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Why ?

Trying new I/O interfaces allows enabling the visualization and editing new IO connections within new UI, offering improved scalability, performance, and an enhanced user experience.

How to try new I/O interfaces

The migration is carried out following these steps:

1. Compile your project if it has not been compiled previously.

2. Close your project.

3. Right-click on the project and select the "Try new I/O interfaces" option.

   

4. Follow the steps in the migration wizard.

   1. Data point tree and IO assignment:

      

   2. Connections overview:

      

   3. Migration impact:

      

There you have it; your project has been successfully migrated into Dashboards.

Migrated project into Dashboards

Dashboards can be opened by clicking on “Dashboards” or on “Configuration” in the RT-LAB Project Explorer.

For more information on how to configure connections of I/O Interfaces in Dashboards, please refer to the following documentation:

• Data point tables

• Connecting data points

• Interfaces

Considerations

Once the project has been migrated to dashboards,

• Functionality of the Recorder remains the same.

• LabVIEW panels are still available.

• Configuration view of IO Interfaces remains in RT-LAB.

• Aliases are no more supported.

• All RT-LAB API calls remain compatible.

  • GetConnectionsDescriptions return may differ

    • For IO data points:

      • Field name is no longer present.

      • Field alias has been added, it is the IO data point UI name.

    • For model data points:

      • Field level, alias and name are no more present.

• Connections configuration:

  • Can be done via Dashboards

  • Is no longer accessible via the Configuration panel of RT-LAB.

Migration failure

If the project migration fails, please read the <Project Path>/configurations/opalone/migration_report.log file and refer to the Known issues section.

If the issue persist please contact OPAL-RT support and provide the full project in a zip file or the following files

1. The folder located at <Project Path>/configurations

2. The file located at <Project Path>/Controller.log

3. Opal Ones log files at C:/OPAL-RT/OpalOne/services/appserver/logs/appserver.log and C:/OPAL_RT/OpalOne/vX.Y.Z/server/logs/unicon.prod*.text.log

Migration report

The migration_report.log (under <Project Path>/configurations/opalone) should be generated no matter the migration failed or not.
If it’s not the case, it could be because the Controller.exe of the project was not properly closed before starting migration or if unicon.exe is not running.

A migration report should content :

• Information about IO Interfaces

MIG #### Start migration of IO interfaces ####
MIG -- Start IO synchronization -- 
MIG IO Interface: Name: DNP3 Slave, Metadata: map[guid:D9F9CC87-4BDE-49F4-AA23-E8FA9636956E type:DNP3Slave]

• Information about IO datapoints

MIG -- Synchronization of IO datapoints --
MIG Insert IO signal path=DNP3 Slave/Slaves/9FE36F43-E67A-407E-B047-38AD06272490/Analog inputs/656B6654-805D-478D-B74C-84C3B1CF553F name=Analog input 0
MIG Insert IO signal path=DNP3 Slave/Slaves/9FE36F43-E67A-407E-B047-38AD06272490/Analog inputs/FD876C62-3F56-41A7-9BFE-9EA57E5F551E name=Analog input 1
...
MIG New entries in database : 8 levels, 5 blocks, 0 parameters and 10 signals
MIG -- End synchronization of IO datapoints --

• Information about connections between IO Interfaces and models

MIG -- Synchronisation of connections --
MIG 10 connections found.
MIG Connection between 'DNP3_Slave/sm_dnp3_slave/Analog_to_master/OpOutput/port1' and 'DNP3 Slave/Slaves/9FE36F43-E67A-407E-B047-38AD06272490/Analog inputs/656B6654-805D-478D-B74C-84C3B1CF553F'
MIG Connection between 'DNP3_Slave/sm_dnp3_slave/Analog_from_master/In1/Value' and 'DNP3 Slave/Slaves/9FE36F43-E67A-407E-B047-38AD06272490/Analog outputs/8E8AEAA4-8ED8-4F16-87B3-8AA56D609090'
...
MIG 10 connections to insert in database
INF IO DNP3 Slave assigned to DNP3 Slave/sm_dnp3_slave
MIG -- End synchronisation of connections --

• Any error reported stop the migration process. It may be related to one of the previous sections, ie.

error on IO interface synchronization:

ERR InsertBlocks error: 'error message'

error on connections:

ERR Invalid connection from 'path1' to 'path2'
ERR The migration cannot be completed as some connections remain unresolved. Please correct any incorrect connections before proceeding with the migration.

ERR FAILED to insert IO assignments 'error message'

ERR FAILED to create connections 'error message'

Known issues

Unresolved connections

If in a project there are unresolved connections, the migration cannot be done.

Unresolved connections can be seen in the Configuration panel of RT-LAB when the top-level connection count is inconsistent with the sum of the connections present at the data point level. The following image illustrates what unresolved connections may look like.

Contrastingly, in the next image, all connections are resolved.

To correct unresolved connections, connections can be deleted manually, or RT-LAB API can be used to do a clean up, from RT-LAB python console

r.OpenProject('projectName')
r.ExportConnections('connections.csv')
r.DeleteConnections('*','*')
r.ImportConnections('connections.csv')

The ImportConnections call will output an error, listing all unresolved connections.

The project can now be migrated to dashboards and missing connections can be established manually or using the CreateConnections RT-LAB API call.