When speaking of a Portal or a Cloud, most people think of a website with graphs or a remote repository that costs money. And it is often the case. However, SensDesk by HW group is not just a portal or a cloud; it is primarily a unified measuring and control center for HW group products. SensDesk gives a quick overview of sensor states, displays a history of measured values, and allows creating simple conditions to trigger alarm actions such as sending an e-mail or a text message or activating a remote output. Its main advantage is the unified presentation of information from many different sensors and detectors in a human-readable and a machine-readable form.

 

The SensDesk portal offers features for home users, small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), as well as large enterprises and corporations. For homes and small offices, it is often enough to monitor the current states of sensors and detectors, and to be able to download the past temperature or consumption values (or to receive an e-mail if a value is out of an allowed range). Larger clients put emphasis on the integration of independent monitoring with existing systems. This can be complex, and thus expensive, because different measuring devices provide data in different formats – either for legacy reasons, or due to the particularities of the measured quantities. In these cases, SensDesk provides the most value – it makes data from different sensors and devices available in a unified and serialized XML file format.  

Basic SensDesk features

• A simple and concise Dashboard provides an overview of only those sensors that are interesting for the user. Multiple custom Dashboards with different contents can be defined. For example, the IT department would only watch the data that is relevant for them, and so would the power engineers.
• Independent Safe Ranges can be set for each sensor for the purposes of e-mail alerts. Support for HWg-SMS-GW3 in order to send alerts via text messages (SMS).
• An overview of devices and sensors that can be sorted by the status (Normal, alarm, invalid) or by the unit of measurement.
• Devices and sensors can be grouped according to their physical (Locations) or logical (Groups) place.
• Graphs of measured values for individual values (sorted by the measured quantities) as well as for individual sensors; data can be exported to CSV, XML, PDF, SVG, PNG or JPG
• Custom graphs combining different quantities can be created to watch for interdependencies.
• Advanced user management with a simple administration can assign individual users only the permissions they need. Individual users are grouped under a Team.
• Permission groups to assign users the rights to individual devices. While the User management restricts what the user can do, the Permission group restricts the resources that the user works with.
• Export of current values to XML is available for all values belonging to a team as well as for individual dashboards and graphs, and provides for an easy integration with ERP systems.
• SensDesk Technology can be used as either free HWg-cloud.com or paid SensDesk.com platform operated by HW group, platform by another portal provider, or on the customer’s premises using a virtual server.

There is no need to list the common features of all portals, such as the ability to display the readings from individual sensors and detectors and plot their history in a graph.

SensDesk unifies measurement and control

SensDesk integrates the monitoring and control of all types of HWg devices, including the communication among them. All settings are done in the SensDesk portal.

In SMB and home applications, monitoring is easy to install given the small number of devices and locations and the simplicity of user permissions. However, infrastructure maintenance projects and large-scale deployments need to access the data in SensDesk through various extensions and third-party monitoring applications.

Advanced functions of the portal include the integration and mutual control among all types of HWg devices.

Monitoring center – Alarm messages and the control of other devices

The SensDesk portal can be used to quickly set up the communication among all types of HW group devices. It is the most effective way to establish feedback between HWg sensors and actuators.

As already mentioned, SensDesk allows to set a Safe Range for each sensor or detector and trigger an alarm action whenever this range is exceeded. The action can be the sending of an e-mail or a text message (HWg-SMS-GW3 required). Another possible action is the activation of an output at one of the monitored devices. For example, if there is a water leak from an air conditioning or heating system at your Prague site, another device in the monitoring center in London can close its contact to sound a warning horn. While the boxes themselves are capable of doing that, by using SensDesk as the monitoring and control center, equipment and installation costs can be significantly reduced. With SensDesk, HW group devices of different product lines can be integrated; for instance, a HWg-WLD water leak detector can control an output of a SD-2xOut device, without a Poseidon2 or Damocles2 unit that would be required for a direct connection. The purchase price of a SD-2xOUT device comes to about 30% of the cheapest Damocles2 product – the Damocles2 MINI.

Smart devices offer completely autonomous operation but their installation requires qualified, and thus expensive personnel.

Single-purpose devices can be pre-configured at the company headquarters and then sent to wherever they are needed. The administration takes place completely via the SensDesk portal.

   

The SensDesk portal also simplifies the installation. It enables bidirectional communication without the need to configure network equipment or to tunnel ports. In order to control a device from another one, if the devices are not connected directly to the Internet with public IP addresses, routers need to be specially configured. The SensDesk portal makes things simple - all devices communicate with SensDesk only, and the portal is in the public Internet.

In case of M2M communication, the communication port must always remain open on the target router / firewall, which requires the intervention of a network specialist.	Access to individual devices from the external network (Internet) is also uncomfortable with direct connections, as communication ports need to be open on the destination router / firewall (one port per device), which requires the intervention of a network specialist.
When SensDesk is used as an intermediary, there is a slight slowdown in communication, but there is no need to interfere with the network infrastructure, which increases the security of both the application and the rest of the network.	By using the portal solution for setting up the behavior, Saferange and other target application parameters, the security of not only the application but also of the rest of the network is again increased. This method is very user-friendly, and what is more important, it remains the same across different products.

