Excel plugin for CDF with PI Datalink-like functionality

We need an Excel-based solution for CDF that can serve as a practical alternative to PI Datalink, which is currently widely used across existing Aker BP assets.

Today, importing data from CDF through OData is possible, but it is limited and cumbersome compared with the functionality and user experience provided by PI Datalink. My experience is that OData can be made to work in Excel, but it does not provide the same efficient workflow for engineering analysis, validation, and reporting.

For users unfamiliar with PI Datalink, its main strength is that Excel cells can be directly linked to data tags. These links can return:

• current values
• archived values
• calculated values such as average, minimum, and maximum
• raw values based on a timestamp or time interval
• time references taken from other cells in the workbook

A particularly important capability is dynamic date handling. If one cell contains the date or time reference, the user can change that single cell and automatically refresh the entire sheet — or selected calculations — for a different period. This makes it very efficient to reuse the same workbook for new dates, validation cases, or reporting periods.

This functionality is highly valuable for:

• quality checking and validation of time series data
• testing calculations and assumptions
• transparent engineering and production reporting
• fast ad hoc analysis directly in Excel
• workflows where calculation traceability is important

Requested capability

We therefore need an Excel plugin or equivalent Excel integration for CDF that provides a user experience similar to PI Datalink, including:

• cell-based linking to time series/tags
• support for current, historical, raw, and aggregated values
• support for cell-referenced timestamps and time intervals
• simple refresh/recalculation when date cells are changed
• usability that makes the solution practical for day-to-day engineering work

Without this type of functionality, moving users from PI Datalink to CDF will be difficult for many common engineering and reporting workflows.