IoT Tips

  Meet Chris. Chris leads the ThingWorx Flow portfolio, which will be releasing in 8.4. Chris has “a long history with workflow and a lot of interest in it.” He was originally hired as a product manager by Jim Heppelmann [PTC’s CEO] about 20 years ago to build a workflow engine for Windchill, our PLM solution. As a matter of fact, this feature is still a part of Windchill today. Pretty neat, right? We were able to leverage Chris’ workflow expertise and experience to create ThingWorx Flow. Check out more below.   Kaya: Why did we create ThingWorx Flow? What challenge does it solve? Chris: In order for customers to realize the full business value for connected solutions, it typically isn’t enough to just surface an alert to show a dashboard of health. Customers want to automatically do things like create service tickets or automatically order consumables as they run low. To do that—to realize that automated value—you need a couple of things. First, you need to be able to easily connect to enterprise systems (like SAP, Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics) to create service cases. Second, you need to be able to define and execute your business process logic.   Kaya: Can you give me an example? Chris: Definitely. The business process may involve the need to replace a filter based on a contamination alert. After I receive the alert, I need to look up in the bill of materials to find out which filter is applicable to that particular device or product; if it’s not in stock onsite, I need to order it. When it arrives, I then need to schedule the service, knowing that it’s going to be there at a particular time, which entails working with another service system like Salesforce.   So, you have a number of these different enterprise systems that you need to connect to, and you need to support that orchestrated business process to realize the value of a fully automated flow. That’s what has really led us to do it—because, again, the compelling business value in these connected device solutions is often around an automated approach to service or maintenance issues. The value is compelling because automated processes minimize delays, support business growth and scale without hiring as many additional people and eliminate human errors and variability that lead to improved quality at lower costs or stronger margins. Sample ThingWorx Orchestrate Workflow: Send RFQ to Supplier and Add Part to List If State ChangesKaya: So, who ultimately benefits from Flow? Chris: The benefits are realized by an organization as a whole in terms of increased responsiveness, flexibility, reduced costs and higher availability. The ThingWorx solution is unique in that it allows an organization to quickly realize these benefits by optimizing the participation of several key roles. As a result, no role becomes a bottleneck to addressing an urgent business need.   In addition to developers, the many business analysts across the organization are now empowered to define and modify their business processes themselves through Flow. They do this by using the system connections (or subflows) created by their system experts and ThingWorx models that were defined by developers. All of this work is achieved using our visual modeling tool without the need for extensive training.   The system experts can define portions of flows or subflows that get, create or edit information in the systems they understand most within the Flow editor. This enables each role to focus on using their most valuable skills and ultimately eliminates the bottlenecks that cause reduction in business responsiveness when everything must be done by a few highly-specialized experts. Now, developers can leverage the outputs of flows to drive behavior in the application and visualize key KPIs and overall health.   Kaya: So, I see that we’re not only connecting business systems, but we’re also connecting people. We enable them to leverage each other’s different perspectives and areas of expertise. I know we gave developers a sneak peek of ThingWorx Flow in one of our latest posts. Do you have a more detailed demo that we could share this week? Chris: Sure thing. Check this out. (view in My Videos)   Kaya: Wow! I can definitely see how Flow saves immense time in workflow creation. Now, final question: what is your favorite aspect about working at PTC? Chris: The most interesting thing to me is that I get to work with so many different customers in so many different verticals that have such a diverse set of challenging and interesting problems. It’s fun to work together with these customers for us to understand their problems, their unique environments and then to, with them, build solutions using a combination of our products and their existing systems and tooling—that’s what I think is most fascinating.   I learn something new about the way things are made, manufactured, built and serviced every day, and it just makes my life much more interesting. I don’t feel like I’m doing the same thing every day. Working with customers to understand and address their challenges and help them realize their business goals is really rewarding and, again, the diversity of those requests is what makes the job particularly interesting and fascinating.

Push update what is it? It is a mechanism that GetProperties supports so that the Server can push a value to a client mashup. This will allow you to see values update in your mashup real time without needing the refresh widget. Another great way to use the push updates is to propagate events that tie to specific content fetches. Let's say your mashup has three areas: KPIs, Alerts, Live values. Using some logic server side you can set up a 'tracker' Thing with properties that indicate that one of those areas has updated data. Bring these notifications as property values into the mashup using GetProperties and as the Server pushes updates to the mashup runtime, you can map it to a Validator or Expression widget (set to autoevaluate) which in turn can now run the necessary Service to fetch the updated information for the specific area.

As it is not available in support.ptc.com. Please provide Creo View and Thing View Widget Documentation or guide to view 3D Object in custom mashup/UI except for the ThingWorx Navigate app.   I am posting this request to the community. Not for this ThingWorx developers portal after discussing it with PTC technical support. Please refer to article CS291582.   LeighPTC, I have no option to do move to the community again. But this had happened.   The post Creo View and Thing View Widget Documentation to view 3D Object in custom mashup/UI. was moved by LeighPTC.   Please don't move this request to the ThingWorx developers portal.    So that PTC Customer can have Creo View and Thing View Widget Documentation to view 3D Object in custom mashup/UI. As it is not available.   Many thanks, Rahul

