Equipment Class Properties

Classes allow you to define standard properties to apply to the equipment resources that make up your production operation.

In the Properties tab, you must click once in a field to select it, and then click again to edit the field. Depending on the selected field, you can enter text, select from a drop-down list, or click an ellipsis button to open a dialog box.

When you select an equipment class in the Type field, the properties of that class are added as sub-properties to the current property. You can add a class multiple times, which in turn adds multiple sets of that class' properties.

Property Attribute Overrides

If a property is inherited from a class, the default behavior is for its attributes to be linked to the attributes of the property on the parent class. However, you can override the default values of the following attributes:

Linked (this attribute is available only on equipment instance properties)
Value
UoM (Unit of Measure)
Description

You can override the default values of a property inherited from an equipment class whether the class is associated with an equipment instance, or if a property (on an equipment instance or class) is configured as a class type.

If you override the default value of an attribute on an inherited class property, the new value appears in blue. The blue color indicates that the attribute value is no longer linked to the default value obtained from the property on the parent class.

EngineClass is an equipment class that has a property called RotationsPerMinute. The property type of RotationsPerMinute is RotationsPerMinuteClass. RotationsPerMinuteClass is an equipment class with three properties: Current, Maximum, and Minimum, all of which are inherited by EngineClass as subproperties of RotationsPerMinute.

An equipment instance named Aircraft1 has a property named Engine, which is of type EngineClass. The fully qualified names of all the properties on Aircraft1 are:

Engine.RotationsPerMinute.Current
Engine.RotationsPerMinute.Maximum
Engine.RotationsPerMinute.Minimum

If you override the default attributes of the properties on EngineClass (on the EngineClass property grid) then those changes appear in blue. The overridden values will also be reflected when you view the property grid for Aircraft1, or any other instance or class that inherits from EngineClass; however, they do not appear in blue because they are linked values of the attributes on EngineClass. The values of the property attributes on the RotationPerMinuteClass do not change.

Duplicate Property Attribute Overrides

If you duplicate an equipment instance or class that has overridden values, the overridden state is also duplicated; that is, any overridden attribute values are also duplicated and appear in blue.

Import/Export Property Attribute Overrides

If you export an equipment instance or class that has any overridden attribute values, the value overrides are indicated on the Equipment Property Value tab of the export file as True. You can change this value in the export file to False, and when the file is imported the overridden attribute value returns to the original, default value. If the override value is False, the value in the corresponding column is ignored. For example, if the value in the DescriptionOverridden column is False, the value in the Description column for that property is ignored. In addition, if a property is linked to an external data source, and the value in the ValueOverridden column is changed to False, the data item link on the Property Data Items tab is ignored.

Note: Properties on an equipment instance or class (that is, non-inherited properties added directly to an equipment resource) do not display True or False for value overrides on the export file.

The following table describes the information available on the Properties tab, where you can configure the values for the property attributes.

Attribute	Value	Description
Add Property	User-defined	Click to add a new property.
Delete Property	User-defined	Click to delete the selected property.
Configure Columns	System-defined	Click to open the Configure Columns dialog box where you can select the property columns to show or hide. Note: The Configure Columns dialog box changes the visible columns for all equipment resource properties.
Name	User-defined alphanumeric string (A–Z, a–z, 0–9) up to 50 characters	Specifies a display name for the selected property.
Type	System-defined	Specifies the data type of the property. Note: This property cannot be changed if it is inherited from another resource. When you select Browse for class, the Universal Browser appears where you can select an equipment class. This field is not available if the Linked check box is selected.
Linked	User-defined	Select this check box to bind the property to an external data source. For more information, see Data Sources. Note: This check box is not available for the property if the property type is class; however, it is available for the properties inherited from a class.
Value	User-defined	Specifies the value for the selected data type. Valid values depend on the selected data type. This field is not available for the property if the property type is class; however, it is available for the sub-properties inherited from the class. Note: The method of entering or selecting a value depends on the data type selected in the Type field and whether the Linked check box is selected. If the Linked option is selected, click twice in this field, and then click the ellipsis button to open the Configure Data Source dialog box, where you can select the data source to read from.
UoM (Unit of Measure)	User-defined alphanumeric string (A–Z, a–z, 0–9) up to 20 characters	Specifies the unit of measure for the data type, such as gallons, inches, tons.
Equipment Class	User-defined	Specifies the equipment class associated with the equipment instance. The equipment class properties are inherited by the equipment instance.
Description	User-defined alphanumeric string (A–Z, a–z, 0–9) up to 255 characters	Provides more information that a user may find helpful.
Show/Hide Property Details	N/A	Click to show or hide the property details pane that displays the name, qualified name (for referencing the property), and attributes of a selected property. The Test external data link option is available when a property is linked to an external data source.
Text external data link	N/A	Click to test whether the selected data source is valid. This link is available only when the selected property is linked to an external data source.