QA4/1, QA7/2 & QA11/3 - DNote v4.

22 (5-Mar-13)

Product Release Letter

AVEVA Plant 12.1.SP4
Full Release 52150
Windows XP or Windows 7
This letter introduces and describes this release, which is supported on the indicated platform(s).

This Release Contains

A full release of AVEVA Plant, which replaces the full release 52045 AVEVA PDMS 12.1.SP2.
AVEVA Plant comprises AVEVA PDMS, AVEVA Engineering, AVEVA Diagrams and associated
products see below.
The separately licensed products or product components installable from or upgraded by this release
are as follows:
Product Code
V01FN240
V00FN266
V00FN277
V00FN243
V00FN248
V00FN267
V00FN268
V00FN291
V00FN292
V00FN814
V00FN826
V00FN827
V00FN829
V10FN805
V10FN806
V10FN811
V10FN825
V30FN800

Product Name
AVEVA PDMS
AVEVA Engi neeri ng (i ncorpora tes Schema ti c Model Ma na ger)
AVEVA Di a gra ms
AVEVA QUERY
AVEVA La s er Model Interfa ce
AVEVA Schema ti c 3D Integra tor
AVEVA Ca bl e Des i gn
AVEVA Mecha ni ca l Equi pment Interfa ce Import
AVEVA Mecha ni ca l Equi pment Interfa ce Export
AVEVA Is ometri c Automa ti c Dra wi ng Producti on
AVEVA Concrete Bui l di ng Des i gn
AVEVA Room Ma na ger
AVEVA Concrete Qua nti ti es
AVEVA Mul ti Di s ci pl i ne Supports
AVEVA Area Ba s ed ADP
AVEVA ExPLANT-I
AVEVA ExPLANT-A
AVEVA Pi pe Stres s Interfa ce

Version
Number
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4
12.1.SP4

For further information please contact your local AVEVA support office, which can be found at
http://support.aveva.com
This document has been prepared and approved by the following:

Job Title

Name

Product Manager

Peter Brunning

System Test Manager

John Henderson

Head of Product

Gavin Watton

TPS Manager

Semra Hamitogullari

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Product Release Letter

Prerequisite for this release - operating system:
Minimum Supported O/S Version (for each
supported platform)
Mandatory O/S Patches (for each
supported platform)
Build Operating System

Windows XP (32-bit) or Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)

with Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (supplied)
N.B. Windows 2000 no longer supported
Windows XP Service Pack 3
Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Windows Server 2003 SP2

Pl ea s e note tha t recommended/s upported ha rdwa re a nd s oftwa re confi gura ti ons a re cons ta ntl y s ubject to revi ew, s o
pl ea s e cons ul t the AVEVA s upport web pa ges for the l a tes t recommenda ti ons .

Prerequisite for this release - products:

AVEVA Licensing System 1.0 and an appropriate License File

(N.B. This product version does NOT work with AVEVA Flexman)

Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 (32-bit) is required for some functions:

Optimum operation of the GUI requires Arial Unicode MS font, supplied with Microsoft Of fice
(2000 onwards) and also with Microsoft Office Visio.

Microsoft Office Excel import requires .NET Programmability Support enabled when Office is
installed. This can be found under Advanced customization of applications and installs the
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.dll; without this, Excel import will not work.

Microsoft Office Visio 2007 or 2010 (Standard edition, 32-bit) is required for AVEVA Diagrams
and for the AVEVA Schematic Model Viewer.

For full details, please refer to the AVEVA Plant 12.1 System Requirements manual.

Works (is compatible) with:

Other AVEVA Plant products on this DVD

o includes AVEVA Global 12.1.SP4
AVEVA P&ID 12.1.SP1
AVEVA Instrumentation 12.1.SP1
AVEVA Electrical 12.1.SP1
AVEVA Review 12.2
AVEVA SQL-Direct 12.0.SP6
AVEVA Model Management 12.1, Clash Manager 12.1
AVEVA Bocad Steel Interface 2.1
AVEVA PDMS VPRM Gateway 5.3
AVEVA NET Portal 4.7.2 (using Gateway included in this release)
AVEVA Laser Modeller 12.0.0
AVEVA Everything3D 1.1.0.3 (for sharing databases)

To Install product release:

Please read the installation guide, which is visible on the DVD and will be placed under the
product\manuals folder once the product install (setup.exe) has been run.

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Product Release Letter

Please note that there is a combined installer for PDMS and the associ ated products listed above. This
can be configured by using the check boxes to install a selection of products. Control Panel > Add or
Remove Programs may subsequently be used to add additional ones or remove them. Installations
using setup.exe will by default install to C:\. The individual .msi files will by default use the drive with
most free space. More details are given in the user bulletin.
If you require sample PDMS projects, please ensure that you check the PDMS models tick -box.
The Global tick-box installs the necessary support for the use of PDMS or other Plant products with
Global. There is a separate installer for Global server, which is usually installed on a separate machine,
such as a server, which does not necessarily have PDMS installed.
It is important that any files, including configuration files or sample data, that need to be updated by
users are accessible for read, write etc. so it is strongly recommended that they are not installed with
the software. This is particularly important when installing in Program Files at Windows 7 due to the
introduction of User Account Control (UAC) which brings new security restrictions. In particular, this
makes it important to ensure that files that need to be written are accessible by users without
Administrator privileges. This applies to folders specified by environment variables such as PDMSWK
and PDMSUSER. The Plant Suite installer has been revised to allow the separate definition of suitable
folders, with different defaults.
NOTES:
Installation in folders with spaces in their pathnames is not recommended as noted in the
Installation Guide. The use of such names for project folders is not currently supported as Global
and certain functions such as the project MAKE program do not yet handle them.
By default Global is not installed in the same folder as Plant (or Marine), however it is possible to
modify the installations to use the same folder. If this is done, and then one product is un -installed,
the other product installation will require repair.
Optional upgrades to existing projects are required for some new features. Please refer to the user
bulletin section 2.8 Upgrading from earlier releases. Please note however that the correct syntax for
applying the latest optional upgrade is DBUP PROJECT TO LATEST OPTIONAL.

