SmartPlant Foundation plays multiple roles within the SmartPlant Enterprise. It is commonly used as a data warehouse to facilitate integration among discipline-specific applications and business suites, but also has powerful capabilities to create and modify information for use by other tools. SmartPlant Foundation can create or edit data by:
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Importing data from XML or NLF files using the Loader.
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Importing data from a spreadsheet using Excel Import.
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Entering data on forms within SmartPlant Foundation; for example, Create a new object using the Create dialog box or Create a new design document.
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Inputting data on data lists and data sheets. For more information, see Data Sheets and Data Lists and Line Lists.
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Retrieving data from the data warehouse after it has been published by another tool. For more information, see Integration.
The SmartPlant Foundation authoring environment can be configured to have:
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The data warehouse separate from an authoring database.
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Both authoring and the data warehouse combined in one database.
The SmartPlant Foundation security model is a flexible mechanism to control role-based user access to the authoring database and data warehouse. Domains and roles control who can access data and what they can do with it. For example, in an authoring environment, a user must have access to the instrumentation domain in authoring to create or edit instruments using SmartPlant Foundation. To learn more about domains, roles, and users, see Security Model.