Understanding the Data Payload Processor (DPP)

The Data Payload Processor (DPP) is a data import and transformation tool that accepts data from multiple sources, transforms it, and writes it to the appropriate database destinations. DPP is highly configurable in terms of its data transformation abilities, and the destinations to which it can write data.

DPP is commonly used to process Historical data from a field device, such as a gas meter, decode it, and insert it into the correct database table for further processing. Since the finer details of data processing vary from protocol to protocol, device, and firmware, DPP's processing actions serve to:

• Offload said details from the protocol to DPP

• De-couple protocol development from gas measurement processing

With a gas meter, a DPP- and gas-enabled protocol polls a flow computer for hourly gas meter and gas quality data. Likewise, for liquid field devices, a DPP-enabled protocol can retrieve information such as completed tickets and batch schedule data. The protocol minimally processes the data into a format readable by DPP, and then places it into the DPP raw queue table. The protocol processing steps involve extracting a few key parameters from the payload, such as time, and adding some additional configuration and command information. Using the supplied information, DPP processes the payload by separating the gas meter information from the gas quality information, and then placing each into the appropriate Gas Measurement table.

If the data payload is in a completely different order from one field device to another, you can create different configurations to process these records.

Inbound data must exist in a specific format, and, at a minimum, must contain two types of data:

• Data to be processed.

• Information on how to process the data.

The following steps are involved in setting up a new DPP configuration:

1. Create the Decode Templates used for the DPP configuration (refer to Create a Decode Template).

2. Create the Decode Define (refer to Create a Decode Define).

3. Configure the Enumerations belonging to the Decode Methods (refer to Add an Enumeration to an Enumeration Method).

4. Install any special protocol-specific handling (refer to Protocols).