ThingTemplate
A ThingTemplate, at it's root is nothing but a class definition. Things are instances of a ThingTemplate which encapsulates business logic for a specific asset class.
This could be equated to that of a Class in an object-oriented programming concept. ThingTemplates provides initial state & implementation of behaviour for the Things implementing it. See ThingTemplates in Help Center & Similarities to Object-Oriented Programming for more.
ThingTemplate Use Cases
It's among the many building blocks for an IoT Solution which belong to the highest level objects created and maintained, i.e. Entities. There are several Entity Types in ThingWorx allowing users to model the physical world within the virtual realm of ThingWorx platform. There are following type of entities available within ThingWorx for modeling:
- Things
- Thing Shapes
- Thing Templates
Additional useful read
Ways to explore the out of the box provided ThingTemplates
All the available ThingTemplates can be listed and reviewed by navigating to the /Server via the ThingWorx REST API. List of ThingTemplates can be reviewed by using one of the following :
- <serverName>:<portNumber>/Thingworx/Server in a web browser and then locate and click on the ThingTemplates, or by;
- Typing <serverName>:<postNumber>/Thingworx/ThingTemplates in the web browser
Either of the above listed options will display the following list in the web browser
List shows all available ThingTemplates i.e. ThingTemplates that were provided OOTB and the ones that were created by the users as well. Using the column isSystemObject one can verify if the displayed ThingTemplate is provided OOTB or is custom one created by the user.
Accessing ThingTemplate Class description / details
This is covered under the JavaDocs for the ThingWorx Platform API, which can be accessed via the API Documentation
Search for ThingTemplate for following result
While creating a custom ThingTemplate outside of ThingWorx composer, e.g. creating ThingWorx extension it is must to have following two entities in the metadata.xml file.
<Entities>
<ThingTemplate>
</ThingTemplate>
</Entities>
Note: If Eclipse Plugin is used for creating the ThingTemplate, above mentioned entries will automatically be created in the metadata.xml
Tips & tricks
- How to modify Base Template for a ThingTemplate for a Thing
- How to iterate through list of Things to identify their ThingTemplate & based on that set a particular property in those Things
- Add run time permissions through script to Thing Templates, Thing Shapes, etc
- Changing a Thing's implemented ThingTemplate after it has been created in ThingWorx
Basic troubleshooting
- Error "Thing [] is not running" when editing ThingTemplates in ThingWorx
- Troubleshooting Entity Relationship issues in ThingWorx
Best Practises
- How to search for All entities in ThingWorx or by Thing Type
- How to create custom ThingTemplate when developing custom ThingWorx Extension
- Inheriting Permissions from a ThingTemplate