Interoperability of HW group devices when using direct connections

Local Condition	Controlled	Poseidon2 3268	Poseidon2 4002	Poseidon2 3468	Damocles2 MINI	Damocles2 1208	Damocles2 2404	Ares12	SD-2xOUT	IP WatchDog2 Lite	IP WatchDog2 Industrial
Controlling
Poseidon2 3266
Poseidon2 3268
Poseidon2 4002
Poseidon2 3468
Damocles2 MINI
Damocles2 1208
Damocles2 2404
Ares12 (LTE)
HWg-PWRxx
SD-2x1Wire
SD-2xIn
SD-WLD
HWg-STE Plus
STE2
HWg-WLD
WLD2
IP WatchDog Lite
IP WatchDog Industrial

Using SensDesk as a communication center

Push protocol	Controlled	Poseidon2 3268	Poseidon2 4002	Poseidon2 3468	Damocles2 MINI	Damocles2 1208	Damocles2 2404	Ares12	SD-2xOUT	IP WatchDog2 Lite	IP WatchDog2 Industrial
Controlling
Poseidon2 3266
Poseidon2 3268
Poseidon2 4002
Poseidon2 3468
Damocles2 MINI
Damocles2 1208
Damocles2 2404
Ares12
SD-2x1Wire
HWg-PWRxx
SD-2xIn
SD-WLD
HWg-STE Plus
STE2
HWg-WLD
WLD2
IP WatchDog Lite
IP WatchDog Industrial

Values.xml – Export of measured values and connecting to third-party software

Different HW group devices may generate different XML data formats. When using SensDesk, the output XML for a master system looks like a single device with many sensors.

Many companies now use a monitoring or information system, such as Nagios or another NMS in the IT sector, or PRTG in facility management. Integration of new devices into existing systems is expensive, and system managers are often reluctant to implement more than one device or protocol. However, different devices cannot have the same communication protocol due to the different nature of the measured quantities, or simply due to technical evolution. SensDesk allows to integrate all HW group devices into a single system with a unified XML format; for a master system, Sensdesk behaves as a single device with many sensors. For the user, there are values.XML files available for the whole Team (containing the current readings from all sensors and detectors) as well as for individual dashboards. The XML files can be accessed with http username/password authentication or with a URL containing an authentication key. For more details about the XML format, see the protocol description.

Other interesting SensDesk features

Dashboard

The Dashboard is a signpost and control center. It allows to get quick overview about how many sensors are OK and how many are in alarm, not reporting or turned off.
A single click leads to the list of such sensors. A significant advantage is the ability to create custom Dashboards, for instance displaying only devices that relate to a particular process or technology area (e.g. only refrigerators, only freezers, or only electricity consumption). With a custom Dashboard, users do not have to waste time figuring out whether a sensor in alarm belongs to their area of responsibility, and instead concentrate on their work.

Groups and Locations

Groups and Locations can be used to logically structure the network according to users’ needs.

When a user has more than just a couple of devices in SensDesk, it is usually a good idea to group related devices together. For this purpose, SensDesk uses Groups and Locations. Both of these features allow to group related devices together; however, the usage is different. Locations relate to physical locations of devices (Prague, New York, 1st floor etc.), while Groups relate to logical groupings (servers, engineering, etc.). This is reflected in different behavior. Only an entire device can be assigned to a Group. At the same time, one device can belong to several Groups. On the other hand, one device can belong to only one Location. However, Locations can be broken down to Sublocations, where individual sensors can be assigned.

Graphs

SensDesk allows you to create graphs that combine sensors and measured values in order to display critical process values simultaneously.

Any portal solution includes graphing features. SensDesk can generate graphs for individual sensors or detectors as well as a quick device-level overview. There, the graphs are separated according to the unit of measurement so that the rendering of different quantities is not mixed up in a single graph. However, the added value of SensDesk is the ability to create graphs with multiple sensors regardless of the unit of measurement. This allows to easily visualize and monitor interdependencies of quantities and values. For example, it can be found out that a temperature drop in a room was caused by an open door or a rise in humidity. Rising costs of laundry drying may be caused by high external temperature. And so on. These and many other pieces of information can be very useful to save operational costs or as an early warning about possible malfunctions.

What is Teams and User Management

Devices and device groups can be displayed to selected users, and data tracking, control and device administration functions can be separated.

In order to efficiently and securely share data among several users, these users need to be grouped under a Team. Usually, a Team would be a company; it can also be an interest group or just a company department. A Team has an owner that can add users and set their roles. A Team is also subject to all limits and restrictions applied at the portal level. Push parameters, including PUSH login and PUSH password, also apply to a Team as a whole. Therefore, the devices do not belong to an individual user anymore; they belong to the Team. This greatly simplifies the situation when responsible people change in the company. A serialized output of all values in a XML file is also available for every Team.

Types of user roles

• UM: Team admin – Has all the privileges to work with the Team. The admin can add users, add devices, set alarms or add dashboards and graphs.
• UM: Device admin – May add and configure individual devices and sensors, and obviously view the measured values. In combination with the Permission groups function, these users may be restricted to working with selected devices only, in order to increase system security as well as simplify the work of individual users.
• UM: Report admin – Reserved for future use. The Report admin will be able to configure and edit reports, such as overviews of the measured values, displayed data and so on.
• UM: Visitor – Can only view data.