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Try using export tags maybe?

If you have a supervisor and jaces below, figure out provisioning.

Simple to setup and can backup all stations below daily. That alone costs nothing, prevents headaches and black eyes. You can also upgrade a sea of stations with a handful of clicks.

Effort to setup, few hours first time worst case. Five min after that. Backups alone at some point will save you countless hours and pain long run.

I have been reading up on provisioning lately, I kinda figured that was involved.

Thanks for responding!

Hit niag central and just search "robot editor". There is enough there to get an idea what your up against and sample code to do simple tasks.

The OP only needed to add points to ~40 devices, hands down hitting paste 39 times is going to hundred fold faster. If it was something that needed to be done to 400, 4K, or more devices, its time to take a look at figuring out how to use robots. These can be pushed down with provisioning and ran against as many stations as you want with a few clicks.

There are plenty of other Htalkers that would appreciate it - even if I am too fried to deal with it just now.

I will likely be one of them when this Envysion thing gets under control in a few weeks.

Originally Posted by numbawunfela

not at all interested in anything more complicated than 3 sentences....

Niagara Robots are not for you then . Know the path of least resistance (aka do it right the first time) is your best friend if your not willing to go down that rabbit whole.

Anybody have anything to say about what that is and how it works?

Maybe a 3 sentence cliff notes version of the help doc? I am learning Envysion and I am not at all interested in anything more complicated than 3 sentences....

A robot is exactly what you need to do this. That requires knowlage in java and Tridium's baja to get started. Docs are in the install, just add time and understanding.

Would have to fire my laptop up. Off memory see the developer docs if your tbox flavor actually installs all the factory docs. Tridium also offers dev classes, just note the pre-reqs as they don't just accept anyone with cash. Would be a waste of their time and yours.

Maybe Phil will offer a coding in java/tbox class.

Originally Posted by dave.rods2

I was wondering if there are any N4 wizards out there that might know if it is possible to mass add bacnet points to existing point databases through program services

Back to the OPs question. I remember hearing a while back that one could 'set up a robot' to do this.

This was when I was around 6 mos into niagara and I had more pressing needs to attend to in my Niagara learning experience.

Anybody know what that is and if my memory is anywhere near correct?

Lol

Was prob worth spending 60 seconds to name 10 devices. Dealing with JCI is their anything over 6 characters in the names after all??

Normally I copy from bog to station, using paste-special as needed. That way I can make as many copies as needed and keep all links. If your naming and org is consistent across stations, keeping the links is a big time saver. Copy one perfect, setup the necessary links, paste-special as required.

Mainly work with BACnet, so the device instance are always a headache. If everything else is 99.9%, dealing with addressing is a minor headache. Using sane equipment tags can save a load of work. Seems MEs have a potpourri of tagging conventions, many having no issue with 50 boxes tagged VAV-1. Certainly not in the owner's interest, but on the flip side when things don't line up with the mechanical prints...its also a crap show.

Yeah, I was supposed to be a token JCI tech to support a chiller plant and building take over from old Johnson to Niagara. We get there and the main guy sees the blue screen and says... 'this is not Bacnet is it? I got nuthin' so it is midday Monday and we need to cut over on Wdnesday. So I was in a hurry, and I was given 48hrs to build a database good enough to cut over 2 NCMs with around 80 controllers....
So I built out the more critical controllers and left the ones monitoring door statuses for later....
Quick and dirty then I spent another week after the fact finishing it off and making it pretty. So I USUALLY build complete stations and bring them when I can, but not this time.
These were the leftover devices that got pasted.

Your adding to an existing station then rather than just loading your offline one then?

My bad, I was not clear. I copied prebuilt controller addressed in order 1-10, and when I pasted they came up something like 2,3,6,9,1,10,4,5,7,8. And the MACs did NOT match the controllers they were originally tied to. So it got copied as MAC 3 and pasted as something else. They was completely jumbled.
Also, I am posting N2 glitches in a bacnet thread because the rumor was that anything with a MAC (like bacnet controllers) suffers the same fate.
This may be the copy paste glitch referred to earlier.

