Correlation is defined as establishing a relationship between a plant item in Smart Electrical and an item that is retrieved from another authoring tool. For example, a motor M-100 was created in Smart Electrical. In SmartPlant Foundation, a motor M-100 was also created independently from Smart Electrical. If data for that motor is updated and published from Smart P&ID and then retrieved to Smart Electrical, the motor in Smart Electrical becomes correlated with the motor in Smart P&ID and an Update task is generated for the correlated motor. The correlation is established in Smart Electrical by adding automatically the SPPID GUID (called Same As) to the Smart Electrical motor.
Since the same item can exist in more than one authoring tool, there can be more
than one correlation with the same Smart Electrical item. Therefore, a Smart Electrical item can have more than one Same As GUIDs, one for each authoring tool.
Automatic Correlation
Automatic correlation takes place when you run a Create or Update task in the To Do List for a plant item in Smart Electrical. Automatic correlation occurs in the following situations:
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When retrieving an item that does not have a matching item tag in Smart Electrical.
This results in the generation of a Create task in the Smart Electrical To Do List. When running this Create task, the item is created in the Smart Electrical database and is automatically correlated with the item retrieved from the other authoring tool. -
When retrieving an item that has a matching item tag with an existing item that was created independently in Smart Electrical and which was not retrieved from another authoring tool.
If both items in Smart Electrical and the external authoring tool belong to the same plant group hierarchy level (for example, Unit 1), an Update task is created in the Smart Electrical To Do List. When running this Update task, the properties of the Smart Electrical plant item are updated with the properties of the retrieved item and the item is automatically correlated with the item in the external authoring tool.
Uncorrelating Items
If for some reason you want to break the relationship of a Smart Electrical plant item with an item in another authoring tool, you can uncorrelate the item in one of the following ways:
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On the To Do List, you can uncorrelate items in their Update, Delete, or Move tasks.
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Use the SmartPlant > Uncorrelate menu command. When using this option, you can uncorrelate items even if they were not deleted or their properties were not changed in the external authoring tool.
If active tasks exist for the uncorrelated item, these tasks change. For details,
see Uncorrelate Smart Electrical Items.