In the AX station architecture, proxy points must reside under the driver network and device from which the specific data originates. Proxy points are under that device’s Points container (Points extension), as shown in Figure 38.

As needed, you can create folders under a device’s Points container to further organize the proxy points. In addition to proxy points, you can also add simple control points (null proxy ext), schedule objects, and other kitControl objects under a device’s Points container.

See also “Location for kitControl components” in the kitControl Guide.

For more details, see About Network architecture.

You create proxy points in a station as one of the later stages in building a driver network. This section only provides an overview of the proxy points portion.

When you add a device under a network, one of its default extensions is a container named “Points.” The default view for Points is a “Point Manager,” which you use to add proxy points to the station database. An example Bacnet device Points Manager is shown in Figure 39.

Typically, you have performed your previous station configuration of this network with the host (e.g. JACE) networked and communicating to the devices of interest. This allows you to use the “Learn Mode” feature (provided by most drivers). This feature is especially useful for adding proxy points to the station.

In the Point Manager, the Learn Mode toggles the view between only proxy points that are currently in the station (“Database”), and a split view showing both a “Discovered” area and the “Database” area. See About Learn toggle for more details.

Clicking the Discover button launches a “point discovery job.” The driver queries the selected device to retrieve available data. Depending on a number of factors (driver type, communications rate, amount of data), this can take from only a few seconds to over a minute. See Figure 40.

When the discover completes, the “Discovered” view portion provides a table of available data items. Each row represents at least one item (a candidate for one proxy point). If there are multiple, closely-related data items, that row appears with a leading plus (“+”). You can expand it to see other available data items. Again, each row is a candidate for one proxy point.

Depending on the driver type, table column headings vary—for example a Bacnet points discover shows “Object Name,” “Object ID,” etc., in the Discovered table (see Figure 41).

As needed, you click on column headers to resort and/or use the scroll bar to view available discovered data items. After selecting one or more items by clicking on rows (to highlight), you can click the Add button to start the proxy point creation process. The Add dialog appears (Figure 42).

The Add dialog allows you to select each data item and change things about its default point creation before it is added to the station database. Most important is “Type,” meaning the control point type—as unlike other things (such as Name) you cannot change that after the creation. Apart from Name and Type, most other properties are proxy extension properties.

Selecting the Type drop-down, alternate point types are available for selection, see Figure 43. If the driver recognizes the data item as writable, this will include writable point types.

Typically, you do not change the data category type (Boolean, Numeric, etc.), but you may wish to select either a read-only point or a writable point.

You click any discovered data item to select it for changing Type, or any other property. If a common change is needed among data items (for example, Poll Frequency), you can select multiple items and edit that property one time.

When you are satisfied with the point types shown for each item, you click the OK button at the bottom of the Add dialog. Those proxy points are then created in the station database in the Points container, and now appear as table rows in the “Database” (lower) table of the Point Manager view. The source data items now appear “ghosted” in the “Discovered” (upper) table, to indicate that they now exist in the station database. See Figure 44.

You may repeat this process as needed to create additional proxy points, where you can toggle the display of the Discovered portion off and on by clicking the Learn Mode tool.

Once in the Database table of the Points Manager, you can click to select (highlight) a proxy point, then modify it using the Edit button, or simply double-click it. This produces an Edit dialog nearly identical to the Add dialog, where you can change the same proxy extension properties and Name (but not Type). You can also select multiple proxy points and use the Edit dialog to “gang edit” one or more of the same properties that are common to each selected point.

In the Database portion, you can right-click a proxy point to access its normal views, including property sheet. There, you can expand its Proxy Ext to see many of the same properties you saw in the Add and Edit dialogs. Also, you can right-click a proxy point in the Database table to access any available point actions (if a writable point).

Each Points container has other views besides the default Point Manager. For example, you can select its Wire Sheet view to see and organize the proxy points glyphs (Figure 38), add additional objects from palettes control and/or kitControl, and so forth.

The following notes apply when working with proxy points.

Functionally, there is little difference between a simple control point (NullProxyExt) and the equivalent proxy point. For example, you can add the same extensions (e.g. control, alarm, and history) to a proxy point as to a simple control point—there is no need to “duplicate” the point first.