Step 11 : In the task pane, click in the End Time field.
Step 12 : Click on cell B6.
Step 13 : In the task pane, click in the Time Interval field.
Step 14 : Click on cell B7.
Step 15 : In the task pane, click in the Expression Filter field.
Step 16 : Click on cell B10.
Step 17 : Check the mark as filtered check box.
Step 18 : Check the show timestamps check box.
Step 19 : Click on the OK button.

6.12.2 Exercise - Analyzing Downtime Events

Step 1 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Downtime Raw Data.
Step 2 : Fill in the values for cells C2-C4 as:

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a. Database: ‘\\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant

**Note: use the single quote ‘ to format the cell as text and not a function
b. Search Start: t-7d
c. Search End: *
Step 3 : Select cell A7
Step 4 : On the Ribbon, Click PI DataLink > Compare
Step 5 : Make the following selections:
a. Database: 'Downtime Raw Data'!$C$2 or \\PISRV01\OSIsoft Plant
b. Search Start: 'Downtime Raw Data'!$C$3
c. Search End: 'Downtime Raw Data'!$C$4
d. Event Template: Downtime
Step 6 : In the Columns to display section, choose the following columns, note you may
see the syntax as “.|Event name”:
a. Event name
b. Start time
c. End time
d. Duration
e. Event Template
f. Primary element

Step 7 : Choose the Add Attributes button and add the additional attributes:
a. Event Duration (minutes)
b. Maximum External Temperature
c. Maximum Internal Temperature
d. Reason Code
e. Production Loss (gal)
f. Temperature Difference.
Step 8 : Choose OK to return the events
Step 9 : Move to the Evaluating Tank Downtime sheet
Step 10 : Select the PivotChart under Comparing Reason Codes and select PivotChart
Tools > Analyze > Refresh to update the data

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Step 11 : Select the PivotChart under Comparing Tanks and select PivotChart Tools >
Analyze > Refresh to update the data

6.13.2 Exercise - Material Balance Report

Step 1 : The table could be filled out as:

Expression If ('CDT158'="Shutdown" or 'BA:Temp.1'="Shutdown") then

"Shutdown" else ('CDT158'/('CDT158'+'BA:Temp.1'))*100

Start Time T-7d

End Time T

Time Interval 2h

Step 2 : Open the file PI_DataLink-Exercises.xlsx then work on sheet Material Balance Report.
Step 3 : Select cell A12.
Step 4 : On the Ribbon, Click PI > Sampled Data.
Step 5 : Select the Expressions radio button near the top of the task pane.
Step 6 : In the task pane click in the Expressions field.
Step 7 : Click on cell B4.
Step 8 : In the task pane click in the Start time field.
Step 9 : Click on cell B5.
Step 10 : In the task pane click in the End time field.
Step 11 : Click on cell B6.
Step 12 : In the task pane click in the Time interval field.
Step 13 : Click on cell B7.
Step 14 : Check the box Show time stamps.
Step 15 : Click OK.

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