Basic terms / What is what

Owned by Tomas Macak
Last updated: Jan 02, 2024
3 min read

Screen

NavBar is Navigation bar on Top of any page. It contains:

  • Logo/Home button on far left

  • "NavBar previews" next to Home button. NavBar previews are per-user configurable information, which is always displayed (on any page/subpage)

  • "NavBar buttons" on right side of the NavBar. They display buttons to different quick items (back, search, home, watchdog, eventlog, carousel, language select ...). Displayed items change depending on current page and user rights

  • "Menu" on far right of the NavBar. It displays available Menus depending on current page

Dashboard

Dashboard is main landing page of FLOWBOX system. It is configurable and can have different configurable shapes:

  • honeycomb menu

  • map

  • floorplan

  • realm components

  • overview panel

Side bar is displayed on left side and contains list. It can be list of Realms, Setting items ... - content depending on page, site configuration, access rights.

On the bottom of SideBar toggler (blue) - which toggles narrow or wide display of sidebar. It is also automatically changes based on your browser window size (e.g. narrow on portrait mobile ...)

Main screen

Displays main content / components, graphs ...

System parts

Component

Component is system basic element. There are different types of components in FLOWBOX system:

  • Device (e.g. sensor, multisensor, electricity meter, water meter …)

  • Complex device (e.g. photovoltaics inverter, AC unit, cogeneration unit, car charger …)

  • Virtual device (e.g. virtual meter – adding/subtracing other meters, dew point - calculation from temperature and humidity …)

  • Gateway (e.g. modbus gateway, DALI gateway, BACnet gateway …)

  • Visualization (e.g. map, SCADA …)

  • Graph/analytics (e.g. compare chart, heatmap, Sankey graph …)

  • Control components (e.g. control button, logic block, if-else command …)

Component always belong to one and only one realm. Its widget can be displayed on different realm panels, however technically it belongs only to one.

Property

Component has multiple properties. Property is information/value, stored for a component.

  • There are properties for

    • Information gathered from device (temperature, consumption …)

    • Component configuration (name, alias, bus identification …)

  • The properties differ for each component type

  • Property values can be stored to history database and then visualized (in component widget or other charts)

  • E.g. electricity meters have properties like voltage_l1, voltage_l12, current_l1, active/reactive power, frequency, cos phi, energy

Realm

Realm is logical group of components

Data point

  • Each component is counted at least one data point

  • When a component property is actively used in system or stored in history it is counted as data point

  • Examples

    • Temperature/humidity/CO2 sensor

      • Values not stored in history, not being visualized in system, not used on system logic – consumes 1 DAP

      • T/H/CO2 stored in historical database – 3 DAPs

      • T/H/CO2 stored in historical database, these values also visualized in compare chart, SCADA – 3 DAPs (there will be other DAPs for compare chart, SCADA components)

    • Modbus gateway

      • Since no values are typically stored in history DB – 1 DAP

    • Virtual water meter

      • Calculating and storing to history consumption, actual flow and money from 5 input water meters – 3 DAPs.

    • Compare chart

      • Visualizing 10 properties from different components – 1 DAP (it has no own history records, only visualize from others)