Joined at the Web: The INFICON Banner

Steve Herbst – Software Engineer, INFICON

FabGuard® and FPS products are becoming better integrated so that factories that use both products can easily switch between them.

The first step in the integration was to create the INFICON Banner, a vertical menu on the left side of each product web page:

The User Login button shows the currently logged in user and provides the ability to log in and out:

	No user logged in
	User "Charles 7" logged in
	Level-based supervisor logged in
	No security

Hovering over the user button flips it over to reveal either a Log In or a Log Out button:

	Log In
	Log Out

Use the Application Launcher to Easily Switch Between FabGuard and FPS Products

The Application Launcher is an icon representing the current application – FabGuard Web in this example.

Clicking the icon pops up a menu for switching to another application:

The FabGuard and FPS servers cooperate to build this menu. Each provides an API for the other server to receive a list of its applications. The list contains a display name for each application, the URL of an icon to display, and a URL for executing the application.

When an execution URL is blank, clicking that entry in the application menu displays a standalone web page (one that does not require an Internet connection) describing the application.

When an execution URL is nonblank, clicking that entry redirects the browser to the specified application with a login prompt.

FabGuard, FabControl, and FabRecover always appear on the application menu when using one of those three applications.

Configuration

FabGuard has the following configurable Global Preferences (under Miscellaneous):

FPS Product links URL	Points to an FPS-provided API that returns a list of available FPS applications
FabControl URL	The execution URL to call when a user chooses FabControl from the menu
FabRecover URL	The execution URL to call when a user chooses FabRecover from the menu

If "FPS Product links URL" is blank, the application menu contains one default entry with an FPS logo as shown in the image above. Clicking this entry displays a standalone web page with general information about FPS products.

These Global Preferences are required because:

1. The location of computers serving FabGuard and FPS applications is installation-specific.
2. FPS servers configure the locations of FPS applications, and FabGuard servers configure the locations of FabGuard applications. Just as "FPS Product links URL" allows FabGuard to ask the FPS server at a customer where the installed FPS applications are, FPS calls an API in FabGuard Executive to get the same information about FabGuard applications.

Data Integration is Next

Now that the applications are linked via the common INFICON Banner, the next step is to connect to the data within those applications. Users viewing data about tools and lots in one application will be able to drill down to the available data in other applications to rapidly diagnose and repair issues in the factory. This will facilitate better use of the integrated Smart systems and Digital Twins.