Examine sequences without a TestStand license?

[Roine]

I have a small problem that needs to be resolved.

All our test engineers have licensed TestStand products that are used to produce sequences for the production test of electronics.

Our electronic hardware designers does not have TestStand, but sometimes need to have a look at the sequences to identify that the tests are done according to their specification and to help the test engineer to eliminate false faults in the test equipment.

Does a tool/solution exist that lets our hardware designers to have a look at the sequence files without being required to purchase a license? I am essitially looking for a free read-only "sequence editor". 

I know about the "Generate Sequence Documentation", but it is not good enough as our sequences tend to do allot of preexpressions, parameter generation based on previous steps, external sequence files, loops and so forth....

Does anybody have any suggestions?

[Norbert_B]

RoSt,

i really do not understand the background of your question. here's why:
a) the testspecification has to define what tests and in which order they are worked through, what dependencies are there between the steps and so on. this has to be considered when the sequence is created. for the creation of a sequence, there has to be a teststand-developement-license.
b) sure, the sequence should be revisable before the test is run. BUT for running the sequence, you need at least a base deployment license of teststand. with this license, you can use every operator interface delivered with teststand. each of these OIs has a sequence-file-view-control in it where the sequence can be reviewed before running it.
so, every controller has the possibility to check the sequence before running it (if he has the specification of the test).

Norbert B.
NI Germany

[Roine]

I don´t understand your a) answer. I think I made it perfectly clear that the Test Engineers have TestStand licenses.

I´ve just checked the "full-featured" operator interface (version 3.1) and I like what I see. The sequences loaded there are easily viewable by for example our hardware engineers. I have only been using the "simple" operator interface so I didn´t know that the "full-featured" operator interface did what I wanted! Thanks for giving me a clue in your answer.

I guess that I can copy the operator interface along with a runtime engine to our hardware developers?

[James_Grey]

To be legit, you will of course need to have a runtime engine license ("TestStand Base Deployment Engine License") for each copy of the runtime engine.

If you instead give the hardware developers the html generated by Tools>>Sequence File Documentation, or something similar of your own creation, then no license is needed because the hardware engineers won't use the runtime engine.

[James_Grey]

...TestStand provides the source code for Tools>>Sequence File Documentation, so it is possible for you to extend it to add the things you need that is doesn't have.

[Roine]

But our hardware designers are not actually running anything. It is impossible as all external hardware and instruments are missing. It´s not worth the cost of the base deployment price if that is needed.

I think NI should create a version of the full-featured operator interface and the Teststand engine that only supports viewing, not editing or running. That would be good for everybody.