When setting the value or config string property of an excluded attribute in PI Builder, the attribute should be automatically included. This should work using both attributes as row and attribute column layouts.
Currently, if the attribute is excluded and you try setting the value/config string in PI Builder, the operation is "skipped". When using the attribute as rows layout, you can set the AttributeIsExcluded column to FALSE and PI Builder sets the attribute to included, but still skips setting the value/config string. You then have to do a second publish to set the value/config string. When you are using the attribute columns layout, there is no way to set the attribute to included. Allowing automatic inclusion when the value/config string will solve these issues.
Not every attribute is available for all assets/equipment of the same type (i.e. template), so being able to exclude attributes is frequently necessary. Whether you exclude all attributes in the template and then include on the elements where available or vice versa, it needs to be easy to configure them in PI Builder. Tag mapping to AF is typically defined in pre-existing spreadsheets or spreadsheets defined by people not familiar with PI Builder. It is usually quite easy to transform these spreadsheets into a PI Builder layout, either with attributes as rows or attribute columns depending on the original layout. However, setting attribute exclusions based on these spreadsheets is cumbersome due the above issues.