Spacewell Energy platform On-Boarding Guide

In this tutorial, you will learn how to start working with the EMS platform without needing to have your own data on the platform yet. This guide contains the 6 essential steps that must be followed to start working with data.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Create an account
• Register data sources
• Start sending data 
• Create the location hierarchy 
• Accept devices (Data points)
• Assign devices to locations

Introduction

In this diagram, you can see the flow you should follow to set up your account in Spacewell Energy. Each essential step is represented here along with where to find it on the platform. This means step 1 is found in account settings; steps 2, 3, and 5 in the Data Sources menu; steps 4 and 6 in the Locations menu. Don’t worry, we will guide you through the menus to help you find what you need.

So... where to start? If you haven’t created an account yet (and have super admin permissions), go to step 1. If not, go directly to step 2.

Create an account

The first thing you should do when entering Spacewell Energy for the first time is to create an account. We recommend using the guide found in this support article. However, the main steps are:

Steps

1. Go to account management.
2. Click on create a new account. 
3. Enter the account name.
4. Choose a Professional DP license.
5. Click to accept   

Register a data source

Once the account is created, the next step is to add a data source. Data sources are our essential data origins. They are linked to all kinds of meters that obtain data from the field. Since meters do not have the capability to send data, these are imported into Spacewell Energy through data sources.

Steps 

To register a data source, follow these steps: 

1. Go to settings at the top right of the screen. 
2. Click on the "Data Sources" menu. 
3. Click on "Register new data source".
4. Choose a virtual data source. Below you will see how to complete the fields.
5. Configure the virtual data source. 
   1. Name: Enter a name for the data source.
   2. Key: Enter a key for the data source. The key is the identifier of the data source within the platform, so it must be unique.
   3. Choose the time zone.
   4. Click Save.
6. Once the data source is created, it will appear in the data sources menu. 

Start sending data

The first key step to analysing your data is to insert it into the Spacewell Energy platform. Possibly, until now, your devices are not yet inserting data or you only have some values. So, while you work on this topic, we want to help you learn more about Spacewell Energy. For this reason, in this article, we provide you with data that you can upload directly to the platform. You can download two Excel files (attached in the article) with six months of data for eight different devices. The energy sources included are active energy, exported energy, gas, and water.

To upload the Excel files to the platform, you should follow these steps:

Steps

1. Download the Excel files. 
2. Go to the virtual device you have created and click edit.
3. Go to insert Excel.
4. Click on new data import. 
5. Click on select a file and choose the ones you have downloaded from this article.
6. Click on view data.
7. Click on import data.
8. Wait until the file status is processed (we recommend refreshing the page). 

Create a location hierarchy

Once we have inserted data into Spacewell Energy, it is time to place it following the project structure.

Locations are the units that Spacewell Energy uses to organise the inserted data and display it in a defined way. They normally represent Cities, Factories, Buildings, Floors, Apartments, Rooms... depending on the project. Click here for more information on how to set up locations, and feel free to ask us for recommendations to optimise the hierarchy according to the account type.

There are 3 different types of locations: Zone, Location and Sublocation:

An example of a location hierarchy could be:

Steps

For the purposes of this article, we will create 2 locations. Once the tutorial is finished, you can delete these locations and create your own. For now, follow these steps: 

1. Go to Locations in the settings menu at the top right.
2. Click on new location.
3. Configure the location by completing the information. Check the required information in the image attached below. Here you will see the fields you must complete before saving the configuration.
4. Enter the address information. Click place on map to ensure it is the correct address.
5. Click Save.
6. Repeat steps 2 to 5 for the second location.
7. This is how your locations page should look after creating the two locations:

Location information that must be completed

Location fields  

Accept devices from the data source

After creating the location hierarchy, the devices created in the data source must be accepted. To do this, you must go back to data sources (in the left menu of the settings page). Then, click edit on the virtual data source you created in step 2. 

Spacewell Energy shows newly detected devices in a pop-up at the bottom left of the screen. Once you receive this message, follow these steps:

Steps

1. Go to the Data Sources menu.
2. Click on the virtual data source created in step 2.
3. Go to devices.
4. Under Devices pending classification you will see devices waiting to be accepted. In orange, the number of data points that have been inserted.
5. Click accept all devices. *
6. The devices will appear as accepted devices. And the data will be ready in Spacewell Energy. 

* Read this article for more information about accepting devices.

For some context... Definition of data point: any signal monitored and stored for each device.

Assign devices to locations

Once we have accepted all devices, we must assign them to a specific location in order to view their data. This is the step where we create the link between all the devices sending data to the platform and the reality of our facilities.

Steps

1. Go to the Locations menu.
2. Enter Location 1 by clicking on it. 
3. Go to devices. 
4. Select devices E1, G1, W1 and P1 from the unassigned devices section and click > to move them to devices assigned to this location.
5. Click Save. You will see a pop-up message: Changes saved successfully. 
6. Go to Categories.
7. Assign E1 to main supply, G1 to main gas, W1 to main water and P1 to photovoltaic.
8. Click Save.
9. Repeat the steps for location 2 with E2, G2, W2 and P2. 

* Why is it important to configure categories?

Categories are used to indicate to Spacewell Energy what type of consumption each device represents. Having categories configured is essential to use the dashboard function, reports, advanced analyses and applications (such as the Location Map). 

Click here for more information about categories.

Additional steps

Now that you have finished this guide, please continue reading the configuration article. If you have any questions or issues, please write us an email at support.energy@spacewell.com.