Adding Ad Hoc tags

You can add Ad Hoc Tags to any station object to provide additional semantic information without using an installed tag dictionary. Ad Hoc tags are tags that you create directly from the Edit Tags dialog box. These tags are not found in any tag dictionary.

Ad Hoc tags are useful for development or testing purposes, allowing you to test without adding or modifying tag dictionaries and without using the tags that are already in use by active production applications. However, when applying tags that are used by applications, best practice is to use tags from standardized tag dictionaries that are applied system-wide.

  1. Right-click the component that you want to tag and select Edit Tags from the popup menu.
  2. In the Edit Tags dialog box, and without making any selections click the AddTag button.
    The Add Tag dialog box appears.
  3. In the TagId field, enter a new tag name using the following syntax: namespace:tagname.
    For example, my:datalogs. For best practices, use a consistent naming convention. Also, it is important to use a namespace that does not conflict with that of other installed tag dictionaries.
  4. In the Type field, use the option list to select the tag type from the options available.
    Note: In your Ad Hoc tag, do not use a namespace that is identical to an existing tag dictionary. For example, do not use hs:, n:, or other namespace characters that would conflict with existing tag dictionaries.
    For an Ad Hoc tag with the TagId my:datalogs you could select a type called baja:String to determine that the tag value be a String type of data.
  5. To assign the tag to your selected component, click OK.
    The new tag is added and appears in the Direct Tags table in lower half of the dialog box.
  6. Edit any tag value fields (for example, String, Ord,), as appropriate, and click Save to save the tag assignments.
The component is now tagged.