Schematic Tutorial

This ioTORQ tutorial goes through the steps of creating, formatting, and presenting a schematic. Schematics are useful for displaying the steps of a process and the live data associated with each step. Schematics can be accessed through the applications tab of the left navigation bar. To create a new schematic or browse through existing schematics, click on the Schematic Editor.

Below is the opening page for a new schematic. The pane on the left contains all entities that can be placed on the schematic. These include basic shapes, lines, arrows, text boxes, variables, and images. The pane on the right contains settings and formatting options for the schematic page and any selected entity. 

Fit Paper to Content: One of the first steps to take with building a schematic is to plan the size of it. Schematics can be resized at any point, but the page can never expand to the top or left. The schematic paper can only be expanded to the bottom and to the right. The page can be resized by using the paper size options on the right or using the Fit Paper to Content button on the top options bar. One way to easily change the paper size to drag and place a rectangle in the bottom right of the paper. The rectangle can be expanded beyond the contents of the schematic paper and then the Fit Paper to Content button can be used to resize the area.

Schematics must be manually saved before closing. The save button can be found on the top options bar and has the below symbol.

On the save screen, a name must be assigned to the schematic and an organization must be selected. Unlike other entities in ioTORQ, schematics stored in an organization will not be accessible through the organization navigation bar and must be accessed from the Browse Schematics section in the Schematic Editor.

Placing Shapes: The next step of building a schematic is to place the shapes that will make up the process in this example. Shapes can be used to represent equipment or process steps.  In this example, shapes will be used to represent generic pieces of process equipment.

Shapes have several formatting options that can make them more distinct. Different colors can be added by selecting Shape Fill. Once a color is selected, its code will appear in the Shape Fill box and can be copied to other shapes. Shape transparency can also be changed from the Shape Fill interface.

Shapes and other entities in the schematic editor can be copy and pasted using the left and right buttons on the top option bar seen below.

By copying the circle and assigning colors to the other two shapes, the basis for the schematic has been created to represent four steps of process equipment. The next step is to draw arrows to represent the flow between these process steps. 

Text can be added directly to the shapes using the settings on the right where font size and color can be changed.

Once all text and arrows are created to show flow between process units, they can be further edited to make it more visually clear. In this case, the arrow weights will be increased to make them easier to see by selecting each arrow and increasing the Weight in the style settings on the right.

Next, two inputs and two outputs are added to the schematic that will represent flow into and out of the system. Text boxes can be created by dragging the text entity from the left pane to the schematic with the same font options available as shapes.

Adding Variables: Variables show the data from automatic or virtual variables on the schematic and can be placed freely like other entities on the schematic. In this example, a variable will be placed for each input and output. Once placed, variables are edited through the settings on the right pane. The variable menu opens a search bar where the variable can be selected from.

The second page is where a title and a timeframe must be assigned. The title is simply the name the variable will have in its settings within the schematic. The timeframe will be the range over which the displayed value is aggregated, for example, a data point from the last minute or an average performance over 24 hours.

Once the variable is assigned, the selected settings can be seen on the right. With all variables added, we are finished creating this schematic and now want to view the results in a dashboard. 

Adding a Schematic to a Dashboard: In the schematic editor, the variables are treated as placeholders and will not update with live data. To view this process flow with real time updates, we will need to add the schematic to a dashboard. In the Dashboard editor, select the Schematic button from the Add Other section. Browse for the schematic of interest, and click Create.

With the schematic live in the dashboard, the data is now displayed where the variables were placed in the schematic. The schematic can be displayed alongside charts and matrices in a dashboard. For more complicated schematics, the dashboard allows zooming in and out to display details and variables in a complex system.