Offline Display Management: Allow PI Vision displays to be imported and exported

Yes, I would think it shouldn't be too difficult to serialize the display information into a more transportable format (XML or JSON file) to move across different environments this way. I agree that the current functionality is very limited when working across segregated environments on different networks.

Odd, somehow this was turned into an idea. I originally had the link to the feedback item in the post, but i may have forgotten. Anyway, votes are better placed here: https://feedback.osisoft.com/forums/320517-pi-coresight/suggestions/18689953-exporting-and-importing-of-displays

In response to Roger Palmen, "Odd, somehow this was turned into an ide..." Done!

Roger Palmen did you mean this idea; https://feedback.osisoft.com/forums/320517-pi-vision-formerly-pi-coresight/suggestions/11733570-copy-or-migrate-displays…

In response to Roger Palmen, "Not really. The note from Tom points to ..." I agree. Now I see your last comment there also

In response to Floris Zwaard, "Roger Palmen did you mean this idea; htt..." Not really. The note from Tom points to the tool currently available which is too limited. Hence the new idea, more specific for export / import instead of copy / migrate.   See this as the difference between the copy / poaste function in PSE, or the Pi Builder functionality. Quite different in their use.

I assume most large companies only allow a small number of people to access databases... Even our PI administrators are not allowed this type of access to the necessary databases at multiple facilities. Consultants are not allowed this access, so we are forced to get multiple people involved to migrate displays from one server to another. This significantly delays progress, so an export/import process would work better.

In our pharma company it is important that we have the possibility to qualify and versioning each display, like before with the *.PDI in ProcessBook. With the current set up of PI Vision it is impossible to do so.

Direct database access to different environments both on prem and in the cloud is a security nightmare. File export/import while not nearly as elegant is much more feasible.

I agree, (OSIsoft - we have a tool which handles this internally already, happy to discuss its functionality)

Agreed, more flexibility is required to be able import/export display from one environment to another. Cross domain (untrusted) does not currently seem to be possible, which limits the tools benefits. Also core database actions such as a database back up can be restricted to only certain roles/ functions (e.g. DBA) within an organization and currently this seems to be an automatic function of the tool with no way to turn it off.

Please, No PI web API as suggested by the OP. This requires Kerberos Authentication which is also not possible in a Cross domain environment,

Hello,   There has to be another way of exporting the display as a file ( modify the configuration within the file)  then importing the same into the other server. This is not a hard thing to do, we must have a feature like that. The moment the Display Utility is virtually useless. It can be a very simple solution.   Nebojsa

A "XML Export" (or some export to file) would be wery usefull when developing displays you (we) want to distribute to customers. If you develop a product using standard OSIsoft tools you should definitely be able to transfer it to other systems not connected to your own network on any product. Now when we deploy solutions we have to manually create the displays again, and again and again for every customer making the deployment time consuming. Many companies are starting to talk about sharing data for a more global/community development/improvement of processes. Sharing displays across partners should be easy, so this doesn't just affect us as an integrator but all companies that want to share information and all partners who want to utilize PI Vision as the core visualization tool. If we have 10 displays that we need to setup when delivering a product we don't need that many customers to argue that making our own visualization tool instead of using PI Vision just because the deployment time is unnecessary high. 10 a bit complex displays would take around 50 hours to deploy (3-7 hours for each display) so with 10 customers you have 500 hours to make a different visualization tool. (500 hours is't much if you need the capability that PI Vision has but when pushing a product you can focus on just what's intended with your product)

is this a similar topic? https://feedback.osisoft.com/forums/320517-pi-vision/suggestions/18689953-exporting-and-importing-of-displays important is also how the requirement is implemented - e.g. what does the export-file look like? what data format is used - am i able to edit these files.

The CTP display copy tool is too limited. If we have a way to export & import displays in XML or Excel, that would allow for the proper maintenance, distribution, generation, version management, etc. of Coresight displays. Now i need to manually build all displays MANUALLY 4 times when i push them through my environments from Dev, Test, Acceptance, Production. Environments are not on the same network, they can be local developer VM,s in different countries, different organisations, etc.

Now when PI Vision 4.x release is postponed until further notice is this option going to be available in the PI Vision 3.4 release?

What I would like to see is a feature where you can change the AF linkage for a mapped point in PIVision. I have several sites that are identical. The only difference is the Site Name in AF. Currently, I have to take the PIVision pages for one site, save them as another name, and remap the new site for all PIVision displayed points. A very time consuming task. This is contrary to OSIsoft template/pattern create and reuse philosophy. Ideally, we would have the ability to export, change the path(s), and reimport.

Richard, If the sites are identical and have the same AF structure you should be able to swap the site name natively in PI Vision by swapping to root asset for the display. This would allow you to either reuse the same display(s) for all sites, or swap the root asset and then save as to create distinct displays for each site without having to manually remap the symbols. You can swap the root asset in a few different ways, for example with the asset dropdown list, with navigation links, URL parameters, etc. Documentation for using the asset list in this way can be found here: https://livelibrary.osisoft.com/LiveLibrary/content/en/vision-v2/GUID-DC4D3A7B-94C9-43C1-9AA2-1846D7F66391 If you'd like any additional information on this topic please let me know.

In response to Ryan McErlean, "Richard, If the sites are identical and..." Our company does not have the luxury of having sites even remotely similar to each other, so the OSISoft tool does not help much... I end up recreating all my displays at the new site. Even if it were easy to use the tool (and it is not), then we still have to find someone with privileges to connect to two Vision databases are the same time.