QualityAssuranceModule is designed to configure and
apply quality checks that assure the quality of project data. The
QualityAssuranceModule is used to check data in MDB
files. Quality assurance filters can be defined to check data and to
show inconsistencies. The result of these checks can be exported to
Excel. Supported operating systems: Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows 7 or later Microsoft Office 2003 or later This is the menu bar. It is grouped in
File, Home, Settings
and Help in the menu bar. This is the DataSouce area where mdb files can be
selected and opened and where the views are defined (Shared Views and
MyViews) This is where you see the Data Grid. This is where the filter definitions are. It is a
hierarchical tree, in Manual known as filter tree. .mdb files can be opened using Openproject in the
data source area. In the title bar the Plant name (PPM), Application name (PID) and the
name of the mdb file are displayed. For the SmartPlant P&ID,
SmartPlant Instrumentation, SmartPlant Electrical and Smart 3D
extractions all tables defined in the “Task” table in the Mdb file are
available for selection. In case the Access file was not created using CAXperts ReportAdapters
only the name of the Access file is displayed in the title bar. In this
case all tables and queries from the Access file are selectable. To open a table or switch to another table, click in the
Home tab on Table and select the table
you would like to view. The names of the tables depend on the
application (PID, INS, 3D etc.) and also on the definitions done in the
Application ReportAdapters. For more details please view the manual of
the corresponding ReportAdapter. Double-clicking on a table in the data source area will open the
table in the data grid. Views are used to store the specific configurations of tables
(selected columns, virtual columns, filters which are applied etc.). Views can be stored using Save Views as right
clicking on the table name in the data grid. The user must choose if he
wants to save the view in the My views or
Shared views folder. The paths where the views are stored are defined using the
Application settings button in the
Home menu commands. Changes as described below can be applied to the views. In order to
save the view the user can click with the right mouse button on the view
and use the Save view command. The asterisk in near the name of the view will be displayed as long
as the view has been changed but not yet saved. It will disappear after
saving the view. If the user does not want to save the changes he can close the view
and select No when asked if he wants to save the
changes. The order of columns can be changed through drag & drop of column
headers with the left mouse button. Click and hold on a column you want
to move until you reach the new position with the cursor and release the
click. Click on a column header to sort the data grid depending on this
column. Click once more to toggle between ascending and descending
sort. You may drag & drop column headers to the dark grey area above to
group by these columns. The order may be changed via drag & drop. If
you group data in a grid by a single column, records with identical
values in the same column can be arranged into corresponding data
groups. Each data group is identified by a group row, which you can
expand to access its underlying data rows. If you then group data by
another column, data rows within each group are combined into second
level groups according to values of the new group column. Using the
context menu item Full expand on the GroupBy attribute
will show the grid in an expanded mode (as in the example below). The
grouping can be cancelled by dragging the attribute back to the list of
columns. Right click the column bar and click Remove this
column or Column manager (for multiple
columns). To change the visibility un-/check the checkbox in front of
the column name. A virtual column is not bound to any field in a data
source. You can provide data for virtual columns by specifying a formula
(string expression) used to automatically evaluate values for this
column. Right click any column name and click Add virtual
column… It opens the Expression editor to allow you to
specify an expression for the column. First the name of the new column
and the data type must be defined. The data type can be selected from a
dropdown list. The following example shows how to create a virtual column (NPD2).
