10. Advanced Dashboard - Analyse the data of an installation
The VRM Advanced Dashboard offers a number of different widgets/charts with a wide range of parameters and values (depending on the installed devices) and other tools to perform extensive diagnostics of the installation.
The widgets are mostly charts or summaries of data over a selected time period.
Note
Saving advanced widgets is only available to full control users of an installation
To set up widgets, open the Advanced page from the VRM menu sidebar
Click the small control widget button in the top right of the advanced page to get to the widget selection page.
This reveals the widgets available of your system, you can enable or disable them by clicking on them. Once the widgets you want are selected, you can hide the selection menu again by clicking the control widget button
To organise the charts, each widget has a small triangle on the bottom right. It allows dragging and resizing the chart between 3 different column widths. Click and hold the widget in the top to drag it to the preferred position. This way you can visually merge related parameters of different devices when you are looking for a specific issue or want to perform advanced diagnostic.
Use the date picker to quickly select pre-set time ranges or apply a custom time range.
And when everything is set up, lock the widgets by clicking on the lock icon so they can't be accidentally moved.
Tip
Select a larger time frame and then simply click and drag to zoom in on the chart at events of interest.
This is how an advanced widget chart looks:
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Device name and displayed parameters
Legend: By clicking on the individual parameters, the associated plot is hidden. Another click makes it visible again.
A click on the cog wheel reveals additional widget options: Activating the widget, show min - max range values and reset the graph zoom.
Clicking the cross will enlarge the chart to its largest size.
The y-axis is scaled automatically.
The x-axis is scaled automatically as well.
The plot: click & drag into the plot to zoom in on interesting events.
Small triangle: drag and resize the chart.
10.1. Custom widgets
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While the advanced widgets are non-modifiable and predefined by the system, there is an option to create custom widgets and add them to the advanced dashboard.
With custom widgets, system values can be displayed and compared with each other on the same graph, which is particularly helpful for system diagnosis.
The advantages:
To set up a custom widget
Go to the advanced dashboard.
Click the control widget icon in the top right.
Scroll down the list of available widgets to the bottom.
The last widget in the list is called Custom Widget (this is also the place where all custom widgets are stored), click it.
Click the Create custom widget button.
Custom widget options
Custom widget name
This will be shown in the custom widget selection area, and also be the title of the widget when it is enabled
Customisable y-axis (default, individual, or manual range for all)
A customisable y-axis allows for the best representation of your data. The default option will provide the normal automatic range for each parameter. Individual allows you to customise each y-axis with a maximum, minimum and number of interval tick points you would like to see. Manual range for all makes a single y-axis that all parameters share. This can be useful for comparison where you might not need to see the full range of data, such as only showing high voltage range.
Add up to 6 y-axis device parameters in one widget
You can add a maximum of 6 parameters per custom widget. This allows for comparison of voltage and current of each phase of a 3 phase system on a single chart.
Additional parameters/data to choose from beyond the default advanced parameters
There are many undocumented data points collected by VRM that are only available via the custom widget function. Not all are populated with useful data for all systems.
Custom colour labels
Each parameter needs to be assigned a different colour label.
Preview while creating the custom widget
As you make changes and add parameters to your custom widget the preview will be updated in real time.
Editable or deletable at any time once saved
Once saved you can edit or delete your custom widget from the same widget control area that you created it.
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10.2. Solar forecast
In addition to the dashboard estimate, we also have the underlying Solar Irradiance Forecast (W/m²) available as a new advanced VRM widget.
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Like the dashboard, in the ‘Today’ time frame view, this widget operates slightly differently to the rest and will expand out its time x-axis to include the whole 24 hours so you can see the estimate for that day.
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