Bolt Data Connect – IoT Setup

Docs: IoT Settings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Configure Settings for the Bolt Data Connect Application.

Bolt Data Connect Settings Page

Docs: Thing Types

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thing Types allow you to configure “no-code” metadata to control the data model, frequency, and business logic of the IoT Cloud and Edge Gateway processing, all from within ServiceNow.

Thing-Type Configuration

Organizing your Thing-Types is crucial for unlocking the full potential of the Bolt Data Connect App. Each IoT Connected Asset is assigned a Thing-Type and it’s this Thing-Type that determines what calculations are performed on your IoT Connected Asset’s data and what Alerts get propagated to ServiceNow.

Each Thing-Type defines all interesting Sensors, Calculations, and Alert Conditions for an IoT Connected Asset of that type. It also defines how data is aggregated in the IoT Cloud. The IoT Rules Engine performs all Aggregations, Calculations, and Alert Conditions at the Edge, reducing the load on the IoT Cloud infrastructure, and saving you money.

Digital Twin Roles allow you to define relationships between Thing Types. This gives you the ability to create calculations and alerts based off of related IoT Connected Asset values as well.
Sensors allow you to define how each field in your IoT Connected Asset’s data is aggregated, what data type to assume for it and whether or not to send or save that data to the cloud.
ML Inferences allow you to add the result of executing an ML Model with a set of input values from IoT Sensors.
Calculated Fields allow you to enrich an IoT Connected Asset’s data prior to entering the Cloud. Calculations can use any Sensors or other Calculations within the scope of an IoT Connected Asset. For example, Calculations can allow you to derive a state based on Sensor data, then use that state to drive an Alert.
Alert Conditions allow IoT Connected Assets to communicate with ServiceNow. They are the catalysts that drive your Processes and State changes in ServiceNow. You have full control over what constitutes an Alert and how often to rebroadcast that Alert when the state hasn’t changed after a specified time. Alerts can use any Sensors or Calculations within the scope of a IoT Connected Asset.
Copilot Instructions allow thing type speciffic instructions to be sent as context to messages sent to IoT Copilot. These instructions give IoT Copilot the context it needs to understand how to interpret each Thing Type to answer questions more accurately.
Gauges specify how the Sensor Gauges will show on the Gauges page in the Visualizations tab in the Workspace for all Connected Assets of this Thing Type. These should be set with the Gauge Configuration UI in the Workspace Thing Type Page.

Docs: Digital Twins

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Digital Twins represent a group of IoT Connected Assets that together form a composite device. They are closely related, each playing a role in a reusable Digital Twin Type, and can use values from the other IoT Connected Assets in their own Calculated Fields and Alert Conditions.

Digital Twin

The first step is creating an IoT Digital Twin Role record in the Thing Type record that make up the IoT Digital Twin Role. Go to the Thing Types setup page, and click into the desired parent Thing Type.

Digital Twin Children

Name: The role that the child Thing Type plays in the related group of IoT Connected Assets.
Label: The label of the IoT Digital Twin Role.
IoT Thing Type: The Thing Type of the Parent.
Child Thing Type: The Thing Type of the Child.

Digital Twin Diagram

On the IoT Connected Asset Record Page, you will see the IoT Digital Twin section where you can easily view the Digital Twin from any Connected Asset in the configured Hierarchy.

The Diagram shows all of the most recent sensors and calculated fields from all Connected Assets in the same Digital Twin.

Digital Twin Diagram

Docs: Context Data

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Easily Sync ServiceNow Data (related to the IoT Connected Assets) to the IoT Cloud and Edge Gateway. This Context data can be used in Calculations and Alert Conditions (by using the context group - e.g. context.someField == 'Gold'), to enhance and provide flexibility in your Thing-Type Specifications.

All IoT Context fields are synced with a scheduled job, or can be manually synced for special cases and troubleshooting.

Context Data Record Page

Global Context Fields

IoT Context Fields without a specified Thing Type are known as Global Context Fields. Global Context Fields are synced for all Connected Assets, regardless of their Thing-Type.

Select New.
In the new record screen, leave the Thing Type field empty.
Define the reader friendly Label for the field.
Define the Field Name to use in calculations and alerts.
Name Restrictions
- Must start with a letter.
- Can only contain letters, numbers, and _.
- Must not contain any spaces.
Select the Asset Table corresponding to the asset type for your connected asset.
Select the Asset Field to associate a field on the Asset Table with this IoT Context Field.

Thing-Type IoT Context Fields

Thing-Type IoT Context Fields are only synced for Connected Assets which match the Thing-Type specified.

Steps for Thing-Type IoT Context Fields are the same as for Global Context fields, except Step 2: select the desired Thing-Type in the Thing Type field.

Context Synchronization

The sync schedule for IoT Context Fields is managed in the IoT_Context_Job scheduled job. This can be found in All -> System Definition -> Scheduled Jobs.

In the Run field, select the desired frequency.
- Periodically: Define the time between runs.
- Daily: Define the time of day.
- Weekly: Define the day of the week and time of day.
- Monthly: Define which day of the month and the time of day.
In the field that shows up depending on your choice, fill out the appropriate values according to your desired frequency.
Select Active.
Save the record.

Remove IoT Context Field

Open the desired IoT Context Field record to be deleted.
Select the Delete button toward the top of the record.

Docs: Sensor Data

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sensor data typically lives solely in the IoT Cloud. We realize there are some workflows which required importing data into ServiceNow Tables. For such workflows, we enable a Sensor Data Sync which pulls the latest sensor data from the IoT Cloud into the Asset Attributes Table.

