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FactoryTalk ME Parameters

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Hello all, we have many large projects with multiple screens and are using popups quite frequently. As a result, our parameter file list becomes quite long. I have excel sheets to import my alarm table, and my local HMI tags, but have found no simple way to create/import multiple parameter files. Has anyone found a way? AB tells me that I can use Notepad to create 1 file at a time and import it that way....where is the time savings in that? As an example, I will probably end up with well over 450 parameter files by the end of this project.....hand entering each one....carpal tunnel syndrome here I come Thank you PS..if anyone wants the alarm table import tool msg me.

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You could write a script in Excel to pull the contents of a row of cells, format it, spit out a text file, then move to the next line and repeat. I had a project with about thirty parameters files several years ago, and I think that's what I did. But I can't find the spreadsheet, so maybe I did them by hand? If you are at all familiar with scripting, then using the macro engine in Excel is pretty easy. It's just a chopped down version of Visual Basic, same syntax just not all the functions or capabilities.

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Assuming you're using Windows 7, the parameter file are here: C:\Users\Public\Documents\RSView Enterprise\ME\HMI Projects\Your Project\PAR\ Adding new files to this folder won't add them to the project however. That's just for the sake of reference. Once you've created a bunch of parameter files, you can import them all at once by openning your project, right clicking the Parameters tree item, selecting "Add Component Into Application...", and selecting all the files at once. This will import them all at once. You can create a bunch of file in notepad, or, as JRoss mentioned, generate them with excel. If you don't know excel VBA, learn it! It will take extra time now, but in the future it will save a bunch of work on redundant tasks. I use it to write about 70-80% of my Ladder logic PLC code on projects, plus all other sorts of useful stuff. Edited by MrAutomation

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I'd be concerned if 70-80% of my job was redundant enough to let Excel take over ;) Couldn't you just use an AOI for redundant PLC code?

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Thank you all for the responses. I will play around with the excel tools and see what we can get going with that. We do have AOIs with the associated UDTs and AOIDTs being polled as our parameters. I do not use parameters for anything but large tag arrays to populate popups. It is just that the project we have include a lot of larger facilities with up to 3000 IO. With about 25% of that being AI, and an AOI and therefor a Popup for each, the number of parameters grows pretty quickly. If I come up with anything useful I will post it here

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@ devo.xx, whenever I'm developing a new project, I have to create tags and logic for each motor, valve, device etc. I also have to create the mapping for all the inputs and outputs. All of these use UDTs and standard blocks of code (with associated global objects in Factory Talk View SE). Some of them are entirely contained in an AOI, some use AOIs in the logic and some are written entirely in logic. It's dependent on what it is. (My motor routines, for example, are written in ladder to set up the interlocks/faults etc, but use AOIs for the standard chunks of logic) All of this is done in excel. When I'm done, I have all my inputs/outputs mapped, and all of the standard device blocks are programmed and in the correct place. This is the boring part I hate to do manually. After that, all I need to do it "connect the pieces" to make the devices interact in the way that's needed. It saves a lot of work, and I get to skip by the boring part and go straight to the fun stuff!

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Yeah, mapping IO and keeping comments consistent between our drawings and PLC code used to be a problem. Since then, we do the same. Everyone looks to the same .XLS for the "most current comments" and addresses. I just wanted to make a joke about redundant jobs ;)

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