Object Properties Panel

The Faceplate gives a quick glance at the state of values coming from an I/O item. It contains many different elements that are each described in the following table.

The alarms and events Faceplate is displayed when an event visualization object such as an Event Stream, Internal Event Stream or Script Events object is selected. Hovering the cursor over the Faceplate will bring up the full details of the alarm or event currently displayed in the Faceplate. Double clicking in the center portion of the faceplate will open an EventView display which will then be populated with events from the selected event object.

The KPI faceplate is displayed when a generic KPI item is selected in the KPI model. The KPI faceplate displays the name and current value of the selected KPI object alongside a trend line for the KPI. The faceplate is essentially identical to the Visual KPI display of KPI items, with the color changing in accordance with the limit settings and target values. The arrows and tick marks also give an indication of the value in relation to the limit settings.

This tab shows the properties of the object currently selected. Since different object types have different properties, the content of this tab changes depending on the object type. Hovering the mouse cursor over different elements in the tab will display a tooltip giving a detailed description of the element.

Changing one of the available properties (for example changing a limit value) will cause blue highlighting to appear around that property to indicate that it has been changed. To confirm the property change and update the information with the Core server press the Apply button at the bottom of the Object Properties panel.

If changes are made to a property value and the changes were not confirmed by pressing the Apply button before moving to another object, the following warning message will be displayed.

Click Yes to discard the changes of the object currently loaded in the panel and to load the newly selected object. In this case all changes will be lost. Click No to keep the changes, keeping the current object in the panel and not load an other object into the panel.

If the currently selected object has explicitly applied security references then the Security tab will be enabled and will show the list of profiles that were assigned.

The security permissions are indicated by the checkboxes which are List, Read, Write, Modify, Execute and Inheritable (please see here for more information about permissions). Security permissions and references cannot edited, added or deleted in the Security Tab. To do this it is necessary to open a Security Config display and make the changes there. To open a Security Config display from the Security Tab, either click on the icon or right click on one of the Profile names and select "Open in Security Config" from the context menu.

Please read the Working with System Security Jumpstart for more information about configuring system security and the Security Config page for information on changing permissions and references for existing Profiles.

If the currently selected object has references to other objects or is itself referenced by other objects, then the Object References tab will be enabled. The references to other objects will be displayed in the Object References table. Here the Name of the reference, the Type of reference and the Item Path of the object being referenced will be indicated in the respective columns.

In the Object References tab of the object that is being referenced this will appear as a Referenced By table, indicating the path of the referencing object.

Right-clicking on any of the references in the Object References table will display a context menu (shown below). From here the referenced object can be added to a display (Add item to…), or a value written to the reference object (Write Values, this action is possible if the user has write privileges over the referenced object). The reference can also be removed from the Object References table (Remove reference), renamed (Rename) or the referenced object can be found and highlight in the model tree panel (Find reference). The name and the path of the referenced object can also be copied to the clipboard (Copy name, Copy path).

If the currently selected object supports performance counters, this tab will be enabled and show a list of performance counter trends. Different objects display different performance counters related to the object’s function. An object’s performance counters are grouped into different categories. To only view counters from a particular category, select from the drop down menu in the top left of the tab.

Each performance counter trend shows 60 seconds of performance data. For each performance counter, the name and the current value are displayed on the top left and the currently shown performance range and unit on the right.

An object’s performance counters are grouped into different categories to make browsing easier. To only view counters from a particular category, select from the drop down menu in the top left of the tab.

The size of the performance counters in the object properties panel can be adjusted by selecting from the drop down menu in the middle, at the top of the tab.

The performance counters, by default, show the real-time performance data and update every second. However the display can be configured to show different time period aggregates by selecting from the drop-down menu on the right, at the top of the tab.

Selecting the 'Minute' configuration for example, shows the performance data aggregated every minute for the last 60 minutes. The Max, Min and Average values for each minute are shown in the trend part of the display (the blue trend line indicates the Count number of values at each minute time point). Hovering the mouse over the performance counter will also display this data for the chosen time point.

The available performance counters for each object (including a description of their meaning) are listed in the Class page. Performance data for objects can be also archived by selecting the object, right-clicking and selecting Admin  Advanced Functions  Archive Performance from the context menu.

A series of objects are created in the I/O tree, archiving the performance data for each performance counter.

The Instance Class Diagram tab shows a hierarchical representation of the structure of the currently selected object in terms of its properties and sub-properties. The diagrams can be large and complex so the settings can be altered to assist with viewing the diagram.

The icons in the top right of the Instance Class Diagram tab can be used to copy, refresh and configure the diagram.

Tick the "Array" checkbox to write values as an array. The Value field contains a guide for how array values should be entered, in square brackets, with each element of the array separated by a "|" character.

Null values can be written to elements in the array by either entering "|" twice (the null value being between the "|" characters) or by entering <null> as one of the elements.

An empty array of the type "[]" cannot be written as a value, however an array with two null elements can be written. For example "[|]" or [<null>|<null>].

Clicking on the arrow next to "Generator" expands the options for generating a number using the sawtooth or sinewave functions. Press the "Play" arrow to start the generation then "Pause" to stop. Closing the Write Values dialog will then write that value to the object.

If writing to an I/O item in an OPC server namespace, the "Parameter" options allow you to choose the OPC Write options. Clicking the arrow next to "Parameter" expands the options.

Different OPC write modes can be selected and the delay between collecting writes configured. There is also the option to create an audit for the writes in the Session Log. Further information describing these configuration options in more detail can be found here.