Teststand property loader for multiple sequences

Hi, I am using Teststand 3, and would like to be able to Export all sequences into one Excel spreadsheet, so that each tab references a single sequence. If anybody has already done this, or has a suggestion as to how to do it, I would be grateful. The end goal is to create a single excel file, that can be emailed around, without people losing track of all the different excel sequence files.

ADL,
Unfortunately, there is no way to do this with the property loader features of TestStand. The Import/Export Property tool does not distinguish between worksheets in a workbook and the Property Loader step type can only import properties. If you really need this functionality, one possibility is to use the ActiveX methods exposed by Excel to populate an Excel workbook.
Regards,
Matt P.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

Similar Messages

Export Limits for Multiple Sequences in the Same Sequence File for TS3.0

Hi,
I am using TestStand 3.0 to a test application. Because we want to have our limits in a csv-file I have tried to use the Import/Export tools in TS. But this application only supports to export limits for the selected sequence (e.g. main, or subseq1) at a time. This makes it a pretty hard job to export limits from 30 test sequences. What I need is a possibility to export my limits from �all sequences� in my seq-file.
I have found an article on NI Dev. Zone about �Export Limits for Multiple Sequences in the Same Sequence File (TestStand 1.0.x)�.
http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/niepd_web_display.DISPLAY_EPD4?p_guid=B45EACE3D9CB56A4E034080020E74861&p_node=DZ52236&p_submitted=N&p_rank=&p_answer=&p_sourc
e=External
I have tried to use this code but because it�s for TS 1.0.2 the limits from my multi num test step and my custom steptypes isn�t exported. So that doesn�t fulfill my needs.
Is there an updated version with �all sequences� added to TS 3.0? Is there other good solutions to my problem out there?
Best Regards,
Morten Pedersen
CIM Industrial Systems A/S
Denmark

Hi David Mc,
Thanks for your reply. I have already considered this solution because the source code is added in the folder described in your reply. But that is not a good solution. It will cost me a lot of time to establish the toolchain, reverse engineer the source code, make the implementations and build a new dll (most off these is already knowledge by NI). And when NI make future releases of TestStand I have some merge work to do every time NI have made some changes in the files I have changed.
But as I write above: I have hoped that NI already has/or could made a solution like the one to 1.0.2 (see link in root) to me. And then they could include it in the next version.
I don't think I am the only one in the TestStand world that ne
ed this feature.
Best regards,
Morten Pedersen
CIM Industrial Systems A/S
Denmark

TestStand Property Loader using a XML file

I would like to use Labview Cluster to build XML files (in LabView 6.1) that could be use by TestStand Property Loader.
Is it possible?
Harold Hebert
National Research Council Canada

Harold,
The TestStand Property Loader step type only loads text, comma-delimited, or excel files.
As alternatives, you could make your own step type that would parse through the XML file to find the properties that you want to load. You could also use the excel VIs to write variable values to an excel file.
Good luck!
Shannon R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

Property Loader and Multiple Numeric Limits

I’m using a Multiple Numeric Limits Step with 50 measurements. From these 50 measurements I would like to create a limits file. The problem I have is that when I export the properties to a tab delimited file text file it becomes unreadable. I have attached a file with an example of what I mean.
Is there any way to format the limits file so that it is more readable?
Regards
Ray Farmer
Attachments:
example.txt ‏6 KB

