Strategies for Building the Asset Tree

Before building your asset tree in AssetWorX, it is important that you put together a strategy for building it. The structure that you ultimately create must reflect all of the needs for all of the providers you will be installing for use in the AnalytiX configuration database. You do not want to have to change its structure once it is built. Also, you should be aware of all of the tools available to you for building it so that you can exploit features that will help you.

This topic describes the following:

How to Plan Before You Start
Equipment Classes -- Critical Tools for Building the Asset Tree
How to Proceed

Plan Before You Start!

First of all, make sure you are familiar with what the asset tree is and what it provides for you. This means reviewing all of the documentation for setting it up before you actually build the asset tree.

Then, if you will be using Energy AnalytiX, FDDWorX, or other providers, refer to the online help and documentation for those providers before you construct the asset tree. This is important to do up front because once your asset tree is created you can no longer take advantage of templating capabilities that are available with equipment classes and aliasing. You can apply uniform information only while building the nodes of the asset tree; after that you will be maintaining each node individually. For that reason, set aside time to plan before you move ahead.

Of particular importance are the following considerations:

Make sure you understand the Steps to Building an Asset Tree.
Some providers' requirements may prompt you to change the structure of your asset tree. For this reason alone, it is important that you consider any future requirements you may have, also. For more information, refer to the Why an Equipment Hierarchy with Tiers? and Equipment in the Asset Tree topics.
Create an asset tree that is easy to add to and modify. For example, if you will be adding buildings or changing energy technologies, make sure the asset tree you create will be easy to change.
Use icons in a way that makes the asset tree easy to work with. You can provide your own icons that represent certain types of equipment tiers, equipment nodes, and equipment classes. Use these icons in a way that lets you users easily identify the nodes in the tree. Providing well-planned icons gives your users a way to quickly and easily identify locations, buildings, types of equipment, types of meters, and so on. So use icons in a way that provides that type of ease. For more information, refer to the Configuring Icons for the Asset Tree topic.
Come up with a strategy for applying permissions for runtime users to access equipment nodes in the asset tree, along with types of commands in each node's runtime menu. You can use the asset tree's structure to exploit the ability for equipment nodes to inherit the permissions set in parent nodes. The strategy for granting permissions is described in the Defining User and Group Permissions for Equipment topic as well as the Permissions Tab for Equipment topic. Permissions in the asset tree use the Security Server users, groups, and settings defined using the Classic GENESIS64 Workbench.
Familiarize yourself with all of the tools in AnalytiX providers, including the ability to Make Copies Using the Multiply Function, Export Data, and Import Data. The most critical tool you will use are equipment classes, described below.

Equipment Classes -- Critical Tools for Building the Asset Tree

Take advantage of the templating capabilities that are available to you with equipment classes. Before creating your asset tree, make sure you are familiar with equipment classes and all of the capabilities that they offer. For more information, refer to the Introduction to Equipment Classes (Templates) topic. For example, you might create multi-tiered equipment classes for:

Multi-story buildings
One floor of a building
A single-story building
Locations
Certain types of equipment
Meters for a type of meter provided by a utility source (see Energy AnalytiX)
Utility sources (see Energy AnalytiX)
Warehouses
Business entities

Before putting equipment classes to use, consider all of the providers you will be using in your AnalytiX configuration. Include all additional provider definitions in the equipment classes you configure. For example, if you will be installing the Energy AnalytiX provider, you may want to install it sooner rather than later in order to be able to add the Energy AnalytiX tab (where applicable) to the equipment classes so that they are defined at the same time you create the asset tree. This will save you having to return to every node in the tree later on to define Energy AnalytiX information for each energy asset. For more information, refer to the documentation for each individual provider.

Equipment classes provide a multitude of features that you can use to your advantage:

Consider using multi-tiered equipment classes:
- Create simple one-tiered equipment classes that you can drag-and-drop onto nodes where you are adding equipment to the asset tree.
- Create multi-tier equipment classes for multi-tiered equipment structures commonly found in your asset tree, such as a multi-storied office building; then drag-and-drop that structure to nodes where you are adding that type of multi-tier structure.

Aliases in equipment classes. Add all possible information to the equipment classes you create. Sometimes it is not possible to add information, but you can, instead, use aliases in your equipment classes to prompt users to fill in required information. Using aliases in equipment classes will create interactive prompts for defining properties that are specific to the equipment being added to the asset tree. This gives you a lot of control for making sure required information gets added, if not at the time of creation then later when information become available. For more information, refer to the Using Aliases in an Equipment Class topic, and the Instantiating an Equipment Node's Aliases topic.

Organize equipment classes. If you will be creating a lot of equipment classes, put equipment classes into folders so you can find them quickly and easily. For more information, refer to the Using Folders to Organize Equipment Classes topic.

How to Proceed

Follow these general steps in order to build the asset tree:

Review the AssetWorX documentation as well as the documentation of all providers in Workbench, and then plan what the tiers and structure of the asset tree will be. Also, plan how you will use equipment classes and aliasing as a tool for helping you build the asset tree.
Create the equipment hierarchy (Defining Tiers for the Asset Tree).
Create the equipment classes you will need (Creating Equipment Classes for Use as Templates).
Start adding equipment nodes to the asset tree (Adding Equipment to the Asset Tree).