Worksheet Showing a Device's Active Circuits and Un-Connected Sockets?

[btgroves]

I've spent quite a bit of time building worksheets for our organizations needs with all the different types of ConnectCAD data but I'm having difficulty building a worksheet that will show connected circuits and the associated data but also un-connected circuits?

 

Basically our installers would prefer to see a 1-to-1 table including circuits as well as that devices unconnected sockets.

 

I have a feeling that Data Manager is a tool that can be used to create a record I could possibly pull the relevant data from both the Device Record and Circuiting Record and incorporate data from both records into a custom one of my own.  Anybody have experience with this?

 

I've attached a screenshot with what I'm experiencing, as you can see there is a skip from Input 15 to Input 19.

Edited January 12 by btgroves

[Conrad Preen]

@btgroves Vectorworks reports list drawing objects. So a circuit report for example will not show un-connected sockets. The standard Device Connections report is probably your best starting point. This actually lists all the sockets, but retrieves the device info and the connected circuit using special worksheet functions e.g. =OBJECTDATA('EVAL SOCKET CIRCUITS', 'Circuit', 'number'). In the worksheet menu Insert > Function... you find a whole swathe of these functions that help you get the attached records and parameters of objects that are associated with the database criterion.

 

I'm pretty sure you'll find the solution you are looking for there. But if you get stuck please reach out.

 

Conrad

[Pat Stanford]

The function reference for the worksheet functions is available at:

 

https://developer.vectorworks.net/index.php?title=Worksheet_Functions

[btgroves]

@Conrad Preen and @Pat Stanford  Is there a Vectorworks resource that covers complex worksheet creation with step-by-step, video, or long-form teaching on this topic?  I do understand the basics of Criteria and Functions but I've only ever been able to successfully create somewhat simple custom worksheets like I showed above with a Criteria looking at a layer and a specific single device record.

 

After looking at the Edit Report dialog in the Device Connections Report a lot of these functions and syntax seem somewhat advanced, and I'm struggling to find content offering help.

 

We do have a need to create custom worksheets and reports for our organization and I would like to do some more advanced report and worksheet creation more like what is contained in the Device Connections Report but with our own formatting and filtering, instead of a very extensive report on the entire drawing like what exists in the Device Connections Report.

 

Any support you all could offer would be greatly appreciated.

[Pat Stanford]

I don't know of any good source for learning about creating worksheets. I mostly do it by trial and error.

 

I don't think the Device Connection Report is actually a Worksheet Database. I believe it is a script that just uses the worksheet as its output. So I don't think you can replicate it very easily.

 

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov Can you comment on ConnectCAD reports?

[rDesign]

As far as places to see videos about creating worksheets, if you haven’t already done this, a search for ‘worksheet’ over at the Vw University will give you a handful of courses, some of which are over an hour.

https://university.vectorworks.net/

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

On 1/27/2024 at 8:27 PM, Pat Stanford said:

I don't know of any good source for learning about creating worksheets. I mostly do it by trial and error.

 

I don't think the Device Connection Report is actually a Worksheet Database. I believe it is a script that just uses the worksheet as its output. So I don't think you can replicate it very easily.

 

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov Can you comment on ConnectCAD reports?

- The ConnectCAD reports are standard database worksheet which just use some specialized ConnectCAD Worksheet functions that give you information of the connected objects. If you go in the Insert Function dialog, you can check the categories and find all the object specialized functions there. For example, you can create a report that lists circuits but using the function '=OBJECTDATA('eval circuit source socket', '<Name of a record attached to the socket>', 'Name of a record field')' you can display and edit data of the circuit's source socket. The other functions work in a similar way.

 

Let me know if you need any additional info.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[Conrad Preen]

@Pat Stanford The Device Connections Report is in fact a report on the Socket objects in the drawing. But as Niko says we created specialized functions that allow you to access the parameters of the parent device of each socket. When you order the rows by Device Name you get what appears to be a database of Devices and their sockets.

And of course we also have a function to get the circuits connected to each socket too! So that way we can get the cable number. Sockets also have a hidden parameter that counts the number of connections that a socket has. Basically all the parts are there and can be put together to create whatever views anyone wants.

 

One thing I noticed in this request was that un-connected sockets are also listed. The Device Connections report will list these IF these sockets are present on the drawing. Not everyone includes all unused sockets in their devices because this eats up drawing space. Just to be aware.

 

Conrad

[Conrad Preen]

@btgroves I am aware that tutorial materials could be better. And that is something that I am raising with those responsible.

Conrad

[Pat Stanford]

1 hour ago, Conrad Preen said:

The Device Connections Report is in fact a report on the Socket objects in the drawing

My confusion. I know there are some VW reports, specifically some that ship with Landmark that use the DatabaseByScript command to effectively bypass the database and make a static list of object defined by a script. For some reason I thought that some of the ConnectCAD worksheets used this as well.

 

But since I don't use ConnectCAD, I was not certain enough in my knowledge. Which is why I tagged Niko to get the correct information.

 

You two provide tremendous support for ConnectCAD. It is great to watch.

Pat

[Conrad Preen]

@Pat Stanford There is one report that we create programmatically bypassing as you put it the normal database from criteria mechanism. This is the worksheet created by the tool Make Rack Equipment Worksheet. This list each available position in the rack as a worksheet row and what equipment if any is mounted there.

Since it doesn't list drawing objects it can't use normal reporting.

 

Thanks for your kind words - we do what we can!

 

Conrad