Automating PI Notification Time Rule Changes in Bulk with AFSDK

Managing notifications at scale in PI System environments can occasionally present unique challenges, especially after unexpected server restarts. One such challenge involves the infamous "EN_AnalysisNotConfigured" error that might prevent notifications from starting.

When handling hundreds or even thousands of PI Notifications, manual intervention is not only impractical, but also prone to error. Fortunately, the PI AFSDK allows engineers to efficiently automate administrative tasks—including changing notification time rules across many notifications in bulk.

The Issue: Bulk Notifications Stuck in Error

After a PI Notification Server restart, you may encounter notifications refusing to start, showing the error:

Error: Could not start the notification: ANException: EN_AnalysisNotConfigured

A proven workaround is to toggle the notification's time rule from "Natural" to "Periodic" (e.g., every 5 minutes), start and then stop the notification, and switch back to "Natural". Doing this manually for dozens or hundreds of notifications would take excessive time and effort.

The Solution: Automate with AFSDK and C#

By leveraging the AFSDK, you can programmatically:

• Identify affected notifications
• Change their time rules
• Programmatically start/stop notifications to reset their state
• Switch back to the desired time rule

Here’s some sample code that illustrates the process:

using OSIsoft.AF;
using OSIsoft.AF.Asset;
using OSIsoft.AF.Notification;
using OSIsoft.AF.Analysis;

// Connect to PI AF Server
PISystem piSystem = new PISystems()["YourPISystem"];
AFDatabase afDB = piSystem.Databases["YourAFDatabase"];

// Reference time rule plugins
AFTimerRulePlugin periodic = piSystem.TimeRulePlugIns["Periodic"];
AFTimerRulePlugin natural = piSystem.TimeRulePlugIns["Natural"];

// Query all notifications (adjust the search as needed)
var notificationList = afDB.Notifications;
foreach (AFNotification notf in notificationList)
{
    // Check for error status (customize your filter if needed)
    if (notf.Status == AFStatus.Error)
    {
        // Switch to Periodic
        notf.Analysis.TimeRulePlugIn = periodic;
        notf.Analysis.TimeRule.ConfigString = "Frequency=300"; // 300 seconds = 5 mins
        notf.CheckIn();

        // Start/Stop notification
        var anNotification = notf.Analysis.AnalysisNotification;
        anNotification.StartNotification();
        anNotification.StopNotification();

        // Switch back to Natural
        notf.Analysis.TimeRulePlugIn = natural;
        notf.CheckIn();
    }
}

Note: Be sure to test this code on a small set of notifications first, and always backup your configuration before performing bulk operations.

Why Does This Work?

Toggling the time rule resets the notification's scheduling metadata, which can help clear configuration issues that arose from a system restart or internal error. By leveraging AFSDK’s programmatic interfaces, you can swiftly recover from issues affecting notifications at scale.

More Resources

• OSIsoft Documentation: PI AFSDK Reference
• Creating Asset-Based Analytics Programmatically (Rollup and Event Frame Generation)
• Time Rules in PI Analysis

Applying automation to manage PI notifications is a best practice for reliability and efficiency, especially in large environments. By scripting these changes with AFSDK and C#, you save time and maintain operational continuity, with the added flexibility to build in additional logic or logging as your system evolves.