Setting Multiple Equipment Statuses

When you select multiple pieces of equipment in the item tree, only the first one's details will show in the detail view.  However, Aspect allows you to set the component and equipment status codes for all selected items at the same time based on the status you set in the detail view.

In Aspect's settings (Defaults tab), you can set the behavior of how Aspect handles setting multiple status codes at once:

    • Ignore: Any changes to status codes in the detail view will not propagate to any other selected pieces of equipment.  This is the default.
    • With Confirmation: Aspect will display a confirmation dialog with counts of affected equipment and components and the codes they'll be set to.  This gives you the opportunity to cancel the propagation if you want.
    • Without Confirmation: Aspect will automatically propagate the changes to the other selected equipment and components.  You will of course see the changes in the item tree, but otherwise receive no confirmation of the operation.

This feature follows these rules:

    1. Only selected equipment and components with a status of [Pending] are subject to change.  If an item already has a status code other than [Pending], it will be ignored.
    2. The operation only executes when the status code of equipment changes--not when the status of any component changes.
    3. If you have a location selected as part of the multi-selection, the equipment in that location will not be changed--only pieces of equipment that are specifically selected can change.
    4. If the equipment in the detail view cannot be set because of warnings or errors, propagation to the other selected equipment will not happen.
    5. Because pieces of equipment can have varied numbers of components of different names, the assignment of component statuses works like this:
      • If the piece of equipment in the detail view has components with all the same status code, then that status code will be assigned to all components of equipment selected in the item tree (again, only for components whose status is [Pending]).
      • If the components in the detail view have varying status codes, then all the components of equipment selected in the item tree will be set to the status of the piece of equipment in the detail view.  In other words, all selected equipment and components receive the status code of the equipment in the detail view.
    1. Integrity checks are still enforced when the statuses of components and equipment are changing to either Inspected or Inspected No IR.  Anything that cannot be changed because of an error condition will simply not be changed and a dialog box will be shown indicating that errors exist.  Items with warning conditions will ask for confirmation once, and then all items with warnings will obey that confirmation.  That is, if the user answers "Yes" to the single confirmation dialog box that warnings exist, then all items with warning conditions will be changed.  If the user answers "No", nothing with warnings will be changed.
    2. If the status of the item shown in the detail view cannot be changed because of an integrity error or warning condition, the other selected items will not be changed.
    3. All selected items will show errors and warnings in the Messages window.

Enjoy this very useful feature, but exercise caution!

While this feature can be very handy, it requires extra diligence to ensure you don't inadvertently assign status codes to equipment and components you don't intend to.  In an often chaotic inspection environment, a piece of equipment that's part of a multi-selection could be assigned [Not Inspected...] when it really needed to be inspected.  This could have serious ramifications if that piece of equipment has a critical problem and gets overlooked.  That's why the behavior of this feature is configurable with a setting.  Ignore is obviously the safest option, then With Confirmation because it asks for confirmation with equipment/component counts and status codes every time, and then finally Without Confirmation--the fastest option but also the most prone to error.