Exporting Blank Controller Tags

Maybe someone here has a good idea on this...This applies to a Controllogix L30 on Studio5000 v24.

I've got a new project that I havent began adding tag descriptions to. All my Ethernet devices / VFD's / UDT devices are accounted for. Do you know if there is a way to export to excel with all of the empty fields represented? As you likely know, if you go to tools, export, tags and logic comments, you will end up with an excel file of all of the tags that do have descriptions, no gaps for existing addresses with no descriptor. However, my purposes here, I want to end up with an excel file that has all my bare DINT addresses that I can comment independently of Logix, then upload them all in at a later date.

The closest I've been able to figure, I have to go in and hammer a single character into the first bit description, then expand them out manually in my excel spreadsheet. I'd love to know if there is a better, less ham-fisted way of doing this.

any thoughts?

Crocodile Tears said:

...Studio5000 v24....

...Do you know if there is a way to export to excel with all of the empty fields represented? As you likely know, if you go to tools, export, tags and logic comments, you will end up with an excel file of all of the tags that do have descriptions, no gaps for existing addresses with no descriptor...

...any thoughts?

Click to expand...

What I likely know is that the non descript tags should export with an empty DESCRIPTION cell in the spreadsheet. I'm not sure what is happening, or not happening in your case?

This is an example from Studio 5000 v24...


This is an example from Studio 5000 v28...


It should be doing exactly what you want?

Regards,
George

You're not being clear on what the issue is, but I'll take a stab at guessing what you want.

As Geospark points out, an export does show all the tags without regard to if the description is blank. However, if you have DINT tags and you want to document the individual bits, only the base DINT tag will show in the export. Is this the situation?

If that is the case, you don't have to key pound each element in logix, you simply insert those lines in Excel. These entries won't be TAG entries, they will be COMMENT entries. Verify the format by entering a description in Logix and exporting. Once you have the format creating new lines in Excel should be simple.

Geospark said:

What I likely know is that the non descript tags should export with an empty DESCRIPTION cell in the spreadsheet. I'm not sure what is happening, or not happening in your case?

This is an example from Studio 5000 v24...

This is an example from Studio 5000 v28...

It should be doing exactly what you want?

Regards,
George

Click to expand...

Ok, I may have worded this incorrectly. You're correct in that aspect.

What I'm looking to generate is the empty space on my I/O cards, or my ethernet modules (in this case, a robot)

The spreadsheet is calling them out as COMMENT, so, I have 8 DINTs configured for input, the same for output with my robot. If I have Robot:I.DATA[0].29, 30, 31, Robot:I.DATA[1].9, 21, 28, etc, etc, only these display in the spreadsheet. They pull in my description, the type is called out as comment, everything I'd expect.

I'm trying to figure out a way to pull in everything - I might have 50 of the 256 bits configured with a comment, but I want all of those possible addresses to come into the sheet. Just hoping there is an easier way than what I was beginning to do in excel to try my idea.

mellis said:

You're not being clear on what the issue is, but I'll take a stab at guessing what you want.

As Geospark points out, an export does show all the tags without regard to if the description is blank. However, if you have DINT tags and you want to document the individual bits, only the base DINT tag will show in the export. Is this the situation?

If that is the case, you don't have to key pound each element in logix, you simply insert those lines in Excel. These entries won't be TAG entries, they will be COMMENT entries. Verify the format by entering a description in Logix and exporting. Once you have the format creating new lines in Excel should be simple.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I commented just as you did, but this sounds like what I was trying to say.

This is what I was assuming. I was hoping there was an easier way to fill in the blanks straight out versus having to hammer around in excel too much. The end goal is just to have a very simple excel file dedicated to each of my standard UDTs, Motor / I/O cards, ethernet, etc etc. Simplified comment tool essentially. We'll see where I take it from here.

Thanks for the suggestions.

OK, UDTs are a special case. Use the description on the base tag along with the description of the UDT member in the UDT definition. Logix will concatenate the two and give you a description for each member of every UDT tag. For many cases this works much better than assigning custom descriptions to every member of every UDT tag in Excel. If you haven't used this feature yet, I think you will like it.

For the situations where this doesn't apply, generate templates in Excel and paste it in as needed. Also, remember that you don't have to make one massive csv file to import descriptions. The imports are cumulative, so make as many csv files as you need to keep your sanity. Just watch out, that 0.3 on a line all by itself is absolutely necessary, the remarks lines are not.