Building a Control Conversion binding requires binding predefined Control Binding Templates to a file based Excel DataSource.
Select the Excel file that will be the source of the data used in a Control Conversion Task
Select the Control Binding template that defines the bindings between DataSource column data and target control system parameters.
Define the source and target of a Control Conversion binding
The selected Excel DataSource and Control Binding template is used to define a Control Conversion binding between a DataSource table (Excel Worksheet) and the target DataSource such as an Experion Control Module or an XPM Entity.
Excel DataSource files may contain multiple sheets of data where each Excel Worksheet represents a data table. Typically Excel Worksheets would be developed based on a particular Template or Control Strategy such as a sheet named [ANLINHG] that contains all Hiway based Analog Input entity data, [REGHG] that contains all Hiway based Regulatory entity data, etc. used for Hiway migration.
For more general control strategy building, you might have an Excel Worksheet named [SimplePID] that contains all the parameter data required to configure a simple PID type control strategy including the Process Measurement variable parameters and Control Device variable parameters used to establish the configuration for the Analog Input and Analog Output functions.
To define the Control Conversion binding:
Select the DataSource table from the attached Excel file DataSource
Select the column of this DataSource table to be used as the Primary Key. This primary key defines the data in the DataSource table that uniquely identifies it, which should always be the Entity name. This primary key also establishes the indexing and sorting for this data table.
Provide a filter expression to query for a subset of data if required. If the data table specified contains a large data set where multiple data Hiway's and boxes are present, then you might need to filter the data based on a particular HWYNUM or BOXNUM value or in the case of Hiway Regulatory Control data, you may choose to filter the data table data based on a particular Regulatory Control algorithm. If for example you choose to filter a data set based on a column named BOXNUM, you would enter an expression in the form of BOXNUM=27. The DataSource table view would only contain the data rows that satisfy the filter condition BOXNUM=27.
You can choose to provide a more advanced type of filter expression using predefined operators.
Viewing Excel DataSource Data
When an Adapter Binding is established that references an Excel table (Worksheet), a hyperlink with the name of the Excel sheet will be displayed in the column labeled "Data View". Left Mouse-click this link to view all data contained in this sheet in the Data Source Grid View. This DataView will be filtered based on the provided filter expression.
Filtering the attached Excel Data Source
You can optionally provide filter criteria on the attached Excel file data source that defines the scope of entities available while processing the conversion task. The filter can be applied in one of two ways as follows:
Provide the Key column and Key value as the source of the filter
Select the data source column in the [Template Key] column as the source of the filter value.
Specify the value to filter the data source in the [Template Key Value] column based on values found in the specified [Template Key] column.
Provide a filter expression directly in the [Template Key Value] in the form FILTER=Boxnum='28'
The keyword FILTER= must precede the filter criteria.
The excel value to filter on must be enclosed within single quote characters as in '28'
When viewing the data for your Excel DataSource table, the maximum number of visible data columns is limited to 200 columns by default. You can change this value to expose more columns in the DataView. This maximum limit optimizes the performance of the DataView when large Data Tables are being viewed. Clicking the button will allow you to choose the columns to display in the DataView.
You can specify a hierarchical Control Module path by using the '\' character to separate Control Module Container names as in "HEATERS\HEATER1\FIRING CONTROL"
You can filter your DataView to eliminate values that are empty using the Filter Expression: LEN(TRIM(PARENTASSET)) > 0 where PARENTASSET is a column in your Data Table.
When testing your Control Conversion solution you may want to reduce your test results to a minimum by selecting one or more entities from your Data Table for processing. You can do this by selecting the entities in your DataView and clicking the button. This will define the Entity scope of the Adapter Binding such that only these entities will be processed when generating the Data Collection. You can view the Entity scope by clicking the drop-down list . To change the Entity scope you can either select a new group of entities from the DataView or select Entity(s) from within the drop-down list and press the Delete button to remove them.
If your selected Primary Key column fails on an error that indicates that the column values are not unique, then it is possible that your column contains row data with space characters. Try selecting all rows that contain no valid data in the Excel Worksheet and use the Excel context menu (right mouse-click) function Delete to assure that empty rows are deleted from the Worksheet.
If an error of type "FailedToFindPrimaryKeyBinding" occurs when generating a Data Collection, verify that you have defined a Control Binding with the Primary Key attribute in your Control Binding Template that is being referenced in the Control Conversion Adapter.
The Primary Key column name that you choose for an Adapter Binding should be the DataSource column name that is bound to the Target Control Property in your Control Binding Template that uniquely defines the Control Strategy name. Failure to do this will result in the Data Collection generation failing to identify new or existing Control strategies in your output path.
Notes
The Suffix Option is currently not supported in the Control Conversion Template.
button will allow you to choose the columns to display in the DataView.
button. This will define the Entity scope of the Adapter Binding such that only these entities will be processed when generating the Data Collection. You can view the Entity scope by clicking the drop-down list 
. To change the Entity scope you can either select a new group of entities from the DataView or select Entity(s) from within the drop-down list and press the Delete button to remove them.