Do your operators waste time searching file cabinets or rummaging through job jackets to find engineering drawings, work instructions or specifications?  Documents can easily and quickly be viewed by using the built-in OLE (object linking and embedding) capability in ProFicient.

Any object that can be viewed in a Windows Operating System environment can be considered an OLE object. An object might be a bitmap image, text, drawings, video clips, or an MS Word document.

For example, say you want operators to view a part image (found in Figure 1) while they are using ProFicient. You can view the image in two ways:

· As a chart within a project

· Using the ProFicient toolbar

Figure 1: Blue Part

Viewing an OLE Document as a Chart

To view the image as a chart within a project, simply choose Chart>New from the menu bar. This invokes the chart wizard. While in the wizard, specify the chart name. In this case, “Blue Part” will do. Click “Next” and link the chart to the appropriate Data Entry Configuration. Click “Next.”

Once you are in the Chart Type window (Figure 2), choose “Special Chart,” in A. CHART CATEGORIES. In box B. CHART TYPES, choose “OLE Document.” The “Next” button will be grayed out. Click “Finish.”

Figure 2: Chart Type Window

After clicking “Finish,” you will be faced with the “Select Document” dialog box (Figure 3). Browse your hard drive or select the document from a shared network drive. Double-click on the document of interest or click the document once, then click “Open.”

Once you have selected the document, ProFicient treats it as a chart (see Figure 4).

Figure3: Select Document dialog box

Since the document is now considered by InfinityQSÔ to be a chart, it can be viewed by operators by just clicking on the “Blue Part” button in the chart bar (the area to the left of the charts in the Shop Floor Mode).

Figure 4: OLE Chart

Facts About OLE Charts in InfinityQS

1. Only the path to the OLE document (not the document itself) is saved to the project.

2. Project size remains very small since only the path is saved. This is an efficient way to view documents.

3. If the document file is revised, the updates are automatically shown the next time the project is started. No effort is expended by operators to find revisions.

4. If using a file that can be edited as an OLE document (like MS Word, Excel, etc.), you may want to protect the file by giving the user “read only” access to the files.

5. OLE documents can also be viewed through the ProFicient toolbar (shown at the bottom of the screen clip in Figure 4 above). This functionality is covered in the Application Note entitled, Viewing OLE Documents Using the ProFicient Toolbar.