Using Aliases in an Equipment Class

When creating an equipment class, you must populate its fields with information that defines the type of equipment. For example, an equipment class for creating buildings might contain all of the pop-up menu commands to be associated with buildings. However, not all buildings share the same information; for that reason, after using the equipment class to add a building to the asset tree, you need to visit every field that needs to be defined uniquely for the building. You do not, however, want important information to go undefined. To prevent this and to easily manage the information that will need to be defined, you can use aliases instead of fixed values in your equipment class settings.

An alias is simply a placeholder for information that will need to be specified for any equipment node that is defined by the equipment class. It is a text string surrounded by /? and ?/.

When you then create an equipment node from this equipment class, you will be prompted to replace each alias with the information needed to define the equipment node. If you are unable to provide the information at that time, the aliases will remain on the equipment node. Once the information is available, you can easily enter it by instantiating (replacing) the aliases.

Use the following tips and reminders when adding aliases:

  • You can enter aliases only on equipment classes, as described in Creating an Equipment Class.
  • To enter an alias in a field, type the alias surrounded by /?  and ?/, as in the following format: /?alias?/.
  • An alias string can contain any alphanumeric characters, as well as spaces and punctuation characters; just make sure that it describes the information to be added, for example, /?BuildingName?/ or /?DescriptionOfMeter?/.

  • You can use aliases as the names of an equipment class, such as /?electric meter name?/ or /?warehouse name?/. The alias appears as the name of the equipment class in the equipment class tree structure. When an equipment node is created using this equipment class, the alias is used as the node name until it is instantiated.

  • You can use an alias inside a string such as a URL or a description, as in the following example in the Description field:

    Other examples:

    • http://www./?office website?/.com
    • /?Product-Line?/ manufacturing in /?City, State of building?/