Data Linking / Binding

Data linking (also known in ARDI as 'Binding') is the process of linking your properties to external data, such as a historian or live source.

Each property on each asset can be connected to a different live and/or historical source for every context you have.

Before you can link to data, you'll need one or more data sources created. These are assets that represent external sources of data.

Once you've got a data source, you can….

First, Find the asset you want to connect and open the property detail page.

Find the property you'd like to connect to live data, and press on the 'chain' ( ) icon. This takes you to the page that allows you to connect data to the selected property.

Now, choose the type (live / historical) and context that you want to set up. Most often, you'll be linking to Actual Live and Actual Historical.

Pick a data source from the droplist (the list will only contain those data sources appropriate for your chosen time-frame and context) to connect the property to external data. Depending on the Drivers being used, you might be asked to provide some additional information (lookup value, field name, IP address, memory register etc.).

Once you've saved the information, the relevant drivers are restarted.

Some information comes from the driver in a very raw state - this is usually very true of the Modbus protocol, where in the hardware every value is often scaled between 0 and 65535.

When dealing with that sort of data source, Transforms can be useful for making the value more human-readable.

The 'Edit Transform' button only appears once you've created the link between your property and your external source.