Visualize - Data Visualization Overview
The Visualize stage is where the readings you have collected become something a person can watch. ControlCom Connect gives you three views onto the same Device Variables: Dashboards for values and trends, Diagrams for live drawings of the system, and the Map for site status by location.
Introduction
Visualize comes after Connect, Collect, Store and Analyze in the ControlCom Connect data workflow. By this point your Devices are publishing, their Variables are being stored, and you may have already queried them in Platform Explorer. Every view described here binds to those Variables, so anything you can see in Explorer can be put on a screen.
All three views live under the Visualization group in the sidebar, next to each other: Dashboards, Diagrams and Map.
Video Overview
The video below walks through the Visualize stage in the app. Part of the Visualize stage in the ControlCom Connect data workflow.
The sections that follow cover the same ground in text.
Visualization Types
Platform Dashboards
A Dashboard is a grid of widgets assembled in the dashboard editor and published to your Organization. Widgets bind to Device Variables and show current values, historical trends and equipment states as readings arrive, with gauges, charts and status indicators to choose from. Dashboards answer "what are the numbers right now" and "how have they looked over the last hours or days", which makes them the usual choice for operations screens, KPI tracking and trend comparison. Access follows the Organization's roles, so different teams can be given different boards.
Read the Dashboards overview for the widget types and layout options, or go straight to creating a dashboard.
Platform Diagrams
A Diagram is an interactive, SCADA-style drawing. You build it from a library of equipment symbols and shapes, connect the symbols with lines, and bind elements to Device Variables so the drawing shows live values and reacts to what the equipment is doing. Where a Dashboard shows the numbers, a Diagram shows where in the system those numbers come from. Diagrams suit electrical distribution, generator and utility monitoring, process flow, and control system documentation.
Read the Diagrams overview for elements, symbols and live-data bindings, or start with creating a diagram.
The Map
The Map plots every Location that has coordinates on a full-screen map and colors each site by its live alarm state. Selecting a site opens its active Alarms and monitored Variables beside the map, with links through to that site's dashboard and diagram. Weather overlays put an incident in the context of the storm that may have caused it. There is nothing to build: give your Locations coordinates and they appear.
Read the Map page for the panel, filters and weather layers.
When to Use Each Type
The three views answer different questions, so the choice usually follows from what the person at the screen needs to know.
Use a Dashboard when the question is about values: several metrics side by side, a trend over time, a comparison between periods, or a summary for someone who does not need the wiring. Dashboards also fit phones and tablets, so they are the view for anyone checking in away from the control room.
Use a Diagram when the question is about the system itself: how equipment is connected, which breaker feeds which load, where in the process a reading sits. If the site already has a one-line drawing, the Diagram is that drawing with live data on it.
Use the Map when your equipment is spread across more than one site and the first question during an incident is which site is affected. Geography and weather are part of the answer there in a way they are not on a Dashboard.
Most Organizations use all three together. A typical arrangement is a Diagram for the control room, Dashboards for operations and management, and the Map for a fleet of sites, with the Map's site panel linking into the other two.
Getting Started
Visualize needs data to work with. Before building anything, confirm that your Devices are Connected and publishing, that the Variables you want to show have Store Data enabled if you need history, and that values are arriving on the device's Variables tab. If you are unsure which Variables matter, a short session in Platform Explorer in the Analyze stage is the quickest way to find out.
From there, open Visualization in the sidebar and pick the view that matches the question above. Dashboards and Diagrams each have a creation guide, and the Map only needs coordinates on your Locations.
Once a Dashboard or Diagram is published, anyone in the Organization whose role allows it can open it. The next stage, Report, builds on the same Variables: see Reports for scheduled, formatted output of what you have put on screen here.