Documentation
Subjects
Subjects are the main assets you want to monitor. This can be a machine, office or production line. For example, a room in building, construction site or electrical substation. Subjects can either be shown in a list or on a map. You can filter on subject, properties and status to create any cross section of subjects you would like to see. For example, you want to see machines of a certain type within a specific region in problem status. The color of the map marker indicates the status of the subject to give you an instant view on the health of the subjects.
Using subjects
The status of your subject is of great importance to know if you should take action. The subject dashboard gives you all the ins and outs at a glance. The properties (1) show the details of the subject. The subject dashboard layout is configurable and it works the same as your general dashboard. Click the pencil (2) to start editing your dashboard and you are able to:
- Resize and order panels to adjust the panel sizes and drag them where you want.
- Layout configuration per screen size to keep your dashboard to the point no matter the screen size.
- Adding panels to divide your dashboard into more manageable chunks of visual information.
- Widgets to display different types of data. All widgets automatically use the context of the subject you are looking at.
Adjusting the subject settings can easily be done via the settings (3) on the top-right corner of the page.
Managing subject types
Subject types can be seen as a template or blueprint for a subject. This makes it easy to add and adjust subjects of the same type.
Creating subject types
Creating a subject type is done by providing a name for the type and adding a default set of properties and metrics. Go to the subject type overview page when you want to add a new type:
The first screen after hitting the green plus sign is only there to provide a name and parent for the subject type.
Enter a name and (optional) parent type before you move on by hitting Create subject type.
General settings
The general settings of a subject type consists of the name, parent type, primary location and it is the place to remove the subject type.
Parent type
Selecting a parent type is the way to configure your subject composition (entity model). It has the following effects throughout the platform:
- The subject overview and Maps will only show the top-level subjects. You need to explicitly filter on other subject types to see them in overview.
- On the main dashboards and Explorer you are able to constrain your subjects, events and measurements on ancestor subjects.
- On the event overview you will see all events. You can filter on subject type or subject to see specific events.
- On the subject dashboards, it is possible to show descendant subjects in the widgets.
Primary location
The primary location determines the location that is used to display a subject on the map. To be able to set a primary location, you first need to add a location property or an ingested location metric to the subject type.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| No primary location | Subjects of this type are not shown on the map |
| Use location property | The subject location on the map is fixed based on the selected location property |
| Use location metric | The subject location on the map is based on the latest received location measurement of the select metric |
Below you see a subject type which has a property and a metric of data type location. The property is chosen as the primary location.
Configure properties
The next task is to decide whether you want to assign properties to the subject type. Properties are optional and meant to provide extra information (metadata) about the subject and they can also be used as filters. For example, when you want to compare certain series with a specific property.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Open the dropdown and select the property you want assign. Nothing to choose from? You have to create properties in the project settings. |
| Subject must define a value | Check the checkbox when a value of for this property is required for every subject you add. |
| Hide from subject dashboard | Check the checkbox the property should not be shown in the subject dashboard. |
Configure metrics
Last but not least, it’s time to determine which metrics you want to add to the subject type. We created the metrics documentation to explain the three different types and their capabilities.
Managing subjects
The platform provides several actions on subjects. Down here you can find the most common actions explained.
Subject overview
The subject overview displays all subjects in the project, accompanied by some key statistics. You can configure what information is shown by customizing the columns. By default it will show you a subject’s name, status, latest event and latest measurement date. In addition to the default columns, you can add columns for properties to show the values that are assigned to subjects.
Columns can be enabled or disabled by using the toggle switch, and re-ordered by using the drag handle in front of it. The column that comes first determines the default sort order of the grid.
Creating subjects
Creating a subject means adding a subject of a specific type to your project. First of all, you have to navigate to the subject overview:
Next is to add a subject and at least fill in the required fields.
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Type | The subject type you want to create a subject for. Nothing to choose from? You have to scroll up to see how to create a subject type. |
| Name | Give your subject a descriptive name so you can easily recognize and find it. |
| External ID | Provide the ID the subject has in your own systems. In this way you can easily map subjects to the entities they relate to in your own systems. This external ID is also used to construct the default ingestion IDs you have to provide when sending measurements for ingested metrics. |
| Properties | Define values for the properties that are assigned to this subject’s type. Look-up the properties docs to see how to add properties to subject types |
| Metrics | Use the default ingestion IDs or provide your custom one for your [ingested metrics](https://blockbax.com/docs/metrics/#ingested-metric. By default ingestion IDs are derived from the subjects’ external IDs and metrics’ external IDs (e.g. subjectExternalId$metricExternalId). You can also override these with custom ones. You have to provide an ingestion IDs when sending measurements via the API. |
Here you can see a Blockbaxer creating a subject:
Editing and deleting subjects
Deleting subjects is like drinking beer on a Friday night: it’s an easy exercise but the consequences can be huge. Why? Deleting a subject will also remove the associated metrics with their measurements and events. This means you can delete a lot of data by a simply deleting a subject, so be careful. Anyway, this is where you can edit and delete:
