What is your workflow when integrating your Do-more project with C-more project?

[franji1]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?

[MAEdwards]

Q1: Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?
A1: Always.

Q2: If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?
A2: I definitely work incrementally with Do-more and C-more projects in tandem.  My typical flow is to build a little, then test a little.  I build a little more, then test a little more.  Rinse and Repeat.

Q3: Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?
A3: Of course.

Q4: What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?
A4: Allow users the granularity to individually select the elements they wish to export, regardless of whether elements have been assigned nicknames, have been used in ladder, or otherwise.  I've been in the situation multiple times in the past where the some elements I wanted to export did NOT meet the exact criteria required by the export mechanism in Do-more Designer.  Often, the HMI will only need a small subset of the Do-more elements.  The user should be able to easily select these elements.  I have a PowerPoint presents some ideas, if you want it. 

[franji1]

I have a PowerPoint presents some ideas, if you want it. 

Absolutely!  This is one of the ideas we were thinking about (i.e. after the C-more Export dialog, bring up a dialog to tweak the record set to be exported).

Please ZIP up your powerpoint and email it to
support at hosteng.com

[Garyhlucas]

Without being able to select what is exported I haven't used the export function much. I use the wiring field to to indicate what things are used for. So putting HMI or C-more there and filtering for that would be really useful. Or in the description field if you can filter on it.

[franji1]

Without being able to select what is exported I haven't used the export function much. I use the wiring field to to indicate what things are used for. So putting HMI or C-more there and filtering for that would be really useful. Or in the description field if you can filter on it.

Interesting idea for a filter.  Makes sense.  The filter could be general enough (not exclusively "HMI", but whatever <keyword> you want to filter on).  Probably ExtraInfo and/or Description field.

[Kristjan]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?

A1: Yes, I always use it.

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?

A2: I usually finish the PLC development and then export all tags at once. And, usually  I need to tweak the PLC code during commisioning resulting in some new tags. If there is only a handful of tags, I add them manually but sometimes I do a new complete import.

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?

A3: Yes, no doubt!

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?

A4: I agree with what has previously been said about being able to filter the tags and individually select tags for export.

[rlp122]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?
Absolutely.

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?
Incrementally.  I write a bit, test, write a bit more, test.  rinse and repeat until it's released, then post document and tweak misspellings and typos.

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?
Sure.

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?
Like everyone else, I often use the extra info and descriptions since the nicknames are so limited.  I'd like to pick which field I want to use for the current export so that I can get the best naming for my Cmore tags.

[Watermark_JS]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?
Always

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?
Incrementally.

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?
Yes

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?
I use Excel to build (or at least massage) tag names, much like I use it to build Nicknames.  Unless Excel-like functionality were to be integrated directly into DoMore Designer, the current workflow has been fine for me.
That said, I really like the suggestions about filtering, or generally having more control over which -- and how -- data gets exported.  Might reduce my need for using Excel...?

[MarkTTU]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?

Yes, religiously. I don't make tags in C-more at all anymore, all of my tags are 100% imported from Do-more.


Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?

Typically I start in C-more building the graphics and HMI putting in "placeholder" tags (internal C-more) as I go. Then I build out the program in Do-more and export the tags to C-more and replace all of my placeholders. After that it's a very incremental process with edits in Do-more and then re-exporting and importing the tags into C-more. I've done the export/import tags as much as 5-10 times in a 15 minute window doing tweaks and incidental updates to a program.


Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?

Extraordinarily. I couldn't start to guess how many thousands of hours it has saved me since Do-more came out in both just the process of creating tags in C-more, but also in avoiding typos when replicating tags manually in C-more.


Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?

If I could link projects together so that new tags created in Do-more just appeared in C-more without having to do the export/import dance. That's probably a far fetched idea, especially because of how I do my file versioning (the link would likely break every time I do a save-as), but it would be great if it could happen.

As others have said, the ability to use something longer for the nicknames. Maybe linking to extra info as an option for the tag export, but I don't see description being great for me as I tend to write pretty lengthy descriptions for my tags.

