In this article you are going to learn how to modify existing parameters in the Platform: change their units or conversion factors to adapt them to your projects.
Introduction
In the Parameters section, you can customise the parameters in your account. There are 2 sections in this menu:
- Basic Parameters: Each parameter in the platform has a basic type, which usually stores the cumulated or average readings for that parameter. From these values, the platform calculates all the frequencies.
- Calculated Parameters: Calculated parameters include the consumptions over a certain period of time or the average power for a given period. There is a different entry for each frequency of each parameter.
In this article, we will cover how to modify the units used by a parameter, as well as how to apply conversion factors.
Requirements
In order to access the Settings menu, you need to have administrator rights in the Platform.
How does it work?
To access the Parameters menu, go to Settings --> Parameters. You will see there a list of the available parameters in your account, which includes all the parameters from all the devices in your account.
If you click on the name of the parameter or on the edit button, you will access the configuration menu for that parameter. For this example, we will modify the Thermal Energy parameter.
Please note that all changes applied in this section will apply to ALL the devices that use this parameter in your account.
Modify units
You can change the default unit of any parameter in your list by changing the Units field in the form above.
Let's apply this in an example. By default, most energy parameters in the platform are measured in kWh. The platform's data processing engine will process the readings being sent to the gateways and apply the unit listed in the parameters section.
If the data you are receiving in the platform is in MWh you can directly change the unit and it will be applied to all the screens in the platform:
You will have to reproduce this for all the Calculated parameters that are related to the basic parameter. You can find them in the Calculated parameters tab. In this case, we would change the following calculated parameters:
If the following thermal energy monthly consumption readings are introduced:
| Timestamp | Value |
|---|---|
| 01/01/19 00:00 | 1 |
| 01/02/19 00:00 | 1.3 |
| 01/03/19 00:00 | 1.3 |
| 01/04/19 00:00 | 0.8 |
| 01/05/19 00:00 | 0.6 |
| 01/06/19 00:00 | 0.5 |
| 01/07/19 00:00 | 0.3 |
| 01/08/19 00:00 | 0.3 |
| 01/09/19 00:00 | 0.5 |
| 01/10/19 00:00 | 0.7 |
| 01/11/19 00:00 | 0.8 |
| 01/12/19 00:00 | 0.9 |
and it has been specified the unit as MWh for the calculated parameter in the monthly resolution, then the following chart will be displayed in the consumption screen:
As can be seen, the Y-Axis is in the unit we specified, and the order of magnitude of the readings is correct.
Conversion factors
The previous example works if the readings that are being sent are in the same order of magnitude as the units that we want. But what if a gateway gets kWh data and the analysis should be in MWh? Then, a conversion factor can be applied in the parameter configuration.
If the following thermal energy monthly consumption readings have been introduced:
| Timestamp | Value |
|---|---|
| 01/01/19 00:00 | 1000 |
| 01/02/19 00:00 | 1400 |
| 01/03/19 00:00 | 1300 |
| 01/04/19 00:00 | 800 |
| 01/05/19 00:00 | 600 |
| 01/06/19 00:00 | 500 |
| 01/07/19 00:00 | 300 |
| 01/08/19 00:00 | 300 |
| 01/09/19 00:00 | 500 |
| 01/10/19 00:00 | 700 |
| 01/11/19 00:00 | 800 |
| 01/12/19 00:00 | 900 |
| 01/01/20 00:00 | 1100 |
| 01/02/20 00:00 | 1000 |
And the parameters have kWh as a unit, the following chart will be displayed in the consumption screen:
But the parameter can be edited (in our example, the thermal energy monthly consumption), in order to convert the kWh into MWh, by changing the Unit field and adding a Formula:
The formula field will accept simple formulas, where x is the parameter as it is stored in the platform. The formula listed here will be applied to the parameter in all of the platform's screens: