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Avoiding Unintended Changes When Editing Calculation Items: Duplicating Items, Worksheets, & Analyses


John Cox

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Summary/TLDR

Users commonly want to duplicate Seeq created items (Value Search, Formula, etc.) for different purposes, such as testing the effect of different calculation parameters, expanding calculations to similar areas/equipment, collaboration, etc. Guidance is summarized below to prevent unintended changes.  

Duplicating Seeq created items on a worksheet Creates new/independent items that can be modified without affecting the original.
Duplicating worksheets within a Workbench Analysis Duplicating a worksheet simply copies the worksheet but doesn't create new/independent items. A change to a Seeq created item on one sheet modifies the same item everywhere it appears, on all other worksheets.
Duplicating entire Workbench Analysis Creates new/independent items in the duplicated Workbench Analysis. You can modify them without affecting the corresponding items in the original Workbench Analysis.

 

Details

Each worksheet in an analysis can be used to help tell the story of how you got to your conclusions or give a different view into a related part of your process. Worksheets can be added/renamed/duplicated, and entire analyses can also be duplicated: Worksheet and Document Organization

Confusion sometimes arises for Seeq users related to editing existing calculation items (Value Searches, Formulas, etc.) that appear on multiple worksheets, within the same analysis. Often a user will duplicate a worksheet within an analysis and not realize that editing existing items on the new worksheet also changes the same items everywhere else they are used within the analysis. They assume that each individual worksheet is independent of the others, but this is not the case. The intent of this post is to eliminate this confusion and to prevent users making unintended changes to calculations.

 

Working with the same item on a Duplicated Worksheet

When duplicating worksheets, remember that everything within a single Workbench Analysis, no matter what worksheet it is on, is "scoped" to the entire analysis. Duplicating a worksheet simply copies the worksheet but doesn't create new/independent items. A change to an item on one sheet modifies it everywhere it appears (on all other worksheets).

For some use cases, duplicating a worksheet is a quick way to expand the calculations further or to create alternate visualizations, and the user wants to continues working with the original items. In other situations, worksheet duplication may be a first step in creating new versions of existing items. 

To avoid modifying an original item on a duplicated worksheet, from the Item Properties (Detail Pane "i" symbol) for the calculated signal/condition of interest, click to DUPLICATE the item. You can edit the duplicated version without affecting the original.

A1.png

 

Duplicating worksheets is often useful when you are doing multiple calculation steps on different worksheets, when you want trends on one worksheet and tables or other visualizations on another, when doing asset swapping and creating a worksheet for each unique asset, etc.

 

Working with Items in a Duplicated Workbench Analysis

If you duplicate the entire Workbench Analysis (for example, from the Seeq start page, see screenshot below), new/independent items are created in the duplicated Workbench Analysis. You can modify the items in the duplicated Workbench Analysis, without affecting the original (corresponding) items in the original Workbench Analysis. This is often a good approach when you have created a lengthy set of calculations and you would like to modify them or apply them in a similar way for another piece of equipment, processing line, etc., and an asset group approach isn’t applicable.

A2.png

 

There is one exception to this: Seeq created items that have been made global. Global items can be searched for and accessed outside of an individual Workbench Analysis. Editing a global item in a duplicated analysis will change it everywhere else it appears.

There are many considerations for best practices when testing new parameter values and modifications for existing calculations. Keep in mind the differences between duplicating worksheets and duplicating entire analyses, and of course consider the potential use of asset groups when needing to scale similar calculations across many assets, pieces of equipment, process phases, etc. There are in-depth posts here with further information on asset groups:

Asset Groups 101 - Part 1

Asset Groups 101 - Part 2

 

Edited by John Cox
added links to asset group posts
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