Sensor Synchronization

The sync schedule for the Sensor Data is managed in the IoT_Attributes_Job scheduled job. This can be found in All -> System Definition -> Scheduled Jobs.

In the Run field, select the desired frequency.
- Periodically: Define the time between runs.
- Daily: Define the time of day.
- Weekly: Define the day of the week and time of day.
- Monthly: Define which day of the month and the time of day.
In the field that shows up depending on your choice, fill out the appropriate values according to your desired frequency.
Select Active.
Save the record.

Docs: Auto Registration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

IoT Registration

IoT Registration records will be auto-created by the IoT Cloud as unrecognized Connected Assets are detected, or they can also be created in ServiceNow by an integration or any other automation. As the Auto-Registration Business Rule runs it will try to assign any missing data and then call the IoT Cloud API to Register the Connected Asset. By default, IoT Registration records contain text fields containing the IoT Thing ID and the Gateway ID. A flow must be created to fill in the fields for an Asset record, a Gateway Record, and a Thing Type record based on these two fields. This process will be different for every Client due to different naming conventions and preferences. Once these fields are updated on the record, the Auto-Registration Business Rule will check the record fr any missing data. If there is missing data, the Business Rule will set the Missing Data field to true and will provide details in the Results field. If the necessary fields are not missing, the Business Rule will create a Connected Asset record and register it with the IoT Cloud.

Registration Record with a Missing Asset Field

Successful Registration Record

NOTE

Any update to an IoT Registration record will cause the Auto-Registration Business Rule to check the updated record and attempt to create and register an Asset. For example, manually adding an Asset to an IoT Registration record that is only missing an Asset field will result in the Auto-Registration Business Rule to attempt to create and register a Connected Asset.

Example Auto-Registration Flow

The provided example is not the only way to implement this. As long as the Asset, Gateway, and Thing Type fields are filled in and the IoT Registration record is updated, the Auto-Registration Business Rule will attempt to create and register a Connected Asset.

Example Auto Registration Flow

For the following example implementation for Flow Step 1 above, the Client has a unified naming rule set for all Assets, Connected Assets, and Thing Types as follows:

Connected Asset’s IoT Thing ID’s always begin with the Thing Type name
Asset Tags always start with “P1” (ex: P10001, P10002, P19993, etc)
Connected Asset’s IoT Thing ID’s always have “_P1” followed by the Asset Tag they relate to after the Thing Type name (ex: Brewing_Keg_P10001, Brewing_Keg_P10002, Brewing_Keg_P19993, etc)

Example Auto Registration Flow

Docs: Alert History

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bolt Data Connect is configured to send IoT Alerts from the IoT Cloud to ServiceNow when certain conditions or signals are received from the IoT Connected Assets. These alerts create IoT Alert History records, and can be processed in real time using Flows with Record Created Triggers.

Here is a sample Flow which creates a Work Order that can customize and automate alerts in any way.

Record Create Trigger in Flow Designer

Create Workflow in Flow Designer

Docs: Machine Learning

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Machine Learning in BDC IoT Cloud

The diagram illustrates the integration of Machine Learning (ML) Data Science with a BDC IoT Cloud ecosystem, involving various components responsible for data processing, model training, and IoT operations.

Machine Learning Model Process

The machine learning model process involves data engineering, where raw data is prepared and then stored in a repository. Data scientists build and train machine learning models using this data. The trained ML models generate inferences based on IoT data, enabling the BDC IoT Cloud to manage and automate IoT devices through the Rules-Engine. ServiceNow provides external business integration to align IoT operations with business processes.

Data Pipeline (Data Engineering)

Preprocess Data: Raw data is collected and preprocessed for quality and format consistency by a Data Engineer.
Data Repository: Once preprocessed, the data is stored in a repository, which serves as input for the Model Pipeline.

Model Pipeline (Data Science)

Feature Engineering and Training: The Data Scientist processes data from the repository, applying feature engineering techniques and training machine learning models.
Evaluation: After training, the model undergoes evaluation to ensure its performance on test datasets.

Release Pipeline

The Release Pipeline handles the deployment of the trained and evaluated model. This process includes:
- Deploy: Deploying the model to production infrastructure.
- Approve: Stakeholder approval.
- Profile: Analyzing the model’s performance.
- Validate: Ensuring the model meets functional and performance requirements.
- Package: Packaging the final model for release.
The model is stored in the Model Registry, which serves as a centralized repository for managing and tracking machine learning models. The Model Registry ensures that every version of the model, along with its metadata (such as deployment versions, and associated configurations) is easily accessible for future use or updates.

BDC Data Cloud and ServiceNow

The ML Model developed in the Machine Learning Data Science section produces Model Inferences based on IoT data. These inferences are fed into the BDC IoT Rules-Engine, where they help automate processes within the BDC IoT Cloud by applying decision-making logic.
The interation between ServiceNow and BDC IoT Cloud helps to synchronize customer data, device management, and analytics with business processes.

Bolt Data Connect – IoT Setup

Docs: IoT Settings

Docs: Thing Types

Thing-Type Configuration

Docs: Digital Twins

Digital Twin

Digital Twin Diagram

Docs: Context Data

Global Context Fields

Name Restrictions

Thing-Type IoT Context Fields

Context Synchronization

Remove IoT Context Field

Docs: Sensor Data

Sensor Synchronization

Docs: Auto Registration

IoT Registration

NOTE

Example Auto-Registration Flow

Docs: Alert History

Docs: Machine Learning

Machine Learning Model Process

Data Pipeline (Data Engineering)

Model Pipeline (Data Science)

Release Pipeline

BDC Data Cloud and ServiceNow