We need more information about your controller. Is it a NX, DX, YRC...? Specific application and so on.
Universal I/O is where you'll be working on if you're trying to do some wiring to the controller. I think you'd like to receive an input from the piston (Universal Input) and then manually activate it (Universal Output) using your PP or directly from a job program.
Don't do the wiring if you're not sure if it'll work. You could damage the board.