Writing back to Plex
Writing back to Plex
How Shop Floor sends status changes and scrap bookings into Plex, and how to check what Plex did with each one.
Permissions: All of this needs the tenant's Shop Floor license. Anyone with DataMagik - Builder or DataMagik - Viewer can open the Write Outbox at /shop-floor/settings/write-outbox and can explain an hour from a board. Only DataMagik - Builder can book scrap, retry a write or stop a write. If the Shop Floor license lapses, queued writes are not sent.
How a write travels
Shop Floor never writes to Plex while you wait. Every write is stored in the outbox first and then sent in the background:
- You submit something, such as an explanation for an hour or a scrap booking. Shop Floor checks it and stores it as a write.
- If approval is required, the write waits for an approver and nothing is sent until someone approves it. Otherwise it is queued.
- A background sender picks up queued writes about every 15 seconds. It checks the plant's rules again, then sends the write to Plex.
- Plex's answer is recorded on the write and shown in the outbox. If Plex never answered, the outbox says that too.
Submitting the same thing twice, for example by tapping twice, returns the original write and sends nothing extra. A corrected entry, such as a different status or quantity, counts as a new write.
Writes that come from a machine, set up with the Status writeback, Production booking and Scrap booking opt-ins on the Tag Map, go through the same outbox. See PLC mapping.
Explaining an hour from a board
On the Hour by Hour board, an hour that fell behind target, or has no target, shows an Explain button. The Active Issues screen shows the same button for each machine with an hour nobody has explained yet. Both buttons open the same dialog, Explain this hour, which has three tabs under What kind of loss.
On the Downtime tab:
- Choose a Status. This is required. You can also choose an Event and a Detail reason. All three lists come from your own Plex.
- Type under What happened, or hold Hold to talk and speak. The transcript appears in the box so you can check and correct it before saving. The audio is not stored.
- Press Change status in Plex. The dialog then shows the result: queued, held for approval, already submitted, or refused.
Caution: Plex cannot annotate a past hour. The dialog warns This changes what … is doing RIGHT NOW. When the write is sent, it ends the machine's current status in Plex and opens a new log entry stamped at that moment. The hour you picked, and your event and detail reason, are kept in Shop Floor against that hour. The name of the detail reason is also included in the note sent to Plex.
If the status requires a logged-in operator in Plex, that is checked when the write is sent, not when you submit it. If nobody is clocked in at that workcenter at that point, the write is refused. Plex only counts someone clocked in at that workcenter, not elsewhere in the plant.
The Performance tab lists the plant's performance reasons for reference only. Picking one records nothing.
Booking scrap
The Scrap tab books lost parts against a container in Plex:
- Choose a Scrap reason. Only active reasons from the site's synced scrap reason list are offered.
- Enter the Quantity (parts).
- Pick from Container loaded at this machine. If the container is not listed, choose Other serial… and type it into Serial number (not on the list). Shop Floor checks that Plex has a container with that serial before queuing anything.
- Optionally add a note, then press Book scrap.
Caution: Booking scrap takes these parts off a container in Plex, and it cannot be undone from this screen. The confirmation repeats the quantity, container and reason, so check it.
Approval
A write is held for approval if its workcenter or its status has been marked as needing approval. Production a person reports is always held. Production counted by a machine is held only if one of those settings applies. A held write raises a task for the site's approver role in the approvals inbox. Approving it queues the write to be sent. Rejecting it cancels the write, and nothing is sent.
The Write Outbox
The outbox lists the 200 most recent writes for one site, newest first. Use Site to switch sites and State to filter. Tiles at the top count Writes, Sent, Rejected, Failed, Blocked and Awaiting, and a line below them summarises what went wrong. Each row shows When, Workcenter, Status asked for (or the kind of write, for scrap and production), State and Submitted by. Under the row you'll find Plex's own answer, your note, the Plex log entry, the number of attempts and when the write was sent.
- Queued: waiting for the sender. Sending: in flight now.
- Awaiting approval: held for a person. Nothing has been sent.
- Sent: Plex accepted the write.
- Rejected by Plex: Plex refused the write, or a plant rule checked at send time refused it. The reason is shown in the row.
- Plex not reached (the Failed to reach Plex filter): a timeout, server error or similar. Nothing was decided.
- Blocked here: Shop Floor refused the write before sending it, or someone stopped it.
- Cancelled: an approver rejected the write.
Fixing failures
- Plex not reached: once Plex is reachable again, a Builder presses Retry on the row. Shop Floor never retries a failed write automatically.
- Rejected by Plex: there is no Retry, because asking again gets the same answer. Fix what Plex's message describes, then submit a new write.
- Blocked here: the message names the fix. For example, the workcenter is disabled in Shop Floor, the status is unknown or inactive (run the availability sync), the event is not valid for that status, or no operator is clocked in. Fix it and submit again.
- To stop a Queued write before it is sent, a Builder presses Stop and confirms. Nothing reaches Plex, but the stop cannot be undone. To send it later, submit it again. A write that is Awaiting approval is stopped by rejecting its approval.
Writes that are Failed or Blocked from the last seven days also appear on the Active Issues screen, so the floor sees them without opening the outbox.