Hi Ray and Scott,
This thread is closest to my challenge, so I wanted to reply
instead of post a new thread.
I may have four or five different (multiple num lim) steps
with 10 – 25 measurements each. So there’s a lot of columns AND
Result.Measurement[3].Comp might be power limits for some steps, jitter for
another and OMA for yet another.
I may also have two to five
different custom steps that have 10 – 25 unique properties each. This can stretch the top row colunn headings
of a properties file out to 75 – 100 columns.
What is a good or common approach to make property and
limits files more readable/editable by humans? I’ve tried a custom file editor
and a custom property loader, is one approach better, any other ideas? Should I
make steps with many properties or results into subsequences? Thanks
Sincerely,
Chris C.
more context:
I find
reading Ray’s example.txt file in excel better than notepad, but still
more cumbersome than I’d like. I also have the same problem with custom
step types that contain 10 – 25 properties to load at runtime, though this
is a little better because the NAME of the property is used in the column
headers. If I exported properties from a seq with four different steps
with 20 props each, the top property file row stretches out to 80 columns.
If I use Markers I think I can “stack” the column headers in excel and not
have such a wide file.
For
the limits I’m going to need to see the measurement name in the file,
Measurement[“Pave”].Comp instead of
Measurement[3].Comp. I tried changing this in the limits file and
the Import tool but it wouldn’t work, is it possible?
I
built a limits and property file editor app (jpeg attached) for one
project to make editing easier and less error prone, and also maintain the
native TestStand file formats and property loader. The leftmost column
retains the order of the sequence.
I have
experimented with my own property loader, however it is not based on the
property loader code that comes with TestStand because I did it in
LabVIEW. This produces a file that looks like the attached jpeg and is readable in
Excel, a requirement (or was that a whine?) of my organization. (Can’t use
a database.) However it seems a little dangerous to recreate TestStand
components.
Attachments:
EditTSPropertyFileApp.jpg ‏150 KB

How to apply Property Loader to all sequences in the Sequence File?

HI,
I'm following the help instructions for the Property Loader and it states....
Use Current Sequence File—Selects the file where the step is located.
Sequence—Specifies the name of the sequence into which to import variables and properties. The specified sequence must exist in the specified sequence file. Select the <ALL SEQUENCES> tag from the drop-down list to instruct TestStand to import variables and properties for all of the sequences in the specified sequence file. You must specify a valid sequence name for the step to work properly.
In my specific sequence file I added the Callbacks: SequenceFileLoad, SequenceFileUnload, PreUUT. In addition to that, my MainSequence is calling 2 subsequences.
I put the propertyLoader step (setting few values of the SequenceFileGlobals) in the setup section of the SequenceFileLoad, checked the 'Use Current Sequence File' and selected ALL SEQUENCES tag in the 'Sequence' option. I verified that it does what I wanted. Then, is it entered the PreUUT subsequnce, the values returned to the "original" values.
Is that a bug?
If not, how do I use the PropertyLoader in a sequenceFile that include several subsequences as well as Callback sequences.
Thanks
Rafi

Ooops, sorry about that...
I forgot to mention....it is TS 3.5.
As per your questions-- yes they all in the same sequence file.
     mySeqFile.seq
           SequenceFileLoad
           SdequnceFileUnload
           PreUUT
           Seq1
           Seq2
AS I said....I put the property loader in the setup of the SequenceFileLoad, I see that it works properly in that subsequence. Then, after the SuequenceFileLoad is finished, I do Ctl+F5 for Test UUT's. I put a breakpoint in the first step of the preUUT subsequence and check the context. I notice that the variables in the FileGlobals to whom the property loader writes, have been changed back to the original values.
I'll try to create a simple program to duplicate it but it may take me time as this test station is very busy.
Thanks
Rafi

One SendMail task for multiple sequence containers

Hi,
Quick question, hope someone can help.
I have multiple sequence containers in my package. I only want to have one sendmail task for the failure/completion of the package. If I put the sendmail task in the last sequence container and the first seqence fails, the sendmail task will
not be reached and therefore, no email will be sent out.
Is there a way to have one sendmail task for all the sequence containers and allow it to send mail regardless of what sequence fails/completes?
Many thanks
P

Hi,
Just as Visakh suggested, we can use Event Handlers with Send Mail Task when an error or a warning occurs or when a task fails in the package. For more details, please refer to the following steps:
Go to Event Handlers tab, choose OnError in the Event handler drop-down list.
Drag a Send Mail Task.
Configure SmtpConnection and other details except MessageSource.
Go to Expressions tab and then expand this, then click on browse button this will open Expressions designer.
Choose MessageSource under Property window and then again.
Click on browse button this will open the second editor, the Expression Builder.
Then substitute values in Expression window like below:
"XYZ Job Failed"+"!"+"\n"+"Error Details:"+"\n"+"On Server – "+ @[System::MachineName]+"\n\n"+"Package Name
–+@[System::PackageName]+".dtsx" +"\n\n"+"Task Name(Task where job failed ) – "+ @[System::SourceName]+"\n\n"+"Task Type(SSIS Component)
– "+@[System::SourceDescription]+"\n\n"+ "Error Description -"+@[System::ErrorDescription]+"\n\n"+
"Error Code – "+(DT_WSTR, 12) @[System::ErrorCode]+"\n\n"
References:
Integration Services (SSIS) Event Handlers
SSIS Event Handlers Basics
If there are any other questions, please feel free to ask.
Thanks,
Katherine Xiong
Katherine Xiong
TechNet Community Support

