Thing Type Editing

Thing-Types define the configuration for Edge Processing.

Top Level Configuration

Label

The label to use for the Thing-Type specification.

Is Active

If a Thing’s Thing-Type is not active (i.e. this option is deselected), the Thing’s data will not be aggregated and every message will be forwarded from the Gateway to the Cloud. It is not recommended to deactivate a Thing-Type that is assigned to Things, except for brief troubleshooting; otherwise, it could potentially result in higher costs and missed Alerts.

Sample Message

Used to auto-populate the Sensors section of the Thing-Type Specification.

Aggregate Type

Determines when to send the aggregated messages. It can be configured to “None”, “Seconds”, or “Count”.

• None: Forward every message received from the device to the cloud.
• Seconds: Aggregate the last N seconds of Thing data, where N is defined by the Aggregate Interval field.
• Count: Aggregate the last N messages from a Thing, where N is defined by the Aggregate Interval field.

Aggregate Interval

Used in conjunction with the Aggregate Type field to determine the frequency of aggregation performed on the Gateway.

Offline Timeout (Seconds)

Used to determine if a Thing is offline. If a device has not communicated in the time specified in this field, then an Offline Alert is sent to ServiceNow.

Sensor Settings

Include Undefined Sensors

When not selected any unrecognized sensor value(s) will be trimmed from the messages before processing

Enable Sensor Type Conversion

When selected the raw sensor values will be convereted into the Data Types specified below

Digital Twin Children

See the Digital Twins page for details on configuring this section.

Sensors

This section defines all the Sensors for the Thing-Type. Note if you have a sample message in JSON format, you can paste the message in the Sample Message field and select Parse to auto-fill the Sensors section.

Label

The display name of the sensor data on plots.

Sensor Name

The name of the field in the actual Thing’s data message.

Data Type

Specifies the type of data expected from each Sensor.

Aggregate Function

Determines how the data is aggregated in the Gateway.

• NONE: Use the last received value as the value for the Sensor for Calculations, Alerts, and Cloud updates.
• SUM: Sum all values received during the Aggregate Interval as the value for the Sensor for Calculations, Alerts, and Cloud updates.
• AVG: Average all values received during the Aggregate Interval as the value for the Sensor for Calculations, Alerts, and Cloud updates.
• MIN: Use the minimum of all values received during the Aggregate Interval as the value for the Sensor for Calculations, Alerts, and Cloud updates.
• MAX: Use the maximum of all values received during the Aggregate Interval as the value for the Sensor for Calculations, Alerts, and Cloud updates.

Context Fields

Context Fields are configured in the Context Data Setup Page.

ML Models

This section defines all the ML Models available on a Gateway. These Models have been developed by a Data Scientist and uploaded to the BDC IoT Cloud. NOTE: This section is only available on Gateway Thing Types.

See Machine Learning for more information.

Label

The label to use for the Calculated Field.

Model Name

The unique name of the model.

Input Features

The features required by this model. These will be mapped in the ML Inferences.

Model Parameters

Configuration values for the model itself.

ML Inferences

This section defines all the ML Inference Fields for a Thing-Type. Each of these represent a result of executing an ML Model with a set of input values from IoT Sensors.

Label

The label to use for the ML Inference field.

Name

The name of the ML Inference field. It’s also the name referenced by other Calculations and Alerts.

Model

The ML Model (defined on the corresponding Gateway Thing Type) that will be executed.

Data Type

Determines the assumed data type for the result of the Calculation.

Formula

The mapping of Model Input Features to IoT Sensor values.

Calculated Fields

This section defines all the Calculated Fields for a Thing-Type. All Sensor data is aggregated prior to computing the Calculated Fields. It can be assumed that all Sensor data is up-to-date in conformance with the aggregation settings defined by each Sensor.

Label

The label to use for the Calculated Field.

Field Name

The name of the field when this calculation is sent to the Cloud. It’s also the name referenced by other Calculations and Alerts.

Data Type

Determines the assumed data type for the result of the Calculation.

Formula

The actual formula to evaluate. The formula should be any Javascript statement that returns an assignable value. The formula can use any Sensor, Calculated Field, or Context Field in the computation. Sensor values are available in the sensor namespace (e.g. sensor.sensorABC), other Calculated Fields are available in the calculation namespace (e.g. calculation.calcABC), and Context Fields are available in the context namespace (e.g. context.contextABC).

Alert Conditions

This section defines all the Alert Conditions for a Thing-Type. Alerts are a special subset of Calculated Fields. Alerts are computed after all Calculated Fields have been computed, so it can be assumed that all Calculated Fields are using the most recent data. The result of the Alert calculation should be a boolean value, True if an Alert should be sent to ServiceNow, False otherwise.

Label

The label to use for the Alert Condition.

Condition Name

The name of the field when this alert is sent to the Cloud.

Alert Type

Determines the type of Alert sent to ServiceNow. Each Alert sent to ServiceNow will include this Alert Type, which can be used in your Processes to take actions (like update the IoT Thing Status for a given Thing).

Alert Interval / Units

Determines how often this Alert is re-broadcasted. If the Alert condition has persisted longer than the amount of time specified by this field, the Alert will be sent to ServiceNow again to retrigger any automated processes. It is recommended to keep the Alert Interval at rather large values to avoid retriggering your processes.

Formula

The actual formula to evaluate. The formula should be a Javascript statement, and can use any Sensor or Calculated Field in the calculation. The formula should result in a boolean value; It will be evaluated as if it’s boolean — i.e. if the value is “falsy” it will result in no Alert. Otherwise it will result in an Alert. Sensor values are available in the sensor namespace (e.g. sensor.sensorABC), Calculated Fields are available in the calculation namespace (e.g. calculation.calcABC), Context Fields are available in the context namespace (e.g. context.contextABC), and other Alert Conditions are available in the alert namespace (e.g. alert.alertABC).

{
 "sensor": {
  "SensorA": 39
 },
 "alert": {
  "DeviceThawed": false
 }
}

{
 sensor: {
  "SensorA": 41
 },
 alert: {
  "DeviceThawed": true
 }
}

{
 "sensor": {
  "SensorA": 39
 },
 "calculation": {
  CalcA: "Cold"
 },
 "alert": {
  "DeviceCold": true
 }
}

Sample Result

This field is automatically calculated based on the formula entered using the data provided in the sample message to populate the sensor and calculation namespaces.

Formula Editor

The Formula Editor Page now helps in writing formulas (both Calculated Fields and Alert Conditions). It allows the user to select data pills for any sensor, calculated field, digital twin value, function, or operator and copy them to the clipboard. The user can then paste the value anywhere in their formula field.

{
 sensor: {
  "SensorA": 40,
  "SensorB": 2
 },
 calculation: {
  "CalcA": 42
 }
}

{
 sensor: {
  "SensorA": 39
 },
 calculation: {
  "ColdState": "Cold"
 }
}

{
 "sensor": {
  "SensorA": 41
 },
 "calculation": {
  "ColdState": "Not Cold"
 }
}.

Sample Result

This field is automatically calculated based on the formula entered using the data provided in the sample message to populate the sensor and calculation namespace.