Several times in the past few months I was hit by a quick need to extract some data about Assets for a customer, and find myself continually hand-writing the code to do so.  Rather than repeat myself any more, I figure I can share my work - maybe PTC customers can benefit from the same effort.    import static com.axeda.sdk.v2.dsl.Bridges.* import com.axeda.drm.sdk.Context import com.axeda.common.sdk.id.Identifier import com.axeda.services.v2.* import com.axeda.sdk.v2.exception.* def retStr = "Device and Location Data\n" def modellist = [:] ModelCriteria mc = new ModelCriteria() mc.modelNumber = "*" tcount = 0 def mresults = modelBridge.find(mc) while ( (mresults = modelBridge.find(mc)) != null && tcount < mresults .totalCount) { mresults.models.each { res -> modellist[res.systemId] = res.modelNumber tcount++ } mc.pageNumber = mc.pageNumber + 1 } locationList = [:] LocationCriteria lc = new LocationCriteria() lc.name = "*" tcount = 0 def lresults = locationBridge.find(lc) while ( (lresults = locationBridge.find(lc)) != null && tcount < lresults .totalCount) { lresults.locations.each { res -> locationList[res.systemId] = res.name tcount++ } lc.pageNumber = lc.pageNumber + 1 } AssetCriteria ac = new AssetCriteria() ac.includeDetails = true ac.name = "*" tcount = 0 def results = assetBridge.find(ac) while ( (results = assetBridge.find(ac)) != null && tcount < results .totalCount) { results.assets.each { res -> retStr += "ID: ${res.systemId} MN: ${res.model.systemId},${modellist[res.model.systemId]} SN: ${res.serialNumber} Name: ${res.name} : Location ${res.location.systemId},${locationList[res.location.systemId]}\n"; tcount++ } ac.pageNumber = ac.pageNumber + 1 } return ["Content-Type": "application/text", "Content": retStr] This will output data like so:    ID: 31342 MN: 14682,CKGW SN: Axeda-CK-Windows10VBox Name: Axeda-CK-Windows10VBox : Location 1,Foxboro ID: 26248 MN: 14682,CKGW SN: CK-CKAMINSKI0L1 Name: CK-CKAMINSKI0L1 : Location 1,Foxboro ID: 30082 MN: 14682,CKGW SN: CK-GW1 Name: CK-GW1 : Location 1,Foxboro ID: 26247 MN: 14681,CKGW-ManagedModel1 SN: CK-MM01 Name: CK-MM01 : Location 1,Foxboro This let's me compare the internal systemId of the Asset, the internal systemId of the Model, and the internal systemId of the Location of the device.  This was to help me attempt to isolate an issue with orphaned devices not being returned in a report - exposing some duplicate locations and devices that needed corrections.    You may find yourself needing to do similar things when building logic for Axeda, or eventually integrating or migrating to Thingworx.  Our v2 API bridges help "bridge" the gap.      

GOBOT Framework GOBOT is a framework written in Go programming language. Useful for connecting robotic components, variety of hardware & IoT devices.   Framework consists of Robots -> Virtual entity representing rover, drones, sensors etc. Adaptors -> Allows connectivity to the hardware e.g. connection to Arduino is done using Firmata Adaptor, defining how to talk to it Drivers -> Defines specific functionality to support on specific hardware devices e.g. buttons, sensors, etc. API -> Provides RESTful API to query Robot status There are additional core features of the framework that I recommend having a look esp. Events, Commands allowing Subscribing / Publishing events to the device for more refer to the doc There's already a long list of Platforms for which the drivers and adaptors are available. For this blog I will be working with Arduino + Garmin LidarLite v3. There are cheaper versions available for distance measurement, however if you are looking for high performance, high precision optical distance measurement sensor, then this is it. Pre-requisite Install Go see doc Install Gort Install Gobot Wire-up LidarLite Sensor with Arduino How to connect For our current setup I have Arduino connected to Ubuntu 16 over serial port, see here if you are looking for a different platform.   For ubuntu you just need following 3 commands to connect and upload the firmata as our Adaptor to prepare Arduino for connectivity   // Look for the connected serial devices $ gort scan serial // install avrdude to upload firmata to the Arduino $ gort arduino install // uploading the firmata to the serial port found via first scan command, mine was found at /dev/ttyACM0 $ gort arduino upload firmata /dev/ttyACM0 Reading Sensor data Since there is a available driver for the LidarLite, I will be using it in the following Go code below in a file called main.go which connects and reads the sensor data.   For connecting and reading the sensor data we need the driver, connection object & the task / work that the robot is supposed to perform. Adaptor firmataAdaptor := firmata.NewAdaptor("/dev/ttyACM0") // this the port on which for me Arduino is connecting Driver As previously mentioned that Gobot provides several drivers on of the them is LidarLite we will be using this like so   d := i2c.NewLIDARLiteDriver(firmataAdaptor) Work Now that we have the adaptor & the driver setup lets assign the work this robot needs to do, which is to read the distance work := func() { gobot.Every(1*time.Second, func() { dist, err := d.Distance() if err != nil { log.Fatalln("failed to get dist") } fmt.Println("Fetching the dist", dist, "cms") }) } Notice the Every function provided by gobot to define that we want to perform certain action as the time lapses, here we are gathering the distance.   Note: The distance returned by the lidarLite sensor is in CMs & the max range for the sensor is 40m Robot Now we create the robot representing our entity which in this case is simple, its just the sensor itself   lidarRobot := gobot.NewRobot("lidarBot", []gobot.Connection{firmataAdaptor}, []gobot.Device{d}, work)   This defines the vitual representation of the entity and the driver + the work this robot needs to do. Here's the complete code. Before running this pacakge make sure to build it as you likely will have to execute the runnable with sudo. To build simply navigate to the folder in the shell where the main.go exists and execute   $ go build   This will create runnable file with the package name execute the same with sudo if needed like so   $ sudo ./GarminLidarLite   And if everything done as required following ouput will appear with sensor readings printed out every second 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Initializing connections... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Initializing connection Firmata-634725A2E59CBD50 ... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Initializing devices... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Initializing device LIDARLite-5D4F0034ECE4D0EB ... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Robot lidarBot initialized. 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Starting Robot lidarBot ... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Starting connections... 2018/08/05 22:46:54 Starting connection Firmata-634725A2E59CBD50 on port /dev/ttyACM0... 2018/08/05 22:46:58 Starting devices... 2018/08/05 22:46:58 Starting device LIDARLite-5D4F0034ECE4D0EB... 2018/08/05 22:46:58 Starting work... Fetching the dist 166 cms Fetching the dist 165 cms Fetching the dist 165 cms Here's complete code for reference   package main import ( "fmt" "log" "time" "gobot.io/x/gobot" "gobot.io/x/gobot/drivers/i2c" "gobot.io/x/gobot/platforms/firmata" ) func main() { lidarLibTest() } // reading Garmin LidarLite data func lidarLibTest() { firmataAdaptor := firmata.NewAdaptor("/dev/ttyACM0") d := i2c.NewLIDARLiteDriver(firmataAdaptor) work := func() { gobot.Every(1*time.Second, func() { dist, err := d.Distance() if err != nil { log.Fatalln("failed to get dist") } fmt.Println("Fetching the dist", dist, "cms") }) } lidarRobot := gobot.NewRobot("lidarBot", []gobot.Connection{firmataAdaptor}, []gobot.Device{d}, work) lidarRobot.Start() }

Prerequisite Install Go Install VSCode or desired IDE to write Go code, e.g. GoLand (commercial license required, 30days trial) Install Go extension for VSCode (if you are working with VSCode)   Content Building GET Request Building PUT Request Building POST Request   Building GET Request I'll be using net/http package from Go to perform the GET request to the ThingWorx Server by importing it   import (     "net/http" ) Next, we use the NewRequest() which takes method, URL & body. Since I'm sending a GET request my method will be GET, and the URL to the ThingWorx server & no body so will leave it to nil     url := myurl req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)   We are ignoring the error that NewRequest is returning as its already handled within the NewRequest() for us Use Header to add the request header to be received by the ThingWorx Server, note Header is of type map[string] []string (a key : value pair)     req.Header.Add("appKey", appkey) // passing the appkey from ThingWorx Server for authentication req.Header.Add("Accept", "application/json") // accepts json as response req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache") // not using cache to fetch data Now we invoke the DefaultClient to perform the request & handling the error res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)     if err != nil {         log.Println("Failed to get all entity list from the server", err)     } We need to close the body once we have received it and then we try to read the Body returned in our request     defer res.Body.Close()     body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body) Here's complete function accepting URL & Application Key as string. Notice I am starting the function name with capital which denotes that I am making this as an exported function. See Exported/Unexported Identifiers In Go for more     func GetTwxServerEntities(myurl string, appkey string) {     url := myurl     req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", url, nil)     req.Header.Add("appKey", appkey)     req.Header.Add("Accept", "application/json")     req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache")     res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)     if err != nil {         log.Println("Failed to get all entity list from the server", err)     }     defer res.Body.Close()     body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(res.Body)     //fmt.Println(res)     fmt.Println(string(body)) }   Building PUT Request   To send property updates to the ThingWorx Server I'll create NewReader to read the strings which is JSON in this example payload := strings.NewReader("{\"Prop1\" : \"Demo 101\",\"Prop2\" : 1001}") Like GET request NewRequest is invoked to perform the PUT request like so   req, _ := http.NewRequest("PUT", url, payload) Adding the header details : req.Header.Add("appKey", appkey) req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json") req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache") Invoke the client to perform the request res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req) if err != nil {         log.Println("Failed to Put the value to the ThingWorx server", err)     } Here's the complete function which takes a URL and appKey and then updates 2 property values for a Thing on the ThingWorx Server:   e.g. myurl= http://tw831psql:8080/Thingworx/Things/RESTThing/Properties/*   func TwxPut(myurl string, appkey string) {     url := myurl     payload := strings.NewReader("{\"Prop1\" : \"Demo 101\",\"Prop2\" : 1001}")     req, _ := http.NewRequest("PUT", url, payload)     req.Header.Add("appKey", appkey)     req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")     req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache")     res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)     if err != nil {         log.Println("Failed to Put the value to the ThingWorx server", err)     }     fmt.Println(res)      } And I can now verify that the property has been updated for the Thing called RESTThing   Building POST Request   Similar to GET & PUT we have to create new Request of method POST to invoke a Service in this example, for this I have already created a service that counts up a numeric property value stored in the CountUpProp property already existing under the RESTThing entity   req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", url, nil) Adding the Headers to the req req.Header.Add("appKey", appKey) req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json") req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache") Handling response and the error in case of an issue res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)     if err != nil {         log.Println("Posting to Thingworx server failed with error", err)     }     fmt.Println(res) Here's complete thought : func TwxPost(myurl string, appKey string) {     // e.g. http://tw831psql:8080/Thingworx/Things/RESTThing/Services/CountUpService     url := myurl     req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", url, nil)     req.Header.Add("appKey", appKey)     req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")     req.Header.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache")     res, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)     if err != nil {         log.Println("Posting to Thingworx server failed with error", err)     }     fmt.Println(res) } Verifying property update after the service invoke   All the above functions now can be called for e.g. in a main()   func main() {     var myurl string     var appkey string     // Provide URL for ThingWorx fmt.Println("Enter URL, eg. http://localhost:8080/Thingworx/Server") // accepting URL at runtime     fmt.Scanln(&myurl)     // Provide appKey from the ThingWorx platform fmt.Println("Enter valid ThingWorx Application Key ") // accepting appKey at runtime     fmt.Scanln(&appkey)     GetTwxServerEntities(myurl, appkey)     TwxPut(myurl, appkey)     TwxPost(myurl, appkey) }  

The purpose of this document is to see how you can setup an MXChip IoT DevKit and also how send the readings of this microprocessor to ThingWorx through an Azure cloud server. You will also learn how to view the values that are being sent.

Underneath, video is about ThingWorx Analytics and walks through following functions: Upload a Dataset. Create a Training Model. Create a Scoring Job.

Precision and Recall are the evaluation matrices that are used to evaluate the machine learning algorithm used. This post needs some prior understanding of the confusion matrix and would recommend you to go through it here.   Example of Animal Image Recognition Consider the below Confusion Matrix for the input of the animal images and algorithm trying to identify the animal correctly: ANIMALS Cat Dog Leopard Tiger Jaguar Puma Cat 62 2 0 0 1 0 Dog 1 50 1 0 4 0 Leopard 0 2 98 4 0 0 Tiger 0 0 10 78 2 0 Jaguar 0 1 8 0 46 0 Puma 2 0 0 1 1 42   Explaining Few Random Grids: [Cat, Cat]: The grid is having the value 62. It means the image of a cat was identified as a cat for 62 times. [Cat, Dog]: The grid is having the value 2. It means the image of a cat was identified as dog twice. [Leopard, Tiger]: The grid is having the value 4. It means the image of Leopard was identified as Tiger for 4 times.   Questions To Find Some Answers    Q.How many times our algorithm predicted the image to be Tiger? A. Looking at the Tiger column: 0+0+4+78+0+1 = 83   Q.What is the probability that Puma will be classified correctly? A. Looking at the matrix above, we can see that we 42 times Puma was classified correctly. But twice it was classified as Cat, once as Tiger and once as Jaguar. So the probability will come down as: 42/(42+2+1+1)= 42/46 = 0.91      This concept is called as RECALL. It is the fraction of correctly predicted positives out of all actual positives. So we can say that Recall = (True Positives) / (True Positives + False Negatives)   Q. What is the probability that when our algorithm is identifying the image as Cat, it is actually Cat? A. Looking at the matrix above, we can see that once our algorithm has identified a Dog as a Cat, twice Puma as Cat and 62 times Cat as Cat. So the probability will come down as: 62/(62+1+2) = 0.95      This concept is called as PRECISION. It is the fraction if correctly predicted positives out of all predicted positives. So we can say that Precision = (True Positives) / (True Positives + False Positives)

This video gives an introduction to the Descriptive Services: what they are how to install them how to configure them how to use them  

This video shows the steps to install ThingWorx Analytics release 8.3  

In this IoT-AR Tech Tip, we will cover what the microservices do, and their functions overall in the ThingWorx Analytics Server Application.   With the new architecture changes introduced with ThingWorx Analytics 8.1, many users have asked for a more descriptive explanation of the purpose of the microservices that make up the Analytics Server application. In 8.3, Descriptive Microservice has been introduced, and changings in how Predictive Scoring were incorporated. ThingPredictor has been deprecated and its primary functions have been incorporated into ThingWorx Analytics Server’s Prediction microservice.   Many of these microservices can be installed as separate distinct utilities, though there some that are required for base functionality of Analytics Server. This allows custom installation by the end-user to tailor the TWA deployment to their needs.   ThingWorx Analytics Server Microservices   Analytics Microservice – Analytics Server Edge Agent acts as an integration point between the ThingWorx server and the ThingWorx Analytics server. The Edge Agent automatically registers with ThingWorx and instantiates the Things that represent the connected ThingWorx Analytics microservicers. This component is mandatory.   Clustering Microservice - The Clustering Microserver provides services that categorize dataset records into groups (clusters) based on their similarities. Clustering returns results in the form of a PMML model. This component is optional.   Data Microservice - The Data Microserver provides data-handling services. These services include creating a dataset, appending new data, viewing dataset metadata, querying and retrieving information about the distribution of data in the dataset. This component is mandatory.   Predictive Microservice - The Prediction Microserver provides both real time and asynchronous (batch) predictive scoring. The scoring process evaluates each record in a dataset against a prediction model. Each record is assigned a predictive score that reflects the model's predicted outcome for that record. This component is optional. This component replaces ThingPredictor in functionality.   Prescriptive Microservice - The Prescriptive Microserver provides real time prescriptive scoring, which examines how certain changes might affect future outcomes. Fields identified as levers can be varied to determine how specific changes might affect future outcomes. This component is optional.   Profiles Microservice - The Profiling Microserver provides services to identify distinct subpopulations (profiles) within a dataset that share similar characteristics and are different from other subpopulations in statistically significant ways.  Profiles are not required in order to make a prediction, but they contribute to a strategic understanding of the complex factors associated with specific outcomes. This component is optional.   Results Microservice – The Results Microserver provides services for working with results. It also provides services to query input and output fields for Training and Clustering results, which output in PMML format. This component is mandatory.   Training Microservice – The Training Microserver uses machine learning algorithms and techniques to identify meaningful patterns in a dataset and generate a predictive model. A number of parameters are available for tuning the type and combination of learning techniques used. The resulting model is output in PMML format. This component is optional, however, if the Validation Microserver is selected, the Training Microserver will be selected by default.   Validation Microservice – The Validation Microserver provides metrics to evaluate how well a model was able to predict outcomes for a specific goal variable in a dataset. Depending on the goal variable, validation metrics can include RMSE, Matthew's Correlation (MCC), Pearson Correlation, true and false positive rates, accuracy, or a confusion matrix. This component is optional, however if the Training Microserver is selected, the Validation Microserver will be delected by default.   Analytics Worker – The Analytics Worker does the processing work in the system. It picks up jobs from the Zookeeper system and performs the requested work. By default, only one worker is installed, but the number of workers can be scaled up after installation. Workers can process any type of submitted job request. This component is mandatory.   ThingWorx Analytics – Descriptive Analytics Microservice   Descriptive Analytics Microservice is an optional microservice included with the ThingWorx Analytics Server installation package, but can operate as a distinct and separate utility.   Descriptive Analytics provides a library of on-demand services that perform common statistical calculations and facilitate statistical monitoring on raw data. Descriptive Analytics is not required to generate prediction models, but output from these services can provide insights that improve your understanding of your data.   Update January 6, 2020   For information about ThingWorx Analytics 8.5 and newer, please refer to the HelpCenter - Analytics Server System Architecture for 8.5

This video walks through the dataset requirements when working with time series in ThingWorx Analytics Server.  Starting release 52.2 - ending release 8.2.   Also view: - Written version of those steps mentioned in the video - Help Center  

This video go through the steps required to use the Creo Insight extension: - Download and install the required extension - Set required config.pro options - Create provider in Analytics Manager - Publish sensor from Creo - Create analysis Event in Analysis Manager - Retrieve sensor values from ThingWorx in Creo     See also: - https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article?n=CS277514  for a  written version of those steps. - Creo Help Center  

    Go beyond functional application development and learn how you can dress up your UI to enhance the user experience. In this webinar, we'll show you how to implement common design elements throughout your UI including custom logos, color schemes, and styles.   In this video, UI expert Tsveta Saul will demonstrate valuable tips and tricks for making a sophisticated IoT application with ThingWorx, including: Masters and Menus - enhance your app framework with personalized menu titles, backgrounds, and custom headers Layout and Labels - create consistency in your application by combining commonly used widgets State and Style Definitions - define widget styles to illustrate your brand Images - integrate visuals to describe thousands of words' worth of design and development specifications Watch the recording above, and download this sample Mashup containing all the data and entities shared in the video.   Q&A   We didn’t have time to get to all of the questions during the live webcast, but we’ve answered them here on our blog. Have any additional questions? Please leave us a comment. WHERE ELSE CAN STATE DEFINITIONS BE APPLIED? State Definitions can be applied to the Map Widget. Not only can you add color-coded pins, but also images that describe certain types of assets, for example. You can also add State Definitions to your Time Series Chart. For instance, you can color-code for values that exceed a certain threshold.   ARE THERE ANY IMPORTANT OR HIDDEN PROPERTIES THAT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT? One feature to take note of is the Z-index, which helps you control the position of a widget in relation to another widget. This option can control whether users see the specific widget or not. ThingWorx has a robust a system that handles permissions – from users and groups to organizations. There’s a lot of control as to who can see what either through Model, or through specific services and conditions inside the Mashup.   HOW CAN I DISABLE A USER FROM SEEING SOMETHING OR DOING A CERTAIN ACTION? Again, that is handled through the security system of ThingWorx. There are multiple ways of authenticating users from other systems. You can create services that are related to your Things or user session parameters, and define whether a user can see those parameters or not.   HOW CAN WE CHANGE DATE FORMAT FOR X-AXIS IN TIME SERIES CHART? This property is available within the Time Series Chart Widget. It uses standard programming language – you can add or delete in the property.   CAN LAYOUT SPACING BE A PERCENTAGE? The spacing within the layout (none, 5px, 10px, 15px, or 20px).

  Based on real use cases and industry-leading solutions, this webinar looks at how developers can deliver valuable analytical outputs through experiences that ensure easy consumption of trusted analyses.   By taking a deep dive into a range of the analytics capabilities within ThingWorx, we will demonstrate how you can visualize complex analytic outputs to help your users understand what really matters in your data - and ultimately make quick, insightful business decisions.   Q&A   We didn’t have time to get to all of the questions during the live webcast, but we’ve answered them here on our blog. Have any additional questions? Please leave us a comment.   THIS SESSION TALKED ABOUT CONNECTIVITY WITH OTHER ANALYTICS PROGRAMS, SUCH AS R. HOW WOULD THINGWORX INTERACT WITH THE R PLATFORM? There are multiple reasons for using R and other analytics tools. Say you’re using R to build a predictive model, for instance—you can interact with data and load that information into our Analytics Server, even outside Analytics Builder. You can also interface in script within ThingWorx to run certain calculations driven by R. Moreover, even if you are building a model in R or any other tool, you can use Analytics Manager to operationalize data coming in from a Thing model that’s being scored against variables created elsewhere. Our ultimate goal is not to migrate you away from the tools you’re already using, but rather augment the development experience with ThingWorx integration.   HOW WOULD A DEVELOPER GO ABOUT CREATING & OBTAINING JSON AND CSV DATA FOR ANALYSIS? In terms of creating a historical data view, there are two separate methods. There’s creating a descriptive view for which you are using to create the model, and then there is operationalizing the model. On the operational side, it’s data coming from the Thing model being scored against the actual predictive model that’s created. For the descriptive view, the tool of choice ultimately boils down to organizational preference. How you load represented data into the Analytics Server is completely based on the tools with which you work.   CAN YOU EXPLAIN IN DETAIL THE STEPS FOR CONNECTING A MACHINE TO THE THINGWORX ANALYTICAL MODEL, INCLUDING HOW TO DEFINE THE DATA COMING FROM THE MACHINE TO CREATE THE MODEL? Absolutely. I’d encourage you to go check out our new Operationalize an Analytics Model developer guide available on the ThingWorx Developer Portal. In just 30 minutes, you’ll learn how to use Analytics Manager and ThingPredictor to automatically perform analytical calculations.   OUR ORGANIZATION SEES FEATURE ENGINEERING AS A KEY PART OF THE DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS. DO THINGWORX ALGORITHMS HANDLE FEATURE ENGINEERING INTERNALLY? Yes. There’s feature engineering in terms of getting a dataset ready for consumption. The technology ThingWorx provides is being able to automatically sift through the data and use various features to guide the selection of algorithms. Feature enrichment is what’s really powerful about our supervised machine learning capabilities.    HOW DO I INCORPORATE ADVANCED STYLING IN MY UI, LIKE ANIMATIONS AND RESPONSIVE BEHAVIORS? The standard way of achieving advanced styling in ThingWorx is to leverage the Media Entities, Style and State Definitions. Many widgets, such as the Value Display and the Shape Widget, have out-of-the-box ability to take a State Definition and apply advanced styling for things like severity of risks, etc. Watch our IoT Application Makeover webcast for more information about this topic.   DO YOU HAVE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GUARANTEEING DESIGN CONSISTENCY IN MY IOT APPLICATION? For non-designers: to keep your design clean and consistent, it is important to properly manage your Style Definitions. Define styles and stick to re-using them; don’t have five different styles for showing model accuracy, for instance. I would recommend creating 5-10 styles for text, and then from there choosing a color scheme for things like buttons, labels, charts, grid headers, and other elements where you need a vibrant color.

  Create compelling, modern application user interfaces in ThingWorx with the latest enhancements to our Mashup visualization platform - Collection and Custom CSS.   In this webinar with IoT application designer Gabriel Bucur, we'll show how the new Collection widget makes it easy to replicate visual content in your UI for menu systems, dashboards, tables, and more. You'll learn about several of the 60+ configuration properties available for collections, many of which offer input/output bindings for dynamic flexibility.   Gabriel will also demonstrate the styling and UX power of the latest feature in the Next Gen Composer, which allows you to write classes and CSS for your Mashups, masters, and widgets.   Watch the recording above, and download this sample Mashup containing all the data and entities shared in the video.   Q&A   We didn’t have time to get to all of the questions during the live webcast, but we’ve answered them here on our blog. Have any additional questions? Please leave us a comment.   WILL PTC CONTINUE SUPPORT FOR THE REPEATER WIDGET IN THINGWORX 8.2, OR WILL IT BE REMOVED? The Repeater Widget will not removed. However, due to limited performance in various browsers, switching to the Collection is highly recommended.   WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPEATER AND COLLECTION, AND ARE THERE PROS AND CONS FOR EACH WIDGET? The Collection is an advanced widget that allows you to contain a series of repeated Mashups within a collection. Its functionality is similar to the Repeater Widget, but contains more properties that provide additional options and better performance, especially when handling large amounts of data.   IS IT POSSIBLE TO ADD A DRAG AND DROP ACTION TO LISTS OR REPEATERS, E.G. DRAGGING AN ELEMENT FROM ONE CONTAINER TO ANOTHER? Drag and drop functionality is not available in the Collection Widget at this time. It is, however, in consideration for future ThingWorx releases.   IN THE EVENT I HAVE MORE THAN ONE MASHUP (FOR EXAMPLE, MASHUP A AND MASHUP B), CAN I BIND DIFFERENT PROPERTIES TO THE SAME MASHUP PARAMETER ACCORDING TO THE MASHUP NAME? The MashupName row goes to the MashupNameField in the collection, where you’ll  have a dropdown after you populate it with the InfoTable that contains the MashupName. You can put all the bindings there, even if you don't use them in all the Mashups. For example: {"valueA":"MashupA","valueB":"MashupB"}   IS IT POSSIBLE TO ORDER SECTIONS HORIZONTALLY IN THE COLLECTION? Sections can only be ordered vertically at this time.   WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GLOBAL PROPERTIES AND SESSION VALUES? Global Properties are only available within the Collection. These properties offer a way to control Things from other widgets with which the Collection is displaying.   IF THERE ARE MULTIPLE COLLECTIONS, DO THEY SHARE THE SAME SET OF GLOBALPARAMETERS? No. If you defined a Boolean on your Collection, when you drag the Boolean output from a checkbox on the Collection you will see that you can bind it to that defined Boolean in the GlobalParameters.   WHEN USING CUSTOM CSS, DO YOU HAVE TO DEFINE STYLING FOR EACH ELEMENT, OR CAN YOU CREATE A STYLE THING WITH CSS? Widgets differ in functionality, so the same class might not apply to the same widget. However, if you define a styling in CSS for a button, for example, you can apply that class on any button you want.   DOES CUSTOM CSS ALWAYS OVERRIDE THE WIDGET STYLES? Yes. That is the essential purpose of custom CSS integration – to rewrite styles.   IF YOU HAVE TWO CONFLICTING STYLES – ONE IN CSS AND THE OTHER IN A STYLE DEFINITION – WHICH ONE TAKES PRECEDENCE? CSS will typically rewrite the ThingWorx styles; however, it depends on the specificity of the CSS target definition. For example: “.button-element" will be overwritten by ".default-button .button-element". Visit https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Specificity for more details regarding this topic.   CAN I RESIZE MY WIDGETS DURING RUNTIME? The size of the widget is determined by the CSS, and how it renders in ThingWorx. While you can bind different sizing classes to the CustomClass property of the widget, resizing with your mouse is not available at Runtime.

  The data in your industrial IoT application is only valuable if it tells a story. As a developer, you need to consider the logical connections between graphical elements and business data and determine how users want to consume the information. With the Mashup Builder in ThingWorx, you can rapidly create a custom visualization that displays data from your connected devices. These easy-to-configure widgets deliver real-time data functionality at your fingertips - streamlining, processing, and displaying valuable information for your application users.   In this video, you'll learn how to create immersive, interactive visualizations by utilizing dynamic charts and graphs in your GUI. ThingWorx technical engineer Jason Wyatt demonstrates how to: Create a UI with ThingWorx Composer and Mashup Builder Incorporate visual displays that highlight business data requirements Supply data to components in your Mashup leveraging pre-built widgets and services Implement the Time Series Chart, Pie Chart, Open Street Map, Location Picker, Auto Refresh, Textbox, and Button widgets Watch the recording above, and download this sample Mashup containing all the data and entities shared in the video.   Q&A   We didn’t have time to get to all of the questions during the live webcast, but we’ve answered them here on our blog. Have any additional questions? Please leave us a comment. THIS UI CAPABILITY CLEARLY IS USEFUL FOR PROTOTYPING. AT WHAT SCALE AND / OR COMPLEXITY DO YOU RECOMMEND USING TRADITIONAL PROGRAMMING METHODS? The ThingWorx platform does not require users to utilize the Mashup Builder to create a frontend for their application. Some PTC customers use ThingWorx for the backend and rely on a traditional HTML team to design a custom UI. In that scenario, ThingWorx provides the Edge connectivity and backend storage/organization/business-logic. But, that said, the Mashup Builder can be used to develop production-level sites, especially if you customize State and Style definitions and create a Master mashup. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GETIMPLEMENTINGTHINGS VS. GETIMPLEMENTINGTHINGSWITHDATA VS. QUERYPROPERTYHISTORY? GetImplementingThings provides a list of all Things instantiated from a particular Thing Template. GetImplementingThingsWithData provides the current property values associated with the Things. QueryPropertyHistory provides historical Property values. WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SCENARIOS WHERE SERVICEINVOKECOMPLETED CAN BE TRIGGERED? ServiceInvokeCompleted is an Event that occurs when a Mashup Data Service completes. We recommend you use it in any situation where timing is important for proper application execution. For instance, in the application created for the webinar, I wanted QueryPropertyHistory to run after SetProperties was complete. Therefore, I used ServiceInvokeCompleted to trigger the second Service. IS THERE ANY WAY TO DISPLAY TWO INFO TABLE DATA IN SINGLE GRID? This isn't possible by default, but as a workaround you could make a custom Service to combine two InfoTables into one; and then you could apply the combined data to the Grid Widget. CAN I RESIZE MY WIDGETS DURING RUNTIME? You can change any Widget Property at runtime that accepts an incoming data-bind. You can tell which Widget Properties accept dynamic data by looking at the Property itself in the bottom-left section of the Mashup Builder. If the Property has a left arrow pointing at the Property name, then you can bind it to dynamic data and change it during runtime. For Widget Properties where this isn't possible (such as some Widgets' Width and Height), you can apply custom CSS. IS THERE AN UNDO FEATURE AVAILABLE ON MASHUP BUILDER? Currently, no, but I believe Undo is a feature request on the R&D radar. HOW DO YOU GET MASHUP INFORMATION UP TO THE MASTER MASHUP? You can pass information between two Mashups when one Mashup pushes a change down to a Thing, then the other Mashup may read that data from that same Thing. Additionally, Mashup Parameters and Session Variables can act like Global Variables that are accessible across multiple Mashups. DOES THE OPAQUE OR MAKING BG COLOR TRANSPARENT WORK? You may set certain Widgets' style in such a way that the Widget itself is visible, but the background of the Widget is transparent. CAN YOU SHOW AGAIN HOW YOU ADDED THE TEXTBOX TO THE PROPERTIES OF SERVICES? You can view the recording of the webinar to see how I made an invisible TextBox set the MaxItems Property of the QueryPropertyHistory Mashup Data Service. I used an invisible TextBox to get a static number, then applied that number to the MaxItems Parameter of QueryPropertyHistory in order to change the Service's functionality. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE FOR SETPROPERTIES? SetProperties is one of several Mashup Data Services that sends information from the Mashup to the backend. DO WE HAVE FILTERS ON THE PIE CHART FOR CHANGING THE VIEW WHEN A VALUE IS SELECTED IN THE FILTER? Yes, there are several operations you may perform when a section of a Pie Chart is selected. I had originally intended to show how you can change the displayed color when you select a particular section of the Pie Chart, but I unfortunately ran out of time. In addition, all three of the display Widgets were tied together: when I selected a section of the Pie Chart, the same piece of data was selected on the Map and Time Series (and vice versa for clicking on the other two). You can import the sample Mashup into your Composer to view the configuration settings. IS THERE WAY TO SET PROPERTIES AND GET DATA THROUGH EMAIL USING THINGWORX? Yes, there are several ways to push information to the ThingWorx backend. For instance, you could have an entirely external process which strips data from an e-mail and then makes a REST call to ThingWorx to archive the data or trigger some Service. And, yes, ThingWorx supports sending and receiving e-mail through an Extension which you may download for free from the ThingWorx Marketplace. CAN THE MAXITEMS OF THE QUERYPROPERTYHISTORY BE APPLIED TO A COMBO BOX / LIST, WHICH CAN BE SELECTED FROM THE MASHUP SCREEN ONLINE? If I'm understanding correctly, you're asking whether or not the MaxItems Parameter of the QueryPropertyHistory Mashup Data Service can be set dynamically. The answer is yes. For instance, that TextBox which I made invisible could have been left visible and given a Label of "Max Items to Display". It would still be tied to the QueryPropertyHistory Service in the same way. But when the TextBox has a new value entered, then that would change the Parameter configuration of QueryPropertyHistory to show whatever had been entered. You would still have to figure out how to call the QueryPropertyHistory Service again. Changing a Parameter just sets up how the Service will behave the next time it is called. DO YOU HAVE TIPS FOR MAKING A PRINT-FRIENDLY MASHUP? My only real recommendation would be to use a Static Mashup with a specific resolution (to ensure that everything fit on the page while still looking good), while also setting the Style of various Widgets such that everything was in gray-scale (or something similar) that would be easy on your printer's ink cartridge. HOW WELL DO THE STYLE DEFINITIONS AND CSS WORK WITH TWITTER'S BOOTSTRAP? I'm unfamiliar with Twitter's Bootstrap, but I do know that with Style Definitions and the new CSS functionality, you have a lot of control over exactly how your Mashup looks. So you should be able to configure your Mashup to comply if Twitter has some particular requirements. WHY DO WIDGETS NOT STICK TO THE MASHUP WHEN YOU DRAG THEM INTO A BUSY UI? I HAVE HAD WIDGETS 'FLY' BACK TO THE WIDGET LIST AND HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET THEM TO STICK. Unfortunately, that's a known issue. It has something to do with the fact that you're not allowed to drag-and-drop a new Widget on top of an existing Widget. Which is a little strange considering that you explicitly *ARE* allowed to stack Widgets on top of one another after they've been placed in the central Canvas areas. I believe that R&D is investigating. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENT OPTIONS FOR MASHUP? I believe that this question has something to do with the options in the pop-up when you first create a new Mashup. A Responsive Mashup grows and shrinks to match the viewing-resolution, while Static stays at the resolution you specify. The other options, (Page vs. Template vs. Shape), have to do with a specific setup where you have a Mashup-in-Mashup design. For instance, you could subdivide a Responsive Mashup just as I did in the webinar, and then have one of those sub-sections be an entirely different Mashup. Template and Shape Mashups are used when you have the scenario I describe above with Mashup-in-Mashup, but you want the sub-Mashup to change based off some other metric, such as the selection of a Thing listed in a Grid Widget. You could use some Mashup Data Service like GetImplementingThings. That would return a list of every Thing instantiated from a Thing Template. You could then have a Grid which displays a list of every Thing returned by the GetImplementingThings Service. You could then have a Template Mashup stored within every Thing instantiated from that Template. Whenever a Thing is selected from the Grid, it displays the Template Mashup for that specific Thing. HOW DO YOU HIDE TOOLBAR WHICH ALLOW USER TO SELECT "SHOW/HIDE LOG", "SHOW/HIDE LOG", "RELOAD", ETC. ON YOUR MASHUP SCREEN? Many Widgets have a ""Visible"" Property which may be dynamically set via some other criteria. For instance, you could have a Checkbox Widget, which is great for Boolean values like the Visible Property. You could tie the State Property of the Checkbox Widget to a different Widget's Visible Property. When the Checkbox is checked, the other Widget is visible. When the Checkbox is unchecked, then the other Widget becomes invisible. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE CHALLENGES IN RESPONSIVE MASHUPS VS. STATIC MASHUP DEVELOPMENT. ALSO NEED THE LIST OF WIDGETS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE RESPONSIVE MASHUPS. WHAT IS NEW IN THINGWORX 8.2 FOR RESPONSIVE MASHUPS? The main challenge of a Responsive Mashup is that it's almost necessary to test the Mashup at each resolution that you believe your users may be viewing the page. Responsive does a good job of stretching and shrinking… but this can also lead to undesirable situations where you have scroll bars because the viewing-resolution is too small for everything to fit. The main challenge of a Static Mashup is that it really only works at the specific resolution you set. If you have a 300x200 px Static Mashup, it will essentially be unreadable on a 4k display. As for a list, some Widgets *AREN'T* Responsive. The TextBox Widget will not grow and shrink as the viewing-resolution changes, for instance, but you can still use a TextBox in a Responsive Mashup. The big new item for Mashups in 8.2 was the inclusion of CSS and the Collections Widget. Either or both may be used in any Mashup, regardless of whether it's Responsive or Static.

ThingWorx® Service Apps are easy-to-deploy, pre-configured role-based apps that enhance visibility, productivity, and performance across your serviceable assets. The apps provide seamless connectivity and real-time data visualizations in addition to providing remote access to service your assets remotely. Use our guides to learn how to remotely monitor and troubleshoot machine connectivity, detect exception conditions across all assets, and improve the overall efficiency of your service organization.   To learn more and to download our free, fully functioning 30-day trial, login to the ThingWorx Developer portal.

I’m excited to introduce you to a brand new training pathway called the ThingWorx IoT Developer Specialization. This specialization leverages over 40+ hours of training from our online learning platform, IoT University. Through a series of four online courses and an interactive capstone project, you’ll learn how to: Use the ThingWorx development process to build IoT applications from the ground up Build complex models and implement them in ThingWorx Design user-centric application interfaces in ThingWorx that leverage UI/UX and data visualization best practices Connect edge devices to ThingWorx and acquire the data you need for your application Once you complete all the courses, you’ll advance to the capstone project where you’ll put your knowledge into action by building an IoT solution. And to set you up for success, you’ll receive 1-on-1 feedback on your project from a dedicated industry mentor.   Learn more about the specialization by clicking here. To request access to the specialization, visit our Enterprise Training page.

Presentation by Michael Anderson highlighting new capabilities and features in the ThingWorx Manufacturing and Service Apps 8.2