Using One Property Node For Multiple Controls/Indicators

Question for all you LabVIEW gurus. Is there a way to create 1 property node that is used for multiple indicators? For example, if I wanted to display the same value on 10 different indicators using the property node - value function do I need to create 10 separate property node-value instances for each indicator? Or is there a way to tie all of those indicators to only one property node?
Thanks!
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi hobby1
You could create a cluster, and inside in it put all the indicators, see the image attached
Attachments:
capture1.JPG ‏14 KB

Custom property renderer for multiple value selections of property metadata

Hi,
We have created custom predefined metadata properties and fetching data from SAP to display values while uploading a document from KM.Everything is working fine and values are being displayed in a dropdown.
The standard property multi-valued displays values in checkboxex but the requirement is to allow for multiple selections in dropdown using shift ot ctrl key.
We started creating our own property renderer by decompiling classes like allowedvalues_multivalued
but we could not see the property on the upload screen.
Any help is greatly appericiated.
Thanks,
Vasu.

Vasu,
Try changing the property renderer setting in your custom property. There might be one which allows a multiple select box. If not, you can always create your own. The following links are helpful:
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/5800
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-cm?rid=/library/uuid/f7b176eb-0701-0010-2b84-8edb1f76771d
Andrew

TestStand v3.0 for multiple test sequence runs

I am trying to setup the TestStandv3.0 so that it can execute multiple
test sequences. Currently it executes one sequence and then rather
than reporting the test results in an HTML format, it terminates and
the entire tool quits execution. How do I fix this? I did not get
this problem with TestStand v1.0.1 of of the box.

Hi,
It maybe that in the Station Options under the Execution Tab, for the
On Run-Time Error control.
Make sure the 'Immediately Goto Cleanup on Sequence Failure' is not
checked.
Regards
Ray Farmer

Property Loader and Multiple Numeric Limit Test

Hi!
I'm trying to export the limits of all numeric limit tests im my sequence.
I've no idea what i'm doing wrong, but i fail with exporting the limits of the multiple numeric limit tests. There are only the limits of the "normal" numeric limit tests in my export.
Could someone please explain me how to export also the limits of the multiple numeric limit test?
(TS 2013)

when defining what to export, it is usually easiest/cleanest if you can explicitly define all multiple numeric step measurements as explicit indixes? For example if your MNL step has 2 measurements defined, you'd want to export 4 additional matches...
Step.Result.Measurement[0].Limits.Low
Step.Result.Measurement[0].Limits.High
Step.Result.Measurement[1].Limits.Low
Step.Result.Measurement[1].Limits.High
...and so on for more indexes....
note how the pattern is different from the regular
Step.Limits.*
by default when you try to export using the '>' buttons for MNL steps, TestStand will usually try to help by generating an incomplete/invalid expression of:
Step.Result.Measurement[?].Limits
which it expects you as the user to fix before proceeding, however the '?' is often overlooked, because it's so small!
some people prefer to simply export the entire Step.Result.Measurement.* to the file because they'd prefer not to define array indexes, but this will log the explicit XML for the container values, which may not be as easy for end users to work with... your mileage may vary. Good luck!
-Elaine

