Introduction
The unExternalLinks component provides the possibility of accessing the Infor EAM light, and Infor EAM Logbook webpages from the UNICOS Human Machine Interface when selecting the new External Links option in the menu list of a device.
Availability and Requirements
The unExternalLinks is distributed as a part of the UNICOS framework, and it is recommended to use the version included in the distribution. However, additional releases may be provided much more often than the full framework releases to provide bugfixes, improvements and new features. Such new versions assume that the latest available UNICOS framework is installed in the project. We cannot guarantee that the newest release of the component will work with older versions of the framework (usually it will not), and due to heavy pace of development, we usually require that one of the latest WinCC OA patches is installed. Please always refer to the release notes of the latest framework distribution and the release notes of the component for details.
User Manual
A manual for end-users is available as a separate document in User_Manual.
(link to be changed to point to the latest version of User manual)
Settings and Configurations
Right after installing the new unExternalLinks components, the post install script will run, adding a new option to the UNICOS Menu Configuration. This option will be only available for administrators, so they can configure all the settings that are necessary for the External Links selection in the device menu list. A popup panel will appear by clicking on the corresponding External Links option in the UNICOS Menu Configuration, where the administrator will see two different tabs, the Database configuration and the Logbook configuration.
Database configuration
For the database configuration, a valid user name and password are required to make the connection to the CERNDB1 database, which cannot be modified by the administrator by default. The advantage of this database is that is visible in the GPN and Technical Network, therefore it can be used in production for applications at CERN. It is recommended to have a dedicated user or service account for configuration purposes with access rights to the EAM_GRANTED schema, and the R5OBJECTS and R5STRUCTURES tables. The access rights should be requested to the CMMS group, which is in charge of the Infor EAM implementations. Once, the user has been set and can communicate with the CERNDB1 database, a connection is established. The database type is Oracle by default, and it cannot be changed by the administrator neither.
The validity of the user name and password introduced can be checked by clicking on the Test DB Connection button. This button will return an error message indicating that the database cannot be opened in case that the connection cannot be established, the user name and/or password are incorrect, the user does not have access rights to the CERNDB1 database, or the user cannot access the EAM_GRANTED schema, the R5OBJECTS and/or R5STRUCTURES tables, which are used to extract information from the Infor EAM database. If the user has the appropiate rights, the database connection can be set, and the user name and password are correct, a informational message stating that the information introduced is valid will be displayed. Please, notice that by clicking on this button, the user name and password are not configured yet, they are not stored in the corresponding datapoint. To save the configuration introduced in this panel, the OK or Apply button must be clicked.
If the OK or Apply button are pressed, first, the validity of the user name and password will be checked, and then, if everything is correct, the database name, database type, user name, and password will be stored in an internal datapoint called unExternalLinks. The password is encrypted to ensure that sensitive information is not exposed and security is preserved. As a side note, if the OK button is clicked the popup configuration panel will be closed after successfully setting the data introduced, while clicking on the Apply button will only stored the data without closing the panel, allowing the admin to do further modifications on the Logbook configuration, if necessary.
Once, this configuration has been successfully set, the new options Equipment Information, New Work Order, Location on Map, and Logbook can be seen in the menu list of a particular device under the External Links cascade button.
Logbook configuration
In the Logbook Configuration tab, the administrator can add, edit, or delete any existing logbook configuration that will be later shown under the logbook option in the menu list of a particular device. This panel will retrieve the logbook names and codes that have been already configured. If it is the first time that this panel is accessed, the table will be blank. To add a new logbook, the administrator can either click on the button to add a new row before or after the selected line. Once one of this buttons have been clicked, the admin will be able to add a new Log Book Name, for example CRG LHC Logbook, and the Log Book Code associated to it (or logbook official name given by the CMMS group), for example CSLBC1. The Log Book Name can be any name or short description that the admin wants to introduce and it will be displayed for the users under the LogBook selection option for the External Links in the menu list of a device. The Log Book Code is the official name given by the CMMS group to the particular logbook and it is used to build the link that opens the EAM Logbook webpage. Therefore, it is important that the administrator put the correct logbook name given by CMMS in the Log Book Code field, as an incorrect value would mean that the user would not be able to access the appropiate logbook. More than one logbook can be added to this table, having a total maximum of 100. In the unlikely scenario where a user group needed more than 100, the user with such request would need to contact the support for the unExternalLinks component to extend the limit of 100 according to the particular requirements.
In the Logbook configuration panel, there are also two other buttons that can delete a single selected row or all the rows displayed in the table.
To set all the modifications done in the logbook table, the admin must click on the OK (save and close) or Apply (save) buttons to store the information into the unExternalLinks datapoint. The Log Book Name list will appear in the LogBook cascade button inside the External Links option on the menu list of a device.
Please, notice that if no logbook has ever been configured in the table, clicking on the LogBook option in the External Links will not have any effect.
