User Manual

Page 2 of 4
Siemens Industry, Inc.
InfoCenter Spreadsheet
The InfoCenter Spreadsheet application provides a
user interface for dynamically retrieving information
from InfoCenter Suite into Microsoft Excel.
InfoCenter Spreadsheet is an Excel add-in that
resides as an additional menu item on the standard
Excel application (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. InfoCenter Spreadsheet Menu Item.
Once you select the InfoCenter Spreadsheet menu
item, the InfoCenter client application connects to
the InfoCenter Server using ODBC technologies
that contain your NT security information. After the
InfoCenter server determines your access rights, a
tree view of available point information is displayed
to the client (see Figure 2). The InfoCenter
Spreadsheet follows the same security model as
other InfoCenter applications and only provides you
with their unique list of accessible points. Data
retrieval utilizes the InfoCenter data librarian feature
to find data wherever it resides in InfoCenter Suite.
Figure 2. Point Tree View.
The InfoCenter Spreadsheet allows you to select
the point names and date range of the query along
with any one of three automated data processing
functions that take place during the retrieval of data
from InfoCenter Suite. These include fill down
processing, data tampering prevention and
automated launching of the Excel chart wizard.
Selected prior to querying the InfoCenter Server for
information, fill down processing is used to convert
COV based trend information into a useable data
set. If two or more points are selected for the query,
InfoCenter Spreadsheet will fill down data values
instead of leaving blank spaces under the
assumption that a point’s value remains unchanged
at a particular time interval if no new data is
available (see Figure 3). This allows you to create
presentation quality charts and reports or analyze a
complete data set using many of Excel features.
Figure 3. No Fill Down vs. Fill Down.
Data tampering can be prevented by choosing
protect sheet upon completion. This option uses the
Excel advanced worksheet protection function to
lock the worksheet. Once data has been retrieved
with the option, it cannot be manipulated. This
makes InfoCenter Spreadsheet a viable option for
producing reports for regulatory agencies by
ensuring that the copy of the data set in the Excel
Worksheet is identical to the secure data set in the
InfoCenter Suite database. InfoCenter
Spreadsheet’s header information reports what
options were selected at runtime to explicitly
communicate whether data was protected upon
retrieval and if any fill down processing took place.
The chart wizard option allows you to automatically
convert tabular data retrieved from InfoCenter Suite
into a range of graph types. The chart wizard
contains a range of graph types and formatting
options (see Figure 4). Once a graph is produced, it
can be saved, printed or copied to other office
applications.