4.1. Long Point IDs/Mixed Case Support: Best Practices

About this task

Point IDs and alarm IDs, which now support a maximum of 256 characters and can include mixed case, can be more descriptive, precise, more usable and readable than point IDs with the previous 32-character length limit.

Because of these benefits, in many instances point IDs that exceed 32 characters will be preferable to the shorter point IDs. However, although in some instances if an extremely long point ID that is now possible with the 256 character support is exactly what you need, careful planning will be required as to when and where these new lengths will be used.

Some details to consider when planning to create points with long IDs or rename existing points are as follows.

  • Screen/monitor display width.
  • Workbench Tree View.
  • Mixed case support.
  • Viewers (clients) with lower than CIMPLICITY v9.0 installations.
  • Renamed points and expressions.
  • Third party products.
  • Known other Proficy and  third party products'  limitations
Note:
  • Long point names support the same special characters as short names.
  • The increase in supported size is particularly helpful when dealing with features such as class objects where the classes object name is included in the point ID.

Screen/Monitor Display Width

Balancing the point name length with other information that users need to access is a main consideration when planning for long point names. Integral in the calculation are:

  • The width of the screen that displays the information
  • What other information needs to display
  • Where other information needs to be positioned in the display.
  • How urgent the other information is.

Examples

  • Alarm Viewer

Fields can be increased/decreased in the Alarm Viewer. However, if the point name is very long and the Alarm ID field is:

Too narrow The point ID can be cut off, making it unclear what monitored object is in an alarm state.
Wide enough to display the name Information to the right of the Alarm ID may not have room to display
  • Marquee

If a long point name is configured to scroll on a  fixed width Marquee screen, it can possibly take too much time before the actual message to be delivered scrolls by. This, of course, is counter-productive to the Marquee purpose.

  • CimEdit/CimView

On CimEdit screens, text objects can display the point ID. However, if the text object is referencing a long point ID, it is usually preferable for the text object display text to be different from the point ID and have fewer characters.

Workbench Tree View

When using long point IDs is the best choice, using the dot delimiter and selecting the Tree View in the Workbench right-pane provides the most efficient way to view the entire point ID and associated information (e.g. resource, Device ID, Point Type, description).

CIMPLICITY will:

  • Assign each part of the point name that is to the right of a dot its own level.
  • Group the parts of point names with parallel text into folder.

Example

Procedure

  1. The beginning parts of many point names that monitored machine heat were could be divided into a hierarchy of levels that were  grouped together.
  2. Even though the point names were not very long, the names facilitated organizing the information.
  3. The machines' point names were all configured as HEAT.SOUTH.Region.<Machine name>.
  4. When Tree View was selected, the Point IDs were listed as follows.
    1 Folder HEAT
    2 Folder SOUTH
    3 Folder Region
    4 Unique name e.g. 04_Machine6504

    Mixed Case Support

    Beginning in CIMPLICITY v9.0 point IDs support mixed case. You can take advantage of mixed cases to help identify point ID sections that go together and make the point ID easier to read for point IDs of any length.

    Important: CIMPLICITY does not differentiate among Upper case, mixed case or lower case point IDs that have the exact same characters. For example TANK1, Tank1 and tank1 are treated as the same point; they are not three different points.

    Viewers (Clients) with Lower then CIMPLICITY v9.0 Installations

    If you are using long point IDs on a server that has CIMPLICITY v10.0 installed, it is recommended that you also upgrade CIMPLICITY to version 10.0 on connected Viewers (clients).

    Viewers that have not been upgraded to CIMPLICITY v9.0 at a minimum:

    • Will not display the long point IDs.
    • Will display point IDs that are 32 characters or less.
    • Will not display mixed case.

    Points that are mixed case in a CIMPLICITY v9x project on the Server are converted to all upper-case on the Viewer.

    If long point IDs are used, one of two results will occur on Viewers with lower than CIMPLICITY v9.0. The result depends on how the point ID is being used.

    Point ID Location Result
    Embedded Point IDs (Applications including:
    • CimEdit Screens
    • CimView Screens)
    		 If long point IDs are embedded in a CimEdit screen (e.g. used in an Expression field) and the CimEdit screen is copied to a Viewer that has lower than CIMPLICITY v9.0 installed, the long entries will not be recognized as point IDs; CimEdit and/or CimView will have unpredictable results.
    Browsed Point IDs (Applications including:
    • Point Browsers
    • Point Control Panel
    • Alarm Viewers)
    		 The point IDs that display will be the short names that CIMPLICITY has automatically generated. The names are random characters and so will not be easily identifiable.

    Renamed Points and Expressions

    As with any point that is renamed, if a short ID point is renamed with a longer ID:

    • Remember to rename the point anywhere that it is being used in CIMPLICITY (e.g. derived point expression, CimEdit Expression fields or scripts)
    • Make sure the feature using the longer name has been configured to deal with it.

    Third Party Products

    Consult the documentation for any  third party products/control that are receiving point ID data from CIMPLICITY to see if there are any limits in the length of the names they use.

    Known Other Proficy and Third Party Products' Limitations

    Known applications that do not support the new point ID and/or alarm message lengths are as follows.

    Proficy Change Management

    Proficy Change Management History Difference reports do not display long point IDs; they do display the short internal point IDs.

    Tip:  A group of  *.idt files are available that enable you to find what long point ID is associated with any listed short point ID.

    Access Database and Database Logging

    Microsoft Access (As-Is product) does not fully support the long point IDs or alarm messages that were introduced in CIMPLICITY V9.0.

    Consult Microsoft documentation for details about maximum character support.