How can I manage custom AOIs in Copia?

This guide outlines Copia's recommended practices for managing Add-On Instructions (AOIs) based on prior customer usage. These strategies are designed to optimize AOI management but may need adaptation to suit your specific organizational requirements.

• Create a repository that is your "Shared Library"
• Use branch protections to protect your main development branch
  • This enforces good code review and approval
• In the repository, create a README that explains what the repository is for
  • A Shared Library of folders containing exports of AOI's
• Create folders for each AOI
  • This creates a clean history of changes performed to each AOI
• Create a README in each folder, along with the AOI exports revision in Rockwell Studio 5k
  
  • Maintain a detailed version history by documenting release notes in the README file within each AOI's folder
  • Alternatively (or in addition), add release notes and the associated version number in the commit message to ensure traceability and clarity in version control

When modifications to the AOI are done, it will be done within a branch.  Separate folders in the repo decreases the chance of conflict, thus reducing the need for advanced merge.  The approval process should confirm: (1) the change, (2) versions and release notes are updated.

(NOTE: In a larger organizations, you may have more than one Shared Library for different departments or equipment types)

Alternative options:

Of course there are alternative options, such as:

1. Creating a repository that has an ACD which contains all of your AOIs
   1. Pros:  In this case, it may be faster to just template this repo at the start of development
   2. Cons:  This could grow large, and may have more conflicts as multiple people modify the ACD at the same time.
2. Create a few shared repositories, each with a “base ACD template” containing the AOIs for that type of equipment.
   1. Similar to #1, but reduces the size and risk of conflicts, mentioned above.