Using Property Loader in a sub-sequence with multiple invocations

I'm using the Property Loader to load a different set of limits for each invocation of a sub-sequence. In my example, I have a sequence to do tests all the tests on a given RF band. But I want the ability to specify different test limits for each band.
It wasn't hard to come up with an expression based on Parameters.Band to specify different Start and End data markers in the Property Loader step. So far so good.
I don't necessarily want to override the same limits in every band. For one band, I might be happy with a default limit from the sequence file itself. Trouble is, if I don't specify a limit in the limit-file for a given band, then the limit loaded by the previous invocation of the sub-sequ
ence is still in effect. This was a surprising behaviour. There's a huge opportunity for errors to creep in here, because the limit files may be edited by "lusers", and it's hard to explain this pitfall.
Is there an easy way to make the limits reset to the sequence-file defaults before I call the Property Loader? Or alternatively, to make the loaded limits affect only the present invocation of the subsequence (the same way loading Locals only affects the present invocation?)
BTW, I'm not actually using the official TestStand Property Loader, which I find too unwieldy. We wrote our own Property Loader. But the problem is common to both. Changes to RunState.Sequence.Main... persist across invocations of the sequence.
- Ron

Here I go, answering my own question again. For the benefit of anyone else who ever runs up against this...
The trick is in the Sequence Properties dialog. Turn off "Optimize Non-Reentrant Calls to This Sequence". The little comment there makes it pretty clear that this is what's needed. I tried it, and it works.
- Ron

Property Loader - How to set it up for all sequences?

Hi,
I made an attempt to use the property loader for the first time. (TS3.5).
I set it up in the setup section of the SequenceFileLoad and specified few parameters of the FileGlobals.
What happened was a proper operation for the SequenceFileLoad sequence, but as soon as the procedure stepped into the MainSequence, the values return to the original values. I repeated the process with and without import to Run-time sequence only' and it behaved the same.
Is there a way to set it up so ti will apply to all sequences within my sequence file and also to the external sequence files called from the main sequence. In short to replace the parameters of the FileGlobals for the duration fo the test.
Thanks
Rafi

Rafi,
The behavior you are seeing with the SequenceFileLoad engine callback is expected. The SequenceFileLoad callback occurs before the Sequence File is actually loaded. In your case, you are setting the FileGlobals then loading the SequenceFile. When the Sequence File is loaded by the engine, the FileGlobals are also loaded in with the file. So the FileGlobals are reset to their default values. If you want to set the FileGlobals from the property loader, put the Property Loader step in the Setup group of the MainSequence. In this case, you are setting the values of the FileGlobals after the Sequence File is already loaded.
FileGlobals only have a scope that covers a SequenceFile. You will not
be able to load FileGlobals that are accessible to sequences in
external sequence files. You have a few options for getting the data into the external sequences:
(1) Add parameter variables to the Parameters section of each external sequence. When the sequence is then invoked, you can pass the data which will be used by the sequence. This provides the proper data dependency between sequences and avoids confusion on when the data is being initialized.
(2) For each Sequence File or each Sequence, create a separate property file. When each sequence is called, then use the Property Loader step to load in the data.
(3) Use StationGlobals instead of FileGlobals. StationGlobals have a scope that covers all SequenceFiles on a test station. However, this is not a recommended method, because the data is accessible to all sequences. For large applications, it is easy to mistake points in the sequences where data is being initialized and used. In these cases, you may expect the data to be a certain value that it isn't because another Sequence has already changed the data values. That is why it is better to use smaller scoped data variables.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks,
Tyler T

Best way for using Property Loader with Excel

I am trying to architect a test system to run a variety of tests (DIO, AIO, PWM...etc) and I noticed that Property Loader can be quite handy. I am trying to find the best method to utilize NI TestStand Property Loader to load test properties from Excel into some sort of parameter database. The properties shall be loaded only once when the test sequence is opened. The parameters of the excel table will have a format like this:
TestType TestCondition ECUPin# Limits.High    Limits.Low Units PWM_Frequency CAN_TX   CAN_RX
DI        ON 1    0x0102   0x0304
AI    OFF    2    0             0.1                V                                0x1324   0x0405
The table will look much more complex than this one, but once I know how to do this I should be fine. Does anyone have suggestions for what I am trying to do ?
Thanks,
Ayman

