Measurements

what is a measurement? a measurement represents a specific piece of data collected from your equipment or process (e g a temperature, speed, pressure, or production count), and stored in factry historian think of a measurement as a named stream of values over time why does it matter? measurements are the main data input in the historian they allow you to track, visualize, and analyze your process in a meaningful way every chart you see or calculation you make, starts with one or more measurements how does it fit in the system? measurements are configured on collectors docid\ wp81bftwmpuk gfimcj6u the collectors will retrieve that data from the data source and send it to the historian each measurement has a name (e g , line1 temperature) a datatype (e g number, boolean, string) a destination database (see time series databases docid\ h4js6gcabog53kbawgyua ) a configuration specific to the collector's datasource, for example an nodeid in the case of opc ua a jsonpath in the case of mqtt with json payload and can optionally have a description metadata (e g units of measure, hi/lo boundaries, min/max scaling) tags & labels docid\ zb70hnsdfnj3sj42myjxi here’s the flow measurements can also feed into calculations docid\ opiodkgnngyjedx6zkg d (e g , to average temperature over an hour) events docid 0ith2zlcais5yywhsdtje (e g , if rpm > threshold, trigger the start of a batch) example on a reactor, you might collect these measurements reactor1 filllevel the liquid level in a reactor reactor1 speed the rpm of the agitator reactor1 temperature the temperature of the reactor medium each is a separate measurement tracked over time, and will have measurement name a value (e g 72°c) a timestamp (e g 2025 07 17 14 35 03) a quality tag (e g good, bad) when you use it you interact with measurements when naming and mapping data to collect from your equipment viewing real time or historical trends in dashboards configuring events or calculations that use measurements usually, measurements are defined during system setup and referenced throughout the system later when new data sources are added, or new data is needed to feed a particular use case, new measurements are added common misconceptions a measurement is not a single data point, it’s a time series (a sequence of values over time) you don’t need to create measurements manually one by one they are often bulk imported at system setup or afterwards, and can be created automatically when data arrives in the case of mqtt sparkplug b, but you should still validate their naming and units a measurement is not tied permanently to one device you could remap it if needed, though with care to preserve history best practices use clear, consistent names that reflect what the signal actually represents (e g , line motor temperature instead of temp1) document units of measure explicitly validate the data and the signal quality when commissioning don’t assume the device is sending good data more information naming conventions and best practices docid\ elxtj0bpaoccpuhk9mszg creating a measurement docid\ u5 07ylms2jix9kz m lb importing measurements in bulk docid\ g5wek8z fipxau2ymzirz