Analytics and Visualization

Analytics and visualization are the processing of historical, logged power monitoring data to discover and highlight patterns and relationships. The data is aggregated, transformed, and correlated, and then displayed in a format that makes it possible to understand its meaning. A simple example is a load profile chart, that shows a graphical view of power demand measurements over time. A complex example is a modeling report that shows the delta between an expected, modeled consumption and the actual consumption of a facility over time.

Components

The following applications are used for analytics and visualization:

Dashboards
Reports

For details on how to use these applications see the Operate chapter. For details on how to configure these applications see the Configure chapter.

Prerequisites

The measurement data you want to analyze or visualize must be available in the database as historical data logs. This includes data recorded by the monitoring devices and any third-party data, such as weather measurements, or process measurements, that might be required. Individual reports or dashboard gadgets might have specific requirements that must be met.

The use of some of the reports and gadgets is not included in the BASE license for the system, and requires additional licensing.

Design Considerations

The features related to these applications vary greatly in complexity and input requirements. It is important that you understand the user needs and that you manage the user expectations. There might be a need to provide user training to interpret the visualizations and to get the most value from the results.

Some dashboards and reports require input data from specialized devices, such as high-end power monitoring devices with advanced power quality monitoring capabilities, or advanced breaker monitoring. The required data must be available from the devices in the system to provide the analytics and visualizations.

Some dashboard gadgets and reports require input data that might not be directly monitored and recorded by the software, for example weather data or process data. This data has to be imported into the database. Upfront planning and the use of third-party tools might be required to get this data.

Expect an iterative approach when working with your users to provide the results they are looking for.