As someone who’s spent years working with PI Manual Logger, I know how valuable it’s been for operators and engineers capturing manual readings in the PI System from field instrument checks to lab results. It’s been a staple in industrial environments for good reason.
PI Manual Logger continues to be the right tool for structured, repeatable rounds and tours. It’s built specifically for that job, and it does it well.
But what about those one-off entries, lab results, or corrections that don’t quite fit a route-based workflow? That’s where we saw an opportunity to help.
At Tycho Data, we created Tycho Data Scribe, an Excel plugin designed for manual data entry directly into PI Tags and AF Attributes. It’s not meant to replace PI Manual Logger, but to complement it by offering a simple, auditable way to manually record or update data points from within Excel.
Why Scribe?
We found that many teams were already using Excel as a staging area for manual readings, calculations, or non-routine data. Scribe makes it easy to bridge that gap, providing:
- Direct integration with PI Data Archive and Asset Framework
- Check for existing values at a given timestamp before committing new ones
- Full audit logging of who made changes, when, and what was entered
- Exportable reports for validation and traceability
And all from within Microsoft Excel, a tool industrial users are already comfortable with.
When Would You Use Scribe Instead of PI Manual Logger?
| Scenario | Use PI Manual Logger | Use Tycho Data Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| Routine, structured rounds or tours | ✔️ | |
| Ad hoc entries or corrections | ✔️ | |
| Lab analysis results | ✔️ | |
| Batch updates or historical data changes | ✔️ | |
| Flexible, Excel-based templates | ✔️ | |
| Field operator-led data capture on mobile | ✔️ |
A Complement, Not a Replacement
We designed Tycho Data Scribe to work alongside existing PI tools like PI Manual Logger and PI Vision. It fills in the gaps for cases where a structured tour isn’t necessary, and users need a quick, auditable, and Excel-friendly way to record or adjust data in the PI System.
See Scribe in Action
If your team is juggling spreadsheets, staging data in Excel, or making manual adjustments to PI data, Scribe might be worth a look. It’s a clean, lightweight way to handle those exceptions without disrupting your existing workflows.
👉 Want a demo? Reach out, we’d be happy to show you how it works.
Tycho Data 