Equipment Categories in EAM have long been used as ‘attribute templates’ that allow equipment that fall within the selected category to be quickly created without re-entering common, boiler plate data to be manually entered for each equipment created.
The Categories contain a Calibration tab and a Test Point tab. These tabs contain nearly identical information as the same tabs on the Equipment screens discussed above.
For example, create a Category for all Omega RTD style temperature sensors. Device level data will be entered on the Calibration tab while test points recorded on the Test Points tab.
When creating an equipment record to represent one of these temperature sensors, select the associated Category on the record view of the Equipment screen and save. The system will copy the category’s Calibration and Test Point information to the new equipment record.
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This occurs only when a new equipment is created. It does not occur whether the Category is cleared or updated on the Equipment after creation.
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If updates are made to a Category after equipment or equipment configurations have been created using the Category, the following options on the Calibration and Test Points tabs for Category may be useful in batch cascading these changes to associated equipment or equipment configurations.
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Update Equipment option: This right click option is available on the Calibrations and Test Points (found in ‘Action’ menu on Test Points) tabs for Categories. If it is selected on the Calibrations tab, the system will inform the user of the number of equipment records that have the Category associated. The user can then choose to have the current data on the Calibration tab of the Category replace the Calibration page data on all associated equipment. This is an excellent way to cascade updates to many equipment records that are associated to the Category after changes are made to the Category. This option on the Test Points tab works the same as it does on the Calibration tab, except all equipment test points are first deleted and the current category test points are added to associated equipment.
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Update Equipment Configurations option: This right click option is available on the Calibrations and Test Points (found in ‘Action’ menu on Test Points) tabs for Categories. If it is selected on the Calibrations tab or Test Points tab of the Category, it will behave the same as the ‘Update Equipment’ option described above, except the system look for all equipment configuration records with the selected Category associated. If the user chooses to have the Category changes cascaded to the equipment configuration records, then the Calibration and Test Points tab on the associated equipment configuration records will be updated.