The left sidebar of the interface holds a collapsible tree view showing your organization’s hierarchy of departments and equipment. It allows you to add departments and equipment, and to view how schedules are inherited between enclosing departments and equipment. It also provides access your company’s settings.

Left sidebar overview
Figure 3.1 – Left Sidebar

The left sidebar can be collapsed by clicking on the tab at the top right of the sidebar.

Left sidebar collapse button
Figure 3.2 – Left Sidebar Collapse Button

The Company Tree most often is laid out to reflect the structure of your organization, and is very flexible in how that is accomplished. The company will be at the top with all sites, departments, cells, etc descending from that. Organizational units can be nested as deeply as needed, allowing you to add a sub-department within a department, for example. Figure 3.1.1 shows an example with Demo Co being the company, a Horizontal CNC department under that holding a single machine, CNC #23. It would be very easy to add a work cell below the Horizontal CNC department that holds CNC #23. The depth of the tree should reflect the operations within your company.

Left sidebar company tree example
Figure 3.1.1 – Example Company Tree

Once several departments and pieces of equipment have been added to the company tree, it can become difficult to find what you are looking for quickly. That is what the search box at the top of the company tree is for.

Left sidebar company tree search box
Figure 3.1.2 – Company Tree Search

As you are typing in the search box, organizational units matching your search term are automatically expanded and shown. In many cases it is not necessary to type the entire name to get a match. Continue to watch the items displayed in the company tree as you type to see when the desired item appears.

There are two additional controls at the bottom of the left sidebar that influence the structure and display of the company tree.

Left sidebar bottom company tree buttons
Figure 3.1.3 – Company Tree Bottom Buttons

The “+” button, which is only visible when a piece of equipment is not selected in the tree, displays a popup menu with two options: Add Org Unit and Add Equipment. An “Org Unit” is simply something like a department or work cell. Clicking on Add Org Unit will display a dialog box that prompts you to enter the Parent, or enclosing unit, of the one you are entering. After that you will enter the name of your new organizational unit (Child name).

Left sidebar add org unit dialog
Figure 3.1.4 – Add Org Unit Dialog

Just to the right of the “+” button is a button that looks like a calendar. Clicking on that will cause the button to latch green, and highlights the inheritance relationships between parent and child units in the Company Tree. If an organizational unit or piece of equipment has a calendar icon, it defines its own schedule and does not inherit it from its parent. If the icon is instead an arrow pointing upwards, it means that an organization unit or equipment inherits its schedule from the parent. You can follow the trail of arrows to find the root schedule that is inherited. For instance in the figure below, CNC #23 has an arrow indicating that it inherits its schedule from Horizontal CNC, which in turn inherits its schedule from Demo Co, which defines its own schedule.

 

Left sidebar schedule inheritance indicator

Figure 3.1.5 – Schedule Inheritance Indicator

There is a Settings item below the Company Tree item in the left sidebar. When this is clicked, it will expand, revealing settings for your company. Clicking the gears icon in the navigation bar will also expand this item.

Left Sidebar Settings

Figure 3.2.1 – Company Settings

The individual company settings are covered in the Configuration section.

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