Originally Posted by numbawunfela

I was building an N4 4.4 database offline, using a batch of Johnson DDL and PRN files. When I got to the site I had to distribute the controllers from the trunk I had built them on, to the trunks they ended up physically being on. Of course I copied and pasted them. When I did, it jumbled the MAC addresses, which was thoroughly annoying since they were all UNTs and I had not named them yet, and I had planned to ID them by MAC address.

Most drivers check and enforce no dupe addresses on the same trunk. So if you copy mac 3, its not going to be mac 3 as that already exists.

It might have been better to create another N2 driver and copy devices to that. Being another N2 truck it should allow for another mac 3. Haven't tried this, but it should copy without dickering the addresses. Once done, delete the N2 driver you used to create things offline. With BACnet, its going to check deviceIDs within the station so this trick will not work.

I was building an N4 4.4 database offline, using a batch of Johnson DDL and PRN files. When I got to the site I had to distribute the controllers from the trunk I had built them on, to the trunks they ended up physically being on. Of course I copied and pasted them. When I did, it jumbled the MAC addresses, which was thoroughly annoying since they were all UNTs and I had not named them yet, and I had planned to ID them by MAC address.

I was working with another guy that described it as a bug in 4.4 he had run into before. I dunno if it is still there, likely not. This was almost a year ago.

I have not seen it in any other version of Niagara.

Originally Posted by MaxBurn

That is insane, I literally can't function without the left CTRL key. I've also been known to remove the left windows key as it gets in the way sometimes. I deliberately use it all the time as the computer makes less mistakes than I do.

Seems like it, but that was what I heard.

Originally Posted by philzito

Why not do one device, make a template. Apply the template?

Being it sounds like they have already setup a wad of devices, there are a host of reasons. If they didn't get initially created with templates, the only way your going to make use of them now is to shred everything that's done and start over.

PX pages are normally assigned to the device or somewhere under it, least for sane people. That's gone.
Any existing history data in the DB, gone. Metadata setup to sort them out...gone.
Any device specific settings, tags, links, alarms, etc...yep all gone.

Copy & paste 40ish times...maybe a 10min mind numbing exercise.

The template feature as initially released we reviewed as a group and didn't see too many compelling reasons to use it over other methods of copying pre-built devices and dropping them in a station. I know 4.6/4.7 they made many improvements, so its prob worth another look.

Figuring out program objects / robots to do this type of thing will be extremely handy as they can do just about anything and your not always cleaning up a mess you created where you can make some assumptions on how things where initially done.

Again...the key to saving time in Niagara is to make sure you have everything correct before you go hog wild and copy something out a bazillion times. After that, its various shades of pain.

Originally Posted by dave.rods2

Hello all!

I was wondering if there are any N4 wizards out there that might know if it is possible to mass add bacnet points to existing point databases through the ProgramServices tool.

I have 40 plus devices I need to add 5 discoverable points to and the only way I know of accomplishing this as of right now is to pick one unit, discover the points I need, change the facets/hide the slots I don't need, then copy and paste them into each of the bacnet point folders for each of the units.

Not only is this process incredibly time consuming but the monotony of it inevitably will lead to mistakes along the way.

If anyone has some insight on this process that would be greatly appreciated!


Cheers!

Why not do one device, make a template. Apply the template?

Originally Posted by FreezerGeezer

their company put a ban on anyone copy pasting in Niagara.

That is insane, I literally can't function without the left CTRL key. I've also been known to remove the left windows key as it gets in the way sometimes. I deliberately use it all the time as the computer makes less mistakes than I do.

Useful tip Orion, thanks.
I never did learn the whole story, but I heard the issue caused so much trouble on one of a friend's projects that their company put a ban on anyone copy pasting in Niagara. Apparently it was one of those known but undocumented issues at the time.