Is it time for a fresh approach to your job, life, and use of technology? In talking with System Integrators and specifically application engineers (my past role). I have found that the desire to do things differently in the new year is a recurring theme. Here are the top five things an application engineer can change to make their jobs and lives more efficient this year and beyond.
In a typical project, the user experience needs to cater to various system users. Consequently, each has their own graphical requirements. In a traditional BAS, the SI will create an equipment graphic for the workstation, a dashboard for the energy manager, and a mobile graphic for the technician. With FIN, you get point graphics, equipment graphics, and dashboards dynamically created using simple wizards and drag-and-drop workflows.
Did you ever engineer a job with hundreds of unitary equipment and realize you missed something when you built the logic? Then you're destined to copy and paste the new blocks, and, worst of all, you need to create new links to every one of those pieces of equipment. One of the very unique features of FIN's Logic Builder is that control sequences can be relativized. This means you can create just one control routine, and the software does the rest: copying and linking to all applicable equipment.
A typical equipment graphic has components that represent coils, sensors, and actuators, plus labels displaying the actual values. Traditionally, these components and labels are manually linked back to a URL representing information in the database. This time-consuming task can introduce errors and is generally super frustrating when changes are made to the database. Through the magic of metadata and tags, FIN-based graphics are automatically bound to virtual points, plus the wizard-based workflows dynamically bind to the components and labels.
When I was a system integrator, one of my favorite value-added user experience tricks was incorporating the operating and maintenance manual content (O&M) into my customers' graphics. Although this was greatly appreciated, the labor to individually bind to the files (sequence of operation, wiring diagram, and points list) was tedious. Continuing with our technology theme of relativizing (control logic, equipment graphics), we can also relativize documentation. FIN makes it easy to upload and link O&M content in a one-to-many relationship with just two mouse clicks.
In the early days of my career, the trickiest part of the end of a project was to get a phone line and a modem so that I could remotely access and make changes to the site. Fast forward 20 years, a similar problem exists for getting internet access and IT firewall setup. The good news is each instance of FIN can easily connect to the cloud with a QR code or via a menu within the UI. This seamlessly