Data for this column is calculated according to the formula:
Replace([Piperun_nominaldiameter], '"', ' ') Right click on the virtual column you want to edit and click
Edit virtual column… Right click on the virtual column you want to remove and click
Remove virtual column…. This command will remove the virtual column from the Data grid. If
the command Remove Column is used on a virtual column
the column will remain available and can be activated later using the
Column Manager. When searching with the grid search function only records that
contain the entered search string are displayed. If the serach string is
cleared the grid will display all records. Filtering allows you to display a subset of the records in the data
source that meet a particular criterion. When filtering is applied to a
Grid View, displayed records are restricted to those that meet the
current filter criteria. You can filter data against single or multiple
columns. You can apply filtering by selecting a column's value from the
filter dropdown, typing in directly in the automatic filtering row or
building a filter via the filter editor. For more information about
working with filter editor see the chapter “Manage quality assurance
(quality assurance) filter”. To get a selection of values which exists in this column hover with
your cursor over the column name, Right click on a column and select the filter icon. You will see a dropdown list of all the distinct column values, in
the list you can select all values, only one value or a list of values
as seen in the screenshot below. The automatic filtering row is displayed at the top of a View and
allows data to be filtered on the fly - by typing text directly into a
row. If you type text within a row, a filter condition is automatically
created based upon the values entered, and this is applied to the
focused column. To show only records where the field value begins with “12”, enter:
12 To show only records where the field value ends with “in”, enter:
%in Filters can be created directly in the topmost directory or they can
be created in folders. We recommend to create application specific
filter files (for SPI, SPPID, SP3D, PDS etc.). However it is possible to
keep all filters in one file, even if this is not recommended. To create a quality assurance rule, please click on Add
rule or right click in filter tree and select Add
rule. After a new filter is created the edit filter panel will
be shown. The Rule Editor allows you to build complex filter criteria with
different filter conditions, combined by logical operators. The Rule
Editor contains two tabs providing the Visual or Text-based rule editing
style. The Rule Editor displays filter criteria as a tree structure, where
nodes represent simple filter conditions. If the filter criteria consist
of multiple filter conditions, the Rule Editor contains multiple nodes
linked by logical operators into groups. You can select And, Or, Not
And, Not Or to change the operator. Click “ The following example looks for piperuns having NPD 4” or 32”. In addition to the rule query definition a description and a style
(background colour, font) can be defined for each rule (the style will
be applied to the grid). The Preview command will apply the filter and style
to the grid so that the user can test the result. The style consists of BackColour
(colour if the cell in the grid), Font (TextFont for
the data in the grid) and ForeColour (colour of the
data in the grid); the style can be applied to one or more columns (ev.
also to all columns) in the grid. Cancel preview will remove the filter and style from
the grid. OK will save the filter and close the filter
editor. Cancel will close the filter editor without saving
the filter. Rule definition for attributes with select list For attributes with select list it is possible to open the content of
the select list (right-mouse-click on the value field): This makes it easy to create rules for attributes which have a select
list (e.g. check if all pumps have a tag prefix “P” etc). In text mode the filter conditions are displayed as text; it is
mandatory to use this mode for filters that will use functions like
Substring, Replace,
Len etc. The next example shows a rule which is checking if the length of the
Piping Materials Class does not equal 7 Chars. Rules which use functions cannot be displayed in Visual Mode, if the
user tries to activate the visual mode the following a message will
display that the rule cannot be displayed in visual mode. Check functions against Access files and Excel
sheets Three functions have been added which allow checking the values from
the grid against external files: IsInListAccess checks against another Access file (mdb or
accdb). IsInListExcel checks against an Excel file using the Excel column
names in the search function. IsInListExcelWithHeaderRow allows the user to define which Excel
row contains the header columns and these are used to check the
data. Example: IsInListExcel([Equipment_ITEMTAG],
'C:\\data\\_QA\\_Test5\\Equipment_Tags.xlsx', 'test', 'A') ==
True checks if the values from the grid column
“Equipment_ITEMTAG” exist in the Excel Worksheet Sheet name “test”,
Column “A”. IsInListExcel([Equipment_ITEMTAG],
'C:\\data\\_QA\\_Test5\\Equipment_Tags.xlsx', 'test', 'A') ==
False checks if the values from the grid column
“Equipment_ITEMTAG” do not exist in the Excel Worksheet Sheet name
“test”, Column “A”. There are multiple possibilities how rules can be applied: Apply
Filter and/or Style, apply multiple filters with / without styles,
combine the filters with Or / And etc. Click the checkbox below “F” to activate the filters, and the
checkbox below “S” to activate the styles. Filter mode defines how quality assurance filters are joined which
each other in case more than one filter is enabled in filter manger. The
default filter mode is “Or”. To change the filter mode please click on AND or
OR. To rename a filter please click on the rule name. The cursor will
start to blink and you will be able to rename the rule. To modify a rule please click on Edit in menu bar or
right click in filter tree on the ruleand click Edit or
click on the To delete a rule please click on Remove in menu bar
or right click in rule tree on the rule and click
Remove. The Refresh rules command will read the rules from the file system
and refresh them within the QualityAssuranceModule; if rules are copied
and modified on the filesystem this command can be used to have access
to the modified/added rules without closing and reopening the
application. The Import rules command will import a set of rules from an Excel
sheet. The sheet must be created with the Export Rules to
Access command (or have the same format as the one created with
this command). This allows the user to store different rule configurations and to
transport them from one project to another or from one environment to
another. The content of the sheet is displayed below (sheet name must be
“Rules”): To group multiple filters, create a folder and move (See Reorder
folder) the filters inside it. To add a folder click on Add folder in the menu bar
or Right click in the filter tree and click Add
folder. To add a filter to a folder you can use drag and drop or select the
filter and click Cut in the menu bar or right click in
filter tree on the filter and click Cut. Select the
destination folder and click Paste or right click the
destination folder and click Paste. If you want to
duplicate the filter use Copy. To delete a folder please select the folder you want to delete and
click Remove in menu bar or right click in filter tree
on the folder and click Remove. The application settings menu allows defining the folders for: lookup tables (mdb files) path for shared rules path for shared views path for My Views In addition it is possible to check the “Activate last project on
start” checkbox. In this case the project which was active when the user
closed the application will be activated the next time the user starts
the application including all the views which were open. Allows choosing the highlight colour and thickness factor. These will
be applied when data is highlighted with SmartSketch and when it is
saved as PDF. This creates an Excel report of the grid including all settings
(active filter, sorting, style, column size, …). The sheet “Style legend” contains the list of applied rules including
the rule conditions. If the user wants to create reports with additional formatting,
logos, grouping of data etc. he must use the option “Report with
template” and create report templates which will have additional
formatting. There are 3 possibilities for creating report templates: Standard: all data will be placed on one
sheet Sheet per group: each new value of the
“GroupField” will generate a new sheet in the report Subgroups: for every new value of the
“SubGroupField” the data will be listed as for the standard report (on
the same sheet); in combination with the “GroupField” additional sheets
can be generated Using the “New” button for Create Report choose a folder for the
template and give it a name. Then use “Edit” to edit the report and define the fields. The fields
can be defined manually (one by one) but there is also an option to
place all the fields which are visible in the view on the report (using
Add-Ins / Select Column and then choosing the <ViewName> / Add all
columns function): The data will be placed by default on the first Excel row. In the example below a new line was inserted, the logo was inserted
using the Insert Picture function in Excel and the Header information
was renamed. The result when using the template: The data is displayed on a sheet having the same name as the
View. The rules which have been applied are displayed on a sheet called
“Style Legend”. This example will use the “PlantGroup Name” as field for grouping the
data and will display the data related to the different plantgroup names
on different sheets. Choose the report type and select the row which will contain the
group field. Select the position for the group field and choose it using Add-Ins
/Select Column Place the other fields including the header row in the next rows. The result will place each distinct PlantGroup Name with the related
data on a new sheet: The last sheet is the style legend sheet: This example will use the “PlantGroup Name” as field for subgrouping
the data and will display the data related to the different plantgroup
names grouped by the distinct plantgroup names on the same sheet. The field which is used for grouping is placed in the first row. The other fields need to be placed below including the header
row. The result: all the data is displayed on the same sheet and is
grouped by the plant group name. It is also possible to use a combination of Grouping and Subgrouping
if the parameter “Group Header Rows” is also used. In this case new
sheets will be created as explained in the example “Sheet per
Group”. The parameter “Subgroup footer rows” allows creating a sum of values
for instance sum of gate valves per unit or sum of pipe length per
unit. General notes concerning view files and reports: If SmartSketch is installed then the following functions are
available in the data grid: The function “Highlight n objects in drawings” will open SmartSketch
and show the marked object(s) in the Highlight Colour and LineWidth
Factor. If there is more than one drawing involved they will all open and
display the selected objects in the corresponding Highlight Colour and
LineWidth Factor. This function will convert the drawings to PDFs (including the
Highlight Colour and WidthFactor for the selected objects). This function will place comments on the PDF files around the objects
where problems were identified by the rules which are applied to the
grid. The comments contain: ObjectType and ItemTag in the first row EQP:F_234A Rule name in the
second row EQP Name Null The glossary can be selected. If “Default” is active then the
database column names will be displayed, if (in case of SPPID)
“PIDDisplayName” is selected then the display names defined in the SPPID
plant will be displayed. Unless the user chooses the “PIDDisplayName” he
will see the default database column names. If this command is selected the user (admin) will be prompted to
select an output file (.xls or .xlsx) and in a second step to select a
bat file (text file) which will contain the entries for the command line
interface. The parameters are described in Chapter 9.
