This section describes some of the standard “tools” available in Workbench. These tools provide Workbench interfaces that are designed to facilitate specific tasks – from managing credentials to monitoring alarms. All of the tools described in this section are available from the Tools menu. However, as shown in Figure 353, navigational links to some of the tools also appear in the nav side bar and in the nav container views.

The nav side bar and nav container views do not display the tool icons until you initially open them using the Tools menu.

Some, but not all of the tools that are available under the Tools menu appear in the nav side bar when you select them. When you first open Workbench, the “My Tools” node will not be present in the nav tree. Therefore, if you configure a tool, such as the BACnet service tool, all the configuration data will be lost when you close the current session of Workbench. Tools, such as the Alarm Portal, BACnet service, Lonworks service, and the Workbench Job Service are available in Workbench when you do not have a station open. This is provided as a convenience and may only be useful in a limited number of situations. For example, you would probably more typically use the Job Service, BACnet service, and Lonworks Service under the “Services” node of a specific station.

Refer to Types of Workbench Tools for a list of the tools that are available from the Tools menu.