New Visual KPI AF Integration Server lets AF be your master source of configuration data
Many companies use the OSIsoft PI System as one of their data sources with Visual KPI, and an increasing number also leverage PI AF (asset framework) as both a data source and process model. Our new AF Integration Server can actually use AF as the master source of some or all configuration data for Visual KPI, eliminating redundancy and “copy/paste” errors.
If you are an OSIsoft customer, you really need to check this out.
New interface unlocks thousands of new sources including web services and big data.
Visual KPI has always had access to just about any data source, but our new JSON/OData interface takes this a big step forward and makes accessing web-based data easy and fast. Some examples of popular OData sources include SAP, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft Azure/Dynamics/SharePoint, Netflix, eBay, Amazon AWS, custom applications and even big data. Click to read more.
Q4 is here, and Visual KPI is a great place to spend that end-of-year budget that needs to be spent before it disappears.
October already? For us here at Transpara, this usually means the start of our busiest season, usually due to existing and new customers calling urgently with a request like… “My boss just told me we have $__ dollars that need to be spent by the end of the year or we will lose them.” As you can imagine, we welcome these requests. If you think you’ll be one of these people this year, please keep us in mind. We can add additional users to your system or even get new systems up and running for as little as a few thousand dollars, including installation and setup via the web with our team.
Well, it’s another new month and with that comes more new features. Frankly speaking, it is getting difficult to keep up with the speed of our developers so many of these cool new features aren’t getting written about or given the credit they deserve.
This one is specific to users of our Enterprise Edition, as it really shines for customers that manage multiple sites, departments, geographic locations, etc. In the past, running multiple instances of Visual KPI meant just that – separate. Now, with Site Roll-Ups you can ‘roll up’ multiple sites to not only see what is going on inside of multiple sites, but also drill-in, expand for more details, map them (using GeoMaps), filter, sort and more. Here’s a quick video about the feature (oh, and we just used the browser in this video, but of course it works on smartphones, tablets and almost any other connected device you can find):
Existing Enterprise Edition customer? All new features are free, so just sign in to your account and upgrade to the latest version.
Starter or Pro user? Contact us for details about upgrading to Enterprise Edition or just reply to this email.
New to Visual KPI? Sign up for the 30-day trial and we’ll get Visual KPI up and running on one of your servers in just 90 minutes.
A big thanks to the customers who requested this and helped us define it.
Please let us know what you think by contacting us.
Powerful trending features have always been one of the key reasons people buy Visual KPI and we are proud to announce yet another update.
The ‘Group Trend’ feature adds the ability to instantly select a few (up to 10) KPIs or Values from any list (list view, bar chart view, etc) and instantly create an ad-hoc trend of their actual values. As you would expect from us, this works across multiple data sources.
Click below to check out a video and be sure to let us know what you think!
We just received a question from one of our prospective customers following an OSIsoft PI System on mobile webinar yesterday. It went something like this:
“In this morning’s webinar, it was mentioned that the refresh rate of the application at this customer was set to 30 seconds. We would be interested in higher refresh rates… possibly, 10 seconds or sooner. We would want PI data to be viewable to Transpara Visual KPI with a minimum of latency. Can you comment on the feasibility of data being viewable in Transpara within 10 seconds or less after originating in PI?”
Great question, and the answer was good enough we thought everyone would benefit. Oh, and the answer is not just for those using OSIsoft PI – it applies to all of our supported data sources.
Here’s are the details…
The cache interval is set by each customer in the Visual KPI Server Manager according to their needs (see image below). This interval determines how quickly we refresh our cached data from each data source.
Cache interval is a “wait time” between executions and it can be safely set all the way to zero seconds. This means each time cache runs, we wait zero seconds before starting the cache cycle again. Since each execution cycle depends on the number of values being fetched (we batch them in groups of 5000 for efficiency) the cache execution time is what determines the “freshness” of our data.
Here’s a critical point: We do not cache most data at all. We only cache some data in order to maintain referential integrity among all screens where data from lots of sources might live (KPI Maps, List Views, Rollup Bars, etc). In contrast, trends (as one example) when invoked cause an immediate call to the data source, guaranteeing you the absolute latest data, up to the millisecond of the request. All trends also support AutoPlay, a feature that uses HTML5 asynchronous callbacks to smoothly scroll any trend in any browser on any device. These callbacks typically occur every 3 seconds so trends appear to smoothly scroll right to left.
To summarize, we get data right from the source wherever possible so there is a near-zero delay, and in cases where we are combining multiple sources, you can turn the cache down to zero seconds, limiting the speed only by the number of values being fetched.
Hope this helps. Please leave a comment if you have any questions about the post.
You have seen hints of this, and maybe you even had a chance to see the beta version of it at the OSIsoft User’s Conference a few months ago, but now it is live and we’ve got it on video to show off all of the features. Let’s jump right to it…
Simply put, the trend (or line chart) is one of the most critical parts of what we do and always has been. For anyone who cares about performance monitoring and KPIs there are really two key meashttps://www.transpara.com/trend/ures: ‘how am I doing right now?’, and ‘how am I doing over time (the trend)?’ OK, I guess you could say that ‘how am I doing compared to x?’ would also fit in that list, but the trend covers that as well.
So, here are some of the new features for summer 2012:
It’s HTML5, but still works with non-HTML5 browsers and on older phones
It’s faster – not sure how much, but a lot
It’s more interactive – you can zoom (tap, pinch, mouse, rubber band, scroll wheel, etc.), drag, lock cursors, export, toggle on/off pens. There are multiple modes: box-zoom (just when you have a mouse), drag, cursors (live cursors!), cursor lock, etc.
It supports gestures on touch-based devices (smartphones, tablets and even Windows 8). Swipe, scroll, pinch, and more.
It’s ALIVE! – a new feature called ‘autoplay’ will fetch data from your data source as fast as it updates, so you can watch the trend change in front of your eyes. This is especially handy for fast-moving or volatile data.
It’s smart – let’s say you have a trend with thousands of points of data on it, but you are holding a smartphone with a screen that only has a few hundred pixels to work with. Should you send across all of the data anyway? Of course not. That would be a huge waste of bandwidth and useless, but in the past when you zoomed in we had to refresh the page for you. Now the trend is smart enough to fill in the exact amount of data (fresh from the data source) as you change your view. Zoom in, and the trend will show more detail (and vice versa). Drag left or right and the trend will automatically get the exact amount of data.
So, what next?
See the trend in action on your own smartphone, tablet or browser. Click here!
Haven’t tried it yet? Sign up for a 30-day pilot and we will put Visual KPI on one of your servers (or VMs) and set it up in just 90 minutes over the web. No obligation.
Next week is a big one for us here at Transpara. It’s time for the annual OSIsoft Users Conference in San Francisco, CA and we are proud to be the platinum sponsor.
As you may know, many of our customers rely on OSIsoft PI and other real-time data historians as a primary master source of data and we do too (our live demo sites all run PI (and many other sources)).
Over the past couple of weeks we put together the following video to showcase Visual KPI for all of the attendees. It will be on the TVs in the hotel rooms, at our booth in the partner area, and anywhere else they will let us show it.
Let us know what you think, and please stop by to say hello if you will be at the event!
We’re really cranking out the videos this month, and here’s another. This time, it’s a tutorial on how to specify default and override formatting of numbers and how to add units of measure to these numbers. As you can see, it is quite easy and the possibilities are almost endless.
Oh, and your formatting and UOM carry all the way through alerts and the rest of the system. Enjoy!
These features are available in Visual KPI version 4.11.3.575 or greater. See our release notes for details on all releases.
Here’s a quick video of some new features related to customizing the status of your KPIs in our mobile BI web app. See our release notes or the Transpara YouTube channel for more new features.
Two New States KPI status colors were always customizable, but now we have added more KPI status options (now you have 10 possible states – default names of the new ones are High High High and Low Low Low). Speaking of naming…
Custom Status Names You can now rename each of the KPI states, which is a big step for those customers who use their own terms for states. Instead of “High High” you can use ‘Critical’ or ‘Spectacular’ or even ‘Hot.’ Oh, and these names extend through to alerts and every other part of the application.
Custom Status Icons Base on the request of one of our earliest customers, we have added a small library of status icons so you can choose your own for each state. For some people an up arrow means High while to others it may mean North. Now you can choose from all of the basics and even some fun ones like a thumbs up icon, question marks and so on.
Here’s a quick video we threw together showing off the new options:
Already a customer? Just upgrade to the latest version, or contact us to walk you through it.