QualityAssuranceModule
Prerequisites
Open a project
Open a table
Create a view
1) The view files are called “.qav” files (Quality Assurance View files)
on the file system. 2) The rule files are called “.qar” files (Quality
Assurance Rule files) on the file system.Working with the data grid
Working with views
Manage columns
Order of columns
Sorting
Grouping
Hide columns in grid
Columns which are hidden will not show up in edit panels!
Hover with your mouse over an entry to see a few values of this column
as shown in the screenshot.Add virtual columns
A virtual column must meet the following two requirements: 1. Its name
must be set to a unique value and not refer to any field in a grid’s
data source; 2. The column’s UnboundDataType property must be set to an
appropriate value, according to the type of data the column is supposed
to display (Boolean, DateTime, Decimal, Integer, String or Object).Edit virtual columns
Remove virtual columns
Search function
Filtering in the data grid
icon will show up and click
on it.Filtering using the filter
dropdown
Filtering using the
automatic filter row
Use % as wildcard for multiple characters and _ for a single
character.Filter expression examples
To show records where the
field value equals 10, 11, 12, … 19, enter 1_Manage quality assurance
rules
Working with quality
assurance rules
The default folder where the rule definitions are saved is the AppData
folder in the users’s profile,
e.g. C:\Users\cr\AppData\Roaming\CAXperts\QualityAssuranceModule.
We recommend saving the rule definitions in a central location
especially when multiple users will work with the same rule
definitions.Create quality assurance
rule
Rule definition in visual
mode
” to add a condition to your
group of operator.
Rule definition in text mode
In the above check functions the name of the file against the check is
done can be used with the full path and filename as in the example above
but it is also possible to define only the filename in which case the
path will be read from the Lookup folder path in application
settings.Apply quality assurance
rules
To apply all rules at the same time, click on the F or S checkbox of the
folder which contains the rules.Filter mode
Rename quality assurance
rule
Modify (edit) quality
assurance rule
icon near rule and the edit
rule panel will open.Delete quality assurance
rule
Refresh quality assurance
rules
Import quality assurance
rules
Working with folders
Add folder
Reorder folder
Delete folder
When a folder is deleted which contains filters all filters are also
removed (or all nested folders and filters).Working with application
settings
Activate last project on
start
Highlighting
Reports
Reports without template
Export grid to Excel
The example above shows the
content of the grid exported to Excel.
The sheet “Grid” contains
the exported data.Export rules to Excel
Reports with template
Example
for creating a “Standard” report (from the view “Piping View 1”)
Only if rules are applied to the grid they will be visible on the Excel
report.
If the data fields in the report template were placed using a view file
then it is mandatory to create the report with the open and active view
as starting point.Example for
creating a “Sheet per Group” report
Only if rules are applied to the grid they will be visible on the Excel
report.Example for creating a
“Subgroups” report
The Sum function only works for numerical values.
- 1: If “View” specific columns are used in the reports then the report
templates are related to the views and the existence of the view file(s)
is mandatory in order to generate the reports. - 2: It is not mandatory
that the views are open when the reports are extracted. If they are not
open they will be used in background for the report extraction. - 3: It
is not recommended to rename views if the columns are used in reports.
If the view is renamed then the columns must be renamed manually in the
report template. - 4: It is possible to combine data from different
views on one report template, for instance Equipment, PipeRun and
Instrument data. In this the data for each table will be placed on a
separat sheet in the report template.Graphical functions (for PID
only)
Highlight data in drawing
Export highlighted objects to
PDF
Export objects with
comments to PDF
Tools
Language
Generate Batch file
The active project settings and filters will be used in the command line
mode.Log file
The software creates log
files in the local TEMP directory
(e.g. “C:\Temp\QualityAssuranceModule\”. The user can also open these
files by double-clicking on the CAXperts QualityAssuranceModule status
bar:
