Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications

Name: Date:
Course: ARO-247 Unit: 6

Ladder Programming

Learning Objectives

 Application Manager – Working with FactoryTalk View Studio files

o Renaming, copying, deleting, backing up and restoring PanelView files.

General Information for this Lab.

 General Lab requirements:

o Panelview ME application for our VFD program from Lab 11.

Reference Information.

 FactoryTalk View Studio User Manual

I/O Required:

 Inputs

o No physical inputs

 Outputs

o No physical outputs

When you create a FactoryTalk View Studio application many files are created. There is no way to copy,
rename or otherwise backup your application from View Studio or from Windows File Manager. Let’s have a
look at how and where these files are stored.

When FactoryTalk View Studio was installed on the PC a folder structure was created for the application, its
files and any files later created from the application are stored within this folder structure. Navigate to the
following folder in Windows, C:\Users\Public\Documents\RSView Enterprise. In our installation there are two
folders one that contains FactoryTalk View Machine Edition files and one that contains some images that
are/can be used in creating applications.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
Open the folder named ME. Let’s explore each of these sub folders.

Instructor-led exploration.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
Let’s now concentrate on the HMI projects folder. Open it and you should see all of the HMI projects that
have been created on this computer. Scroll down the listing and you will find your VFD application. Open
that folder. This entire structure was created when you created and configured your VFD application.

For our small project there are not that many individual files, but in order to accurately re-construct this
hierarchy of folders and the applications files when we backup, restore, copy, rename, etc. we need a
special application to do that with. Enter Application Manager…

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
Close the File Explorer window and in the Windows search bar begin to enter Application Manager. Open
the application.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
The interface is very simple and self-explanatory as is the application itself. We can efficiently work with the
vast number of files created with our application.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
Selecting Backup Application and then pressing the Next button we are guided through the process. We are
first asked to pick an application to backup. Select your VFD application and again press the Next button.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications
We are now asked to pick a new name (if desired) and a location for the backup file. We could also encrypt
the contents of the file and choose a passphrase to be required to open it again. For us, we will leave all of
the entries at their defaults.

Note the location where the backup will be restored, C:\Users\Public\Documents\RSView Enterprise\ME\
Archives.

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Unit 6 – Lab 11a Creating PLC Programs – Panelview Applications

Pressing the Finish button creates the backup. When finished the Application Manager dialog box is re-
opened it has finished backing up the application. There is no indication that the backup was actually
created, but it was, and we can verify that by navigating Windows File Explorer to the archive directory
shown above. Copy that link and paste into the Windows search bar. Now you see a newly created file
named VFD.apa. This is your applications complete backup and the file we would need in order to Restore
the application on this PC or even a different PC. When your application is fully completed and tested it’s a
good idea to back up the application and copy the .apa file to the safe location where you keep your
completed files.

When you want to Restore the application just reverse the process and the file structure and its contents will
be restored to the appropriate location on your computer.

End of Lab.