Aspect Help

Global Libraries

Global libraries are items that are used by all of your customer databases.  Some examples of these items are manufacturers, component types (fuses, circuit breakers, dry transformers), environments (indoor, outdoor), and inspection frequencies (annual, bi-annual).  Global libraries are stored in the global database and are added/edited/deleted in the Library Editor.  Two potential issues can happen when a global library item is edited or deleted:

Editing

If you change the name of a global library item, that name change will be automatically and immediately reflected in anything that uses that library item.  Any other customer databases that use that library item will be updated when that customer database is opened.

Deleting

If you delete a library item, anything in the currently open customer database that is using that library item will become "null", or have no value.  That is, Aspect does a scan of the customer database for any instances of the library item you are deleting and sets the value of that instance to nothing.  So if you are deleting a manufacturer named "Acme", any equipment or components that used Acme will subsequently have a manufacturer of nothing.

However, when a deleted library item is referenced in customer databases that are not currently open, the behavior changes.  In this case, the closed customer database will have a cached copy of the library item (see the Cached Global Library Items for a more detailed explanation).  When that customer database is opened the next time, any references to the deleted library item will still be present.  It does this because Aspect can't know if the library item was deleted from the global database or if the customer database was moved or copied to a different computer with a different global database that just might be missing that library item.  Therefore in this case, Aspect uses the cached copy of the library item to ensure the customer database retains the last state it was saved in.