Data sources

Welcome! This is a short demo of the Data Source object within the AVEVA Insight BI Gateway Model Builder.

BI Gateway retrieves data from external data sources and provides this data to the reporting, analysis, and other visualization tools at the enterprise level.

Data sources are the external source systems to which you can map the dimensions and measure fields in the BI Gateway model at run time.

Let us look at how to add a data source.

We will begin with a data source with a custom query that sustains static dimension population.

The main purpose is to retrieve the asset collection from Insight Asset Model, which is specifically called the Common Intelligent Model (CIM).

In detail, we are looking to retrieve the list of assets configured through the Insight MES User Interface which are used for tracking operational utilization and OEE.

Go to the Floating Action Button (FAB) and click Data Source.

A new data source appears.

Let us call this one 'Generic REST API’.

Select Generic REST API as the Data Adapter type, and Bearer Token as the authentication type.

Fill in the URL and Token fields.

You can retrieve this information from the Insight Solution.

The whole URL is split into two parts called the base URL and the ItemPath.

It is recommended to test the URL from an external tool such as Postman in order to properly address the different query parameters available as per the API endpoint.

Go to the Custom Queries tab and click the pencil icon, and then the + icon to create a custom query, which we will call ‘Asset'.

The query syntax is structured through four parts – the method, itempath, queryparameter, and APIType.

The adapter supports only the ‘get’ method.

Click the toggle button Preview Data to see the result set that the query returns.

As you can see, the data comes as a table result.

Let us now add a data source with a custom query that populates time defining dimension.

The main purpose is to retrieve the utilization recorded as per each asset and subsequently populate the time-defining dimension with the event definition such as Asset ID, and utilization event starttime and endtime.

Once again, go to the Floating Action Button (FAB), and click Data Source.

A new data source appears.

Let us call this one 'Insight'.

Select AVEVA Insight as the Data Adapter type.

Fill in the URL and Key fields.

You can retrieve this information from the Insight Solution.

In the Custom Queries tab, click the pencil icon and then the + icon to create a custom query 'UtilizationEvents'.

The query syntax is structured through few parts. Some parts are optional.

The query name should be configured with the API targeted endpoint.

The SelectColumn filter addresses the data source field that needs to be returned.

The Filter part conditions how to filter out the data.

The two parameters [RequestedStartTime] and [RequestedEndTime] within squared brackets are used as placeholders during execution for leveraging the incremental update mechanism.

It is recommended to filter the data from UtilizationEvents endpoint as per the LastModified datetime field.

Click the toggle button Preview Data to see the result set that the query returns. As you can see, the data comes as a table result.

Let us now add a custom query under the same data source 'Insight'.

This custom query supplies measure calculations.

The main purpose is to compute calculation leveraging Insight advanced retrieval mode, which means that is operated on the API side, such as the quantity of semi-finished goods measured by a flow meter.

The assigned tagnames should have a time-based engineering unit such as kg/h.

Click the pencil icon in the Custom Queries tab, and then the + icon.

Add the custom query ‘AnalogSummary’.

The query syntax is structured through two main parts: the main query and the nested query.

Let’s start with the nested query: It retrieves the eligible collection of tags that match the filter condition.

Upon the Insight tagname configuration change, new configured tags are dynamically considered during the next execution.

The query name should be configured with the API targeted endpoint.

The SelectColumn filter addresses the data source field that needs to be returned.

The SelectColumn also supports field aliasing.

The Filter part conditions how to filter out the data.

The two parameters [RequestedStartTime] and [RequestedEndTime] within squared brackets are used as placeholders during execution for time slicing measure calculations.

You can preview your data by clicking on the Preview Data toggle button.

The query returns the integral calculation as per the list of tags within the specified StartDateTime and EndDateTime period.