Smart Instrumentation has set a few basic requirements regarding the structure of external data sources from which you add macros to your loop drawings. Therefore, before you use an external macro make sure that its structure complies with Smart Instrumentation conventions. The structure has to include the tag number (cmpnt_name) as the first (leftmost) column, and occupying the rest of the columns, the required macros and their retrieval values.
The following table is an example of an external source structure (the table headers below exemplify column names):
|
cmpnt_name |
macro1 |
macro2 |
macro3 |
|
108-PI -2212 |
Pressure |
Bar |
Indicator |
|
108-FE -2225 |
Flow |
Ft3/s |
Element |
In the above example, using the macro macro1 in a loop drawing generated for instrument tag 108-PI-2212, will display the retrieved value Pressure instead of the macro1 string. You can create the above structure by using any text editing application (for Text format files), dBase (*.dbf) editing tools, or any other appropriate database editing utility. For further details, see the user's guide for your database platform.
The name of the first (leftmost) column name must always be cmpnt_name (representing
the tag number).