First released on:

This product release is first available on AVEVA CD/DVD PDMS 12.1.SP4 and associated products,
release number 41235.

List of Enhancements
This release includes the following functional enhancements:
In this release
Description
Non-standard branch connections - pipe tappings & boss connections
New Pipe fabrication capabilities
New Bent plate capabilities , including Holes, Negatives cutting plate contour, Fittings, fixings etc.
Enhanced Hole Management
Database Explorer Enhancements; Date/time type for User-Defined Attributes; Enhanced Search utility
AVEVA Engineering: New Datasheet capability creation in Tags, access elsewhere, publish to AVEVA NET
AVEVA Engineering and AVEVA Schematic 3D Integrator: enhanced Compare/Update; new Project Breakdown Structure
AVEVA Mechanical Equipment Interface: improved performance, User interface for STEP AP203 export
AVEVA Schematic 3D Integrator: enhancements including Simplified user interface

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Description
AVEVA Diagrams: Multiple medium sized enhancements including a Microsoft Office Fluentbased user interface
Enhanced security / IPR protection tools (requires an AVEVA PML Publisher TM licence)
Enhanced Integration with AVEVA Bocad Steel
Citrix Support
AVEVA NET Gateway now included but still needs separate license

For full details, please refer to the AVEVA Plant 12.1 SP4 User Bulletin, which is included with the release.

List of Fault Corrections

This release addresses defects arising from the following support incidents:
Incident
number

Defect
number

Product /
Module

Description

Numerous defect corrections and minor enhancements throughout,

including consolidation of those already released in hotfixes for 12.1.SP2.

PRODUCT QUALITY STATEMENT

The development, maintenance and testing of AVEVA Solutions software products is carried out in
accordance with the companys KEYSTONE lifecycle processes and this document includes a summary of
the testing carried out on this release and a list of significant defects known to exist at the time of
release.

Development Testing
Developers have carried out unit testing of each enhancement and/or fix in the development
environment to verify that any new functionalities have been correctly implemented and identified
defects have been corrected.
Regression tests have been run in the development environment to verify that enhancements and/or
fixes have not adversely affected the integrity of the product.

System Testing
Independent system testing has been carried out on the product, as released, to verify that it installs
correctly in all supported configurations and that product functionality operates as intended, subject to
any known exceptions listed below.

Acceptance Testing
This document has been prepared before Acceptance Testing. This product release will be subjected to
an acceptance test by Training and Product Support Team (TPS)
Any exceptions found during Acceptance Testing or after release will be reported in the Product Release
Latest Update Note on AVEVA's support web site http://downloads.aveva.com/52150/w52150.pdf.

Exceptions Significant Defects And Recommended Workarounds

AVEVA intends to fix the defects listed below in a fix release or service pack as soon as reasonably
possible.

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Product Release Letter

Incident
number
SI-55776

Defect
number

Description

#55489
#93580
#93170

Admin: Visio, SVG, SDB (and other drawing /

datasheet related files) get deleted on using
Backtrack Changes on SCHE, DICT (or Marine
PADD) databases

#97693

AVEVA SQL Direct 12.0.SP6: PDMS Server stopped

with a message when creating a new table
schema file in the Table Designer window. This is
because some Pipe Spooling related pseudo
attributes initialise PML components that in turn
import some PML.NET.
For details, please refer to the SQL Direct 12.0.SP6
product release latest update letter http://downloads.aveva.com/51948/w51948.pdf
Pipe Fabrication application: an issue for certain
pipes, for example Pipe /1MZ_FWD0002 in Zone
1MZ_PIPE owned by :AREA 1M_PIPE in MAR
project.
Using the Component Reselection form, changing
the elbow to a bend, clos ing the form and then reopening it may cause the application to stop
responding.
[It is likely to be a problem with pipes that
contain a PSLIST.]

SI-57888

#97951

Recommended Workaround
Avoid using Backtrack or Revert on
any PADD or SCHE database, or any
DICT database which contains
Datasheets
Answer No instead of Yes to the
Create Project Schema? question
and instead select the sample project
schema file (ProjectSchema.dat) in
the Samples folder.

Delete the spool information from the

pipe using the Fabrication Check
form, do a savework then getwork.

Splash screen is no longer displayed when the

user logs into Design (or some other modules)
using the shortcut. The splash screen normally
displays information such as "Loading
Applications..." as this is no longer visible, the
user has no indication of progress, until the main
application is displayed on the screen.

For the latest list of exceptions and other updates, please see the Product Release Latest Update Note
on AVEVA's support web site http://downloads.aveva.com/52150/w52150.pdf.

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