There are a couple methods of thought here:
Property Loader- You can use the tool to export and import properties. The best way to do it is to export the properties that you want in the Excel file using the tool. Then make copies of the file and change the values in there. This will ensure that once the values come back into TestStand they will all go to the correct place.
FileGlobals Method- You can create a large container which has all the correct variables in it in your file globals or locals. There is an object in the TS API called a PropertyObjectFile. This file is a simple text file that contains the properties, sub properties and values of any property object in TS. You can easily just pass the container into it. The problem with this is that you then have to create a VI or some tool to edit the values in it. You can go in there and manually change them but it's not as intuitive.
Property Loader to FileGlobal Container- This would basically be a hybrid of the two. Pretty much what you described in your post. Where the property loader only has to load the container in your FileGlobals.
Which method is best? It all depends on your application. If you ever need to dynamically export the properties then you can't use the Property Loader.
One thing to remember is that you should only Import/Export properties that need to be changed in the Excel file. This will help reduce the number of properties.
Hope this helps,
jigg
CTA, CLA
teststandhelp.com
~Will work for kudos and/or BBQ~

Property loader error

I have created a test for 50 measurements. This requires the property loader to read:
1 off StationGlobals.CurrentTestName
1 off StationGlobals.FailTarget
1 off StationGlobals.PassTarget
1 off Step.Comp
1 off Step.Limits.High
1 off Step.Limits.Low
Array 0f [0] to [49] of:
Step.Result.Measurement[*].Comp
Step.Result.Measurement[*].Limits.High
Step.Result.Measurement[*].Limits.Low
To test this a single block program was written. The above was entered into the property loader step. All variables pointing to the reference files and the file start and stop label are set up by local variables. The limits file was manual altered and trial values entered.
The program ran and loaded all limits successfully.
I have a large program under development that I could not get this function to work in. I copied the property loader step and limits string from the working files into the larger program. I have checked the correct variables are being passed to the property loader for the limits source file name and the Data Start and End Markers. Everything looks fine but when I run the program I get an error message saying:
Sequence File: 1065-32911_Block09_RDVS.seq
Property loader step failed to import or export properties.
153 property value(s) were found.
3 property value(s) were imported from 6 row(s) of data
I even tried copying the complete performance test across and the whole of the limits section for that performance test too. It still won’t work.
Also, what does the error message
3 property value(s) were imported from 6 row(s) of data
actually mean anyway?
I've attached a text file with the individual linits test text.
Attachments:
Multilim.txt ‏6 KB

BrianM,
It seems that the properties does not exist in your current context.
'Rows of data' means the number of lines in your text file within the data markers.
Is the error message you are providing complete?
Did you copy the message from the Run-Time error dialog?.
Make sure you have the same steps you had originally and that the steps contains tha same properties (measurements).
In this case you should aways have a step called 'Test Multiple Numeric' containing 50 measurements.
It is very importatnt that the step name is the same.
It seems to me that the step is only being able to import the station globals.
You can verify it by ignoring the error and checking the station globals values after the step executes.
Hope it helps.
If you have any question let me know.
Antonio Lie.
Message Edited by Antonio Lie (NI) on 04-12-2006 12:46 PM

Significant digits from Property Loader

Hello guys,
I'd like to know if anyone already faced that issue, if I load a certain limit from property loader, for example Minimum "10.0", and the VI returns a measure of 9,999472894, the test should pass.
Is there some easy way to detect the significant digits from the property loader, and automatically apply that rounding to the measured values? Actually it would become heavy to program it test by test.
Perhaps in my .xls property fils I could put an integer for each limit that represents the number of significant digits...
Any better idea?

Correct, TestStand does not base the signficant digits of the comparison off of the significant digits of the given limits, instead it assumes you want a comparison done within the full precision of a double-precision floating point number.
To fix existing limits, you could write a converter that converts limits like 10.0 to 9.999 since it is a mechanical process that could be done programmatically. Not sure why you would have to hard code limits to fix this problem. Is it not possible to change the limits in the property loader source to 9.999 or that is not an option? If that's not an option, another idea is that we ship the source code to the property loader, you could modify it to convert limits to their precision range values, for example, if a limit of 10.0 is loaded as a lower limit, it could automatically convert it to 9.999 before setting the limit value in the teststand step. That way you wouldn't have to change any sequence files, just the property loader itself.
Not to say it wouldn't be useful to add a new feature to TestStand to match the precison of the comparison to the precision specified by the limit (or perhaps in a separate setting on the step), but that is not a common request. You could post such an idea to the idea exchange though and see what people think.
-Doug

Teststand property loader for multiple sequences

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