AVEVA NET

Connecting people, processes and systems through information

Executing large capital projects, and safely and efficiently operating and Business Benefits
maintaining the resultant facilities, involves vast quantities of data and • Provides an information
documents, large numbers of highly skilled personnel, a variety of information management infrastructure
systems and an array of sophisticated business processes. These are brought that allows engineering
together in numerous formal and informal information networks, which help the companies to improve
organisations concerned to manage the information content and flows needed to efficiency and reduce cycle
times, by controlling the
support their business activities. Whilst these Information Networks may be quality, integrity and
individually effective, they are rarely interconnected, and considerable manual availability of information.
intervention and reconciliation is usually required to manage the quality, integrity
and availability of information across the enterprise. • Reduces the lifetime cost of
ownership of assets, by
AVEVA NET is a uniquely open, extensible and non-disruptive technology for exposing, providing a persistent,
application-neutral foundation
evaluating and enhancing information networks and the business processes they
for information integration,
support. It allows both new and existing information sources to be progressively evolution and reuse.
interconnected, and provides a range of management tools which allow the business
activities that create or use this information to be modelled, and their associated • Makes fullest use of existing
information networks and
processes planned, executed, monitored and controlled. Through these capabilities,
systems, by providing a non-
AVEVA NET creates and manages a multidimensional network of interrelated disruptive technology platform
information content that connects together people, processes and systems, and helps that allows additional
to manage the quality, integrity and availability of information across all phases of the capability to be added in a
product lifecycle. series of measurable, low-risk
steps.

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Key Features
AVEVA NET combines the latest Internet standards with a range of AVEVA NET Dashboard - is the default user interface for accessing and
unique, object-centric information management capabilities, thereby interacting with information controlled and managed by AVEVA NET. It
enabling controlled, real-time access to correct and consistent provides a customisable, browser-based workspace which allows users
information, irrespective of geographical location. and administrators from all the organisations and departments involved
in project execution or plant operations to access and work with the
By separating product and project data from the applications that create information they need. Through a range of intuitive user-interface
it, AVEVA NET provides a neutral data management platform for through- features and functionality, the Dashboard provides facilities to configure
life product support. This ultimately protects the huge intellectual and how information is arranged and presented to different users, to control
commercial investment made in designing and constructing large-scale what tools are used for visualising and creating or editing information,
facilities, by allowing data to be accessed, evolved and shared and to manage real-time interaction and collaboration between multiple
throughout the asset's entire operational lifetime and, where required, parties.
reassembled, revised and reused in future designs.
In its default configuration, Dashboard encompasses the basic
application components below.
AVEVA NET core components • Enterprise Explorer – provides the principal mechanism for organising
and navigating product and project data. A variety of features are
AVEVA NET WorkHub - is the basic information management platform
provided which allow information sets to be defined, and their
that underpins all AVEVA NET solutions. It incorporates the infrastructure
associated structures to be represented as conventional explorer-based
components needed to assemble, store and organise all forms of project
hierarchies. Structures can be created for any class of data held in (or
and product data, and the information and workflow management
referenced by) AVEVA NET, and both public and private 'folders' can be
facilities needed to share, control and protect this information
defined.
throughout the entire product lifecycle. This encompasses:
• Content Explorer – acts as a secondary navigation aid by displaying a
• Content Management – managing the creation, update, storage,
series of categorised links to the various sets of information which
history and availability of all product and project information,
describe the current object and its associations. When an object is
irrespective of its format and location.
selected, the Content Explorer presents a hyperlink-style list of data
• Security Management – managing the definition and configuration of sets or documents pertaining to the currently selected item, plus any
all roles, responsibilities, rights and permissions to be applied to metadata defining the nature and/or status of the information
objects, data, documents and work processes, and managing the represented by the link. Selecting an entry in the Links pane opens the
application of these rules during all relevant system transactions. corresponding data set or document in the content viewer, using
appropriate viewing technology.
• Configuration Management – managing the assembly of objects, data,
documents and structures into identified, controlled and baselined
configurations, and controlling the update of these configurations to
provide change history, version
comparison and change
highlighting.

• Change Management – applying

formal change-management
techniques to allow users to
identify and assess the impact
of changes to product or project
information, then controlling
the implementation of the
identified change to ensure
information integrity and
change auditability.

• Work Management – defining

the work (processes, activities,
tasks and resources) required to
create, modify and maintain
product and project
information, then controlling
and monitoring the transactions
involved in executing the
identified work.
• Content Viewer – hosts data entry screens, project documents and AVEVA NET Modeller - is the basic administration tool used to define and
specific applications accessed by the user. Each item is displayed as a maintain the information content and behaviours that are controlled and
separate tabbed page and there is no limit to the number of items that managed via AVEVA NET. Because the system must be able to manage
can be simultaneously accessed. The Content Viewer incorporates complex product structures and support sophisticated work process
standard data presentation and editing media such as form-, grid- and execution, AVEVA NET Modeller allows:
list-based property views, as well as more specialised viewing
components for visualising and collaborating on schematic and spatial • An unlimited set of object classes and association types to be defined.
(CAD/CAM) models. In addition, it also supports interaction with
• The data composition for each class of object to be modelled, so that
standard Microsoft Office products such as Microsoft Excel, Word and
any required data structure can be accommodated.
Project.
• The relationships between objects to be modelled, so that the complex
network of interconnections and dependencies between the various
components, structures, processes and resources can be constructed.

