Area renaming and BCL files

Answer

When you rename areas in the configuration, the references to the objects created in the “old” areas are no longer valid with respect to:

the .bcl files

the hour, day and month values database (Genhdm.mdb)

The result is that graphs based on .bcl data as well as reports based on data from Genhdm.mdb prior to the change do not work properly.

To remedy this, we’ve built a new utility called “BCLchgArea.exe”, attached to this FAQ. The file will be included in future updates for version 4.1 after Update 1.

To use the utility, do the following:

• Download the .zip file and save the two files included in the [IGSS install path]\Gss folder.
• Create a text file (.txt) which describes the area name changes.For each area name change, write a line in the text file. The line must contain first the old area name followed by a space and then the new area name. Example: The three original areas: “Main”, “South” and “East” have been renamed to “Main-Plant”, “South-Brixton” and “East-Bethnal”.
  The text file should look like this:

Main Main-Plant
South South-Brixton
East East-Bethnal

• Save the text file in the report folder, for example as “RenamedAreas.txt”.
• Open a Command Prompt and change directory to the report folder.
• Type the following command: BCLchgArea RenamedAreas.txt *.bcl NOTE: You need not specify the path to the BCLchgArea program, because the path is included in the Windows’ PATH statement. If you only want to change individual .bcl files, simply specify their names in the command line.
• When all the .bcl files are converted, delete the hour, day and month values database, Genhdm.mdb, located in the report folder. The data reduction engine, Genhdm.exe, will automatically create a new database where the correct renamed areas are now included.NOTE: If you’ve decided to save .bcl files and hour, day and month values far back in time, this operation will take some time.

This should solve the problem and now you should be able to base graphs on .bcl data and create reports covering the period prior to the renaming of the areas.