Skip to content

Getting Started with ADP Cloud#

A flow consists of modules that are connected together to specify the sequence of operations to apply to your data. Data is represented by messages and each module will process messages as soon as they arrive, perform some action and typically produce a new or modified message on its output, which is then processed by the next module(s). A flow starts with one or several input modules. These can be internal sources, like time triggers or data generators, but also connectors to external systems, such as APIs, databases and PLCs. Next, you will have one or several modules to do something with the input messages. Finally, you deliver the results to an output module, where the messages leave the flow. A flow operates like a pipeline, so multiple messages can be process simultaneously in different modules.

Each module needs to be configured for a specific use case. For input and output modules, the main thing is to configure how to connect to the external systems. For analytics modules that receives and process messages, there are two main categories of settings:

  • Which data to use? Messages are typically structured objects with properties and values, so you need to tell the module which data to use as input and where to store the result in the output message.
  • The second type of settings for analytics modules controls how the actual processing will be done on the selected data. For example, which mathematical expression to apply or setting limits in a range filter.

Flows are created and managed on the Flow Studio visual designer. Each flow can have multiple versions, but only one version is editable at any time. Once a flow is deployed to an ADP Edge node, it becomes locked. If you want to make changes, a new version must be created. This is to ensure that you don’t have a flow with the same name running on multiple ADP Edge nodes but doing different things. Versioning also helps you keeping track of when and what changes that have been introduced on your ADP Edge nodes.

Create Your First Flow#

  1. In the ADP Edge main window, click Flow Studio.
  2. On the top right of the Flow Studio, click and give the new flow a name and a description. If you like, under Category, select a category or click CREATE CATEGORY to create a new one. Under Share, select the desired option for sharing the flow.
  3. Click Create.
    ⇒ A flow is created and the Flow Studio editor is opened.

  4. The starting point is a library of pre-built modules, available on the left side of the editor by clicking . There are three categories of modules:

    • Input Modules - that gets data from external sources, such as sensors and PLCs.
    • Analytics Modules - that processes the data in some way or specifies conditional triggers based on the data.
    • Output Modules - that delivers processed data or triggers to external systems.

    We will start by adding an input module to our flow. Find the Balluff IOL Master Receiver module in the list and drag and drop in the main page. This module represents in the ADP Cloud a master connected in the system. This means that data from all devices connected there can be further processed with the help of the module.

  5. Each module has some settings that typically must be set to achieve the desired processing. To change the module setting, hover the mouse over the module and click cog wheel icon on the module:
    ⇒ The Module Settings dialog opens:

    This dialog has three tabs: - Settings - Module-specific settings. - Common - Settings that are available on all modules. For example, you can change the name shown on a module in the flow. All modules also have a message filter which can be used to select which messages that should be processed. - Documentation - Documentation on the module and its settings.

  6. Click on the newly added Balluff IOL Master Receiver module and then the Settings tab. Now you need to add the relevant settings for the Balluff IOL Master Receiver. For this example, enter the MAC Address.

    Note

    You can copy the MAC Address from the Overview:

  7. Under Selected Port Properties click + to add a property:

    For Property, enter the ID. The ID can also be copied from the ADP Edge WebUI. There is a copy button next to each process data byte that copies the ID when clicked.

  8. Now we will add a Split module and two Balluff Smart Light Sender modules.

  9. Now we have to perform the settings for the modules. In this example, we set up the splitter module. The Balluff SmartLight should display a red light if the sensor value is above 25 and a green light if the sensor value is equal or less than 25. Open the Module Settings dialog, and enter the first unique group name Red, and click ADD GROUP. You can now add the settings for this condition group (Source Property, Operator, Value, and Type). Enter the second unique group name Green, click ADD GROUP, and enter the settings accordingly.
    The settings tab should now look like below:

  10. To connect the modules, hover the mouse pointer above the right-hand circle of a module, press the left mouse button and drag the connection line to the left-hand circle of the module to be connected. The flow should now look like below:

  11. Now it is time to save your flow. Click Save in the bottom-right corner to save the flow. Next step is to test your flow, see Test Your IIoT Flow.

Test Your IIoT Flow#

You now have a flow and in most cases you want to first test your flow before actually deploying it. This can be done by setting up an interactive session from within the Flow Studio editor. This will temporarily deploy your flow on a selected ADP Edge node and lets you use the tools within the editor to test your flow.

Follow these steps to setup an interactive session:

  1. In the Flow Studio, click to open the debug panel.

  2. On the Connect tab, open the Sandboxes section and click Connect.

    ⇒ Once connected you will see the ADP Edge node name to the right above the debug panel, together with start and stop buttons.

  3. Start the flow by clicking on the start button in the upper right corner. The flow will now be downloaded by the selected ADP Edge node, which is a sandbox in our case, and when the ADP Edge node has started executing the flow, the debug panel switches to the Debug tab.

  4. The Debug tab is where you can see messages produced by your modules. You choose from which modules you want to see messages by toggling the debug state on each module. Hover with the mouse over a module and click on the debug button to toggle debugging on/off. Enable debugging on the Balluff IOL Master Receiver and Split modules. You should now see the messages from these two modules in the debug panel.

    ⇒ Now you have built and tested your first flow. The final step is to deploy a flow permanently into a the ADP Edge node.

Deploy Your Flow#

These steps do not apply to a sandbox. You cannot deploy a flow to a sandbox.

In order to be able to deploy a flow, you first need to have registered your ADP Edge nodes.

To deploy a flow, open the Flow page. Right-click the 3-dot menu for the version of the flow you want to deploy, and select Manage Deployments. This will open a dialog where you can select the ADP Edge node you want to deploy the flow on. Deploying flows creates a job that the ADP Edge node will find and execute the next time it connects to the cloud service.

This means that it may take some time before the action is applied, depending on the polling interval used by the ADP Edge node (default 10 seconds). The status of the deployment is shown in the Nodes panel to the right of the version table. If you don’t see this panel, click in the Nodes column on the version you deployed.

This procedure is useful for deploying to a single ADP Edge node. If you want to deploy the same flow to multiple ADP Edge nodes, you can do this from the Nodes page, see Deploying Flows From The Nodes Page.