TN 1291 Suppress Unwanted Refreshes of FactMES UtilGrid .Net Control

Description

FactMES Grids, specifically the UtilGrids, are a great way to display relevant MES data on InTouch screens and add downtime reasons to occurrences. These grids use the middleware to poll and refresh data from the database. Overtime, as the DB and usages of these screens grows, the demand can be taxing and cause performance issues. Suppressing unwanted refreshes is a great way to program for scale.

• Author: Devin Hepburn
• Published: 10/01/2022
• Applies to: InTouch/MES 2014 and Newer

Details

First Step

We are going to create a custom property in the example called "URE" and map it to the grid property "Ignore Refresh Events" as shown below. The grid properties can be accessed by double clicking on the grid inside of the graphic. Custom properties can be reached by right clicking in the white space and selecting "Custom Properties".

Second Step

Determine the conditions in which you want to refresh the grid data. Common examples include: when downtime reasons are assigned, when a new row is selected in the grid, when the entity is changed. For this example, we will create a button to demonstrate the use of the custom property and forcing a refresh.

Learned

This technote covered how to code for scale using MES controls within InTouch. This approach is very important in larger systems.