I was doing some experimenting on PI Vision, and it turns out PI Vision does not allow me to link an attribute of datatype object / file to a symbol.
Any reasons why? Any workarounds?
I want to look at a custom symbol that presents pictures or PDF files to a user, and i assume that should be possible.
Hi Roger,
You may feel this is more like a workaround but I personally don't like storing something in a blob and hence would prefer to store files to disk and providing the (UNC) path via string.
Well, yes and no. The key issue here is that we need the UNC's to be delivered securely, else the client reports errors as insecure content is loaded from a secure website.
And a second reason is that if the blob is in AF this needs just one access path and authorisations for the user, so that simplifies the security and architecture a lot in this case.
Hello Roger,
It is indeed not possible to open files uploaded to AF Attributes with "File" Value Type on PI Vision on any standard symbols. Also, I don't believe this is possible with a custom symbol because there is no Data Shape to expose the file contents. However, it is possible to upload files on the event frames comments tab as an attachment. If you are dealing with event frames, that could be an option.
There is also a feedback related to this topic on our feedback website. Voting for it there would increase the chances of that being made possible on future versions of PI Vision.
Regards,
Victor
Of course already voted for that over a year ago! I expected i could workaround that using a custom symbol, but PiV3 just does not allow to drag the attribute...
Hi Roger,
There appear to be 'free' solutions to host files securely. Search keywords are SFTP, FTPd and SSHd.
Haha, of course. Previously i just created another virtual directory in IIS and served the documents from there. But by customer request they want to have all data where PI is the System of Record (System of record - Wikipedia ), to be stored in PI. And that we want to limit to either Data Archive, AF or SQL.
It's not a major thing to workaround, but i don't see why we have this limitation. If we have BLOB attributes why not use them across the platform?
Hi Roger,
The functionality is currently not available. An enhancement request exists and you've voted for it. At this point, there is not much to add except looking for alternative options and that's what I tried offering. Against my personal opinion about the usage of blobs, please be ensured that I consider your question 100% valid.
For those also wanting to upvote, this is the feedback item: Open attached files directly from PI-Vision – Customer Feedback for OSIsoft & the PI System
_BUMP_
Anyone an idea about this?