Referencing Data in CimEdit Screen Animations

You can use the following two methods to reference data in CimEdit screens that will work in Operations Hub mimics.
Important: The CIMPLICITY OPC UA Server does not support enterprise points; therefore, they are not supported in exports for Operations Hub.  If you use enterprise points in your CIMPLICITY screens, they will not be available in the imported Operations Hub mimic.
Method Description
Method 1 Continue to directly reference your CIMPLICITY point database in your animations – This method retrieves data directly from CIMPLICITY and shows the values of the points in the database. This is often useful when referencing data that is global to or outside of the model context you build in Operations Hub. For example, OverallPartCount.
Method 2 Reference model context-based data that resolves in accordance with the model context you are in when you display the mimic in Operations Hub. This is the most powerful way to use Operations Hub mimics because it allows you to create screens as templates using CIMPLICITY’s existing local variable mechanisms that resolve at Operations Hub runtime. For example, if you have created a Operations Hub object type to represent a pump and created 2 pumps objects from that type, you can build one screen in Operations Hub to represent the pump object type, and then have the data resolve and appear in that screen/mimic based on the Pump instance that is selected.

You can reference both direct CIMPLICITY database points and context references in the same screen.     

Use the $OBJECT local variable to reference context-based data. You must define this variable at the screen level and leave the value blank when you export the screen as a mimic for Operations Hub. You can use this local variable to represent the model context with which this screen is displayed. For example, a pump screen is shown when in the Pump01 or Pump02 context.

Note: You should build the model in Operations Hub before you build Operations Hub mimics in CimEdit. If you reference model object variables using the same names, Operations Hub can automatically map your model context references in your animations to the model when you import the mimic into Operations Hub.

Example 1: Referencing Contained/Child Model Object Variables

When in the Inlet pump context, the animation shown below displays the value of Inlet Pump’s flow. If on the Outflow Pump context, this same screen will show Outflow Pump’s flow.

$Object.Flow

Example 2: Referencing Contained/Child Model Object Variables

You can also reference contained object properties in your Operations Hub mimics that will be exported from CimEdit.  For example, if I want to build an overview screen to show two pumps in my pump station, then I  can build a CimEdit screen where the $Object  represents PumpStation01 and I reference my animations to show the individual pump values as follows:

{$Object}.InletPump.Flow

{$Object}.OutflowPump.Flow

Example 3: Referencing CIMPLICITY Point Attributes in Operations Hub Example

You can continue to reference CIMPLICITY attributes like engineering units, description, alarm limits, and so forth, in Operations Hub screens on direct point references and model context references as follows:

{$Object}.Flow.Description or

{$Object}.InletPump.Flow.EU_LABEL

Using Linked Objects to Generate Operations Hub Screens

In order to build Operations Hub screens using linked objects, any Linked Object local variables that are used to reference Operations Hub Object variables must eventually resolve back to the screen $Object variable in which they are placed. When you create the source of a linked object, you create a public “$Object” local variable in your source group object. Use this $Object local variable to reference Operations Hub model variables.

For example:

{$Object}.Flow

When you create a linked object from this source group object, you set the value of the inherited $Object local variable to point to the screen $Object defined in the screen in which you created the linked object using local variable syntax like  {..\$Object} or {..\$Object}.InletTank”