Patent ID: 7317952

Claim:
A method of managing a plurality of field devices from a client system in a process control plant, each of a first plurality of device descriptions specifying a manner in which a corresponding one of said plurality of field devices is to be managed, said first plurality of device descriptions being defined according to a corresponding different plurality of specifications, said method comprising: forming a second plurality of device descriptions from said first plurality of device descriptions, all of said second plurality of device descriptions being in a common format and also specifying said manner in which said plurality of field devices are to be managed, wherein said first plurality of device descriptions are received by said forming from a corresponding first plurality of files and said second plurality of device descriptions are stored by said forming in a corresponding second plurality of files on a non-volatile storage; receiving in said client system data representing a user action associated with a first field device contained in said plurality of field devices; identifying in said client system a first device description corresponding to said first field device among said second plurality of device descriptions, wherein said first device description is contained in a first file in said common format, wherein said first file is contained in said second plurality of files; and examining in said client system said first device description in said first file in said common format to determine the manner in which to process data representing said user action, wherein a common parser is used by said client system in said examining due to the use of said common format, wherein said examining is performed after said receiving, and wherein said forming is performed external to said client system.