To me, it's not a big deal that there's 2000 tags imported into C-more and I only need access to 300 of them, the unused tags in C-more don't hinder performance in any meaningful way that I've noticed so having the extra tags in there doesn't bug me.

[aaron.teitlebaum]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?

Q1: Yes

Q2: Incrementally and frequently, since my projects are often prototypes undergoing modifications and additions.

Q3: Yes, if I've created a new tag in C-more.

Q4: I'd love to have an automatic sync feature, even if it only went one way, to keep C-more synchronized with Do-more.

[DavidS]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?
YES

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?
INCREMENTALLY as the project progresses

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?
YES

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?
Reduce the number of steps, so that each time you do an export, you do not need to configure the output options. There should be a default for the project. And the locations of the files both export and import should be retained. We keep the PLC project in one folder and the HMI in another folder.. Once set up it should default to the same location.

[effgee]

Thanks for asking.

Q1 Yes...wait what, do people create tags in C-more by typing them ? That's very slow and error-prone. I've even import tags from a Siemens S7-200, although it needed some massaging in Excel first.
Q2 Incremental, especially during commissioning and pre-production, where operator feedback needs to be incorporated
Q3 Yes
Q4 +1 to DavidS, please retain the folder and other settings, and make a single-click import option. DoMore seems to automatically save an export file each file save, which would facilitate a single-click import from Cmore once settings are confirmed on first import

In terms of suggestions, it would be nice to have a sync/reconcile function within C-more, to handle when tag name changes in do-more that flow thru to c-more. This often happens when fixing a typo or firming up naming conventions in do-more to be consistent across the project. The idea would be to list addresses 1 by 1 which have multiple tags assigned to the one address, then you could choose "keep A"/Keep B"/"do nothing"

[Scooter]

Q1 Do you utilize Do-more Designer's File->Export->Element Documentation C-more utility, then import them into your C-more project?

Q2 If so, do you do it incrementally as you program your PLC with Do-more Designer and import them incrementally using C-more software
OR do you wait until all the PLC development is done, then have Designer export all the tags all at once, then start working on your C-more HMI by doing a big C-more import?

Q3 Is Designer's C-more Export mechanism useful?

Q4 What would make the integration between Designer and C-more better?

Q1: Yes

Q2: Incrementally. Since I'm only coding projects for use in our manufacturing facility I'm at the point where I can now start reusing portions of both my Do-more code (BRX) and the C-more code whenever I start new projects. Once I have my base project established, I'll add on more items, function by function until I'm satisfied.

Also, as I get more experienced on both platforms I find myself going back to tweak things on the previous projects to make them better.

Q3: Yes

Q4: I can't think of anything that others haven't already suggested. I'm sure that we would all like longer tag names but that isn't a C-more problem. As far as the integration between Do-more and C-more, it works good enough for me that any improvement to it wouldn't have been on my radar...

[Bolt]

I agree with the prior comments. A "live" update would be super slick. That or a button/shortcut to simply update the export file with previously used configurations. Similarly, Cmore could benefit from a re-import sequence without having to go through the current clicks and selections each time.

I guess I'm the odd one here, I do occasionally create a tag or 2 for program updates in Cmore directly. I find it faster to add a coil or string here and there to do something new than to go through the export/import process. But, the margin for error does increase greatly doing it manually.

Please keep this in mind as well, something we discussed on the AD forum last year. Creating a dummy code block full of MEMCLEAR instructions just to get the export of relatively referenced UDT to work.
https://community.automationdirect.com/s/question/0D5Dp00000VZybGKAT/cmore-import-all-tags-from-brx

[franji1]

I'm sure that we would all like longer tag names but that isn't a C-more problem. As far as the integration between Do-more and C-more, it works good enough for me that any improvement to it wouldn't have been on my radar...

One alternative in Do-more is to use User Data Types with well named structure members.  Then create well-named heap-items or good 16 character nicknames for the block/ID element.  Then you can get things like CurrentBatch.CookTimer.Done as a tag name in C-more where you have a BatchStruct UDT with a .CookerTimer TIMER member, and a block of BatchStruct called Batch, with CurrentBatch nickname assigned to Batch0.  Beats the 16 character limit.