• Attributes and associations to be mapped to appropriate reference-

data library entries to support consolidation and cross-referencing of
information from multiple sources.

AVEVA NET Dashboard

• Enterprise Search – provides a fully integrated search facility to allow

users to find and retrieve objects meeting designated criteria. There
are various search modes which provide a range of search capabilities.
The most sophisticated of these allows searches to be performed on
virtually any of the attributes which define an item or its associations,
and allows any number of search criteria to be combined. To facilitate
repetitive or frequent searching, searches can be saved and reused.
Saved searches can be defined as 'private' or 'public' and can be
secured by defining access rights to determine who can use or modify
AVEVA NET Modeller
the search. To allow document content to be searched, AVEVA NET
offers an optional full text searching facility. To accelerate the modelling
process, Modeller employs a set of
• Work Exchange – provides a series of specialised views that allow users modelling standards and intuitive
to access personal tasks and messages generated by the system and tools for mapping to these
visualise the current status and history of any associated actions. The standards. In the first place, this
various views support all forms of messages, from simple event helps facilitate rapid and
notifications through to workflow and change-controlled requests for repeatable implementation of
action. To aid users in work execution, the Work Exchange provides AVEVA NET solutions, but in
standard mechanisms for acknowledging notification messages and for addition, because the data models
progressing, delegating, redirecting or reworking task assignments. All defined and supported in AVEVA
user responses and actions are recorded and automatically 'filed' in NET are data driven, they can be
the Work Exchange archive, thus providing a readily accessible audit simply redefined, or extended at
trail of all work-related events. any time to accommodate
AVEVA NET Modeller
additional data properties,
In addition to the functional components above, AVEVA NET Dashboard
associations and behaviours.
provides a number of run-time-based configuration capabilities that
allow administrators and/or individual users to customise their
workspace. For example, the various panes making up the Dashboard
support resizing, rearranging and redocking, whilst explorer folders and
grid-style data views can be configured to automatically display specific
data and documents of interest to the user. To facilitate
internationalisation of AVEVA NET, all GUI components including menus,
dialogues, messages and prompts can be reconfigured to support the
required local language.
Key Features (continued)
AVEVA NET Gateways - are the interfaces which connect data-authoring AVEVA NET Solution Modules
and data-consuming applications to AVEVA NET. These systems, and
hence the Information Networks they represent, are linked to the AVEVA To offer "out-of-the-box" solutions for specific data and workflow
NET environment via application 'Gateways' which allow information to management issues encountered during project execution and plant
be read from, written into, or registered in the AVEVA NET repository. operations, the core components described above, are complemented by
Gateways can vary from simple XML-based data publishing to dynamic a series of Solution Modules. These Solution Modules plug-in to the
peer-to-peer transactions involving tailored application plug-ins. In AVEVA NET environment and provide a variety of advanced tools to
many cases, Gateways involve sophisticated data processing to translate facilitate planning, executing, monitoring and controlling specific
or transform information and derive additional 'intelligence'. activities and their associated deliverables and resources.

To allow AVEVA NET to control the quality, integrity and availability of Because these Modules are fully integrated with one another, yet at the
information, Gateways apply all data security constraints (such as access same time modular and open, they offer considerable operational
rights and validation criteria) and record all transaction details, flexibility. Modules may be used on their own or in combination, and any
including date, time and user. In addition, any data import/extract given module may be used in its entirety or in discrete parts. This allows
process can be made part of a workflow, so that the data being processed the functionality they provide, to be implemented as either a total
is validated and authorised before the transaction is allowed to solution or a partial solution alongside other in-house or third party
complete. software.

AVEVA has created a range of Gateways which connect our own In addition, the Solution Modules themselves are designed to support
applications, and commonly encountered third-party ones, to AVEVA NET. end-user customisation. Each Module comprises a set of software
In addition, to provide complete flexibility, the AVEVA NET developer's components, and, as an option, users can licence the AVEVA’s developer
toolkit, AVEVA NET Studio, incorporates a variety of features for toolkit, AVEVA NET Studio, which allows individual components to be
constructing custom Gateways. modified and the overall Solution Module customised to meet the user’s
specific needs.

AVEVA believes the information in this publication is correct as of its publication date. As part of continued product development, such information is subject to change without prior notice and is related to the current
software release. AVEVA is not responsible for any inadvertent errors. All product names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective holders.

© Copyright 2007 AVEVA Group plc. All rights reserved. NL/DS/07

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AVEVA Group plc

High Cross Madingley Road Cambridge CB3 0HB UK
Tel +44 (0)1223 556655 Fax +44 (0)1223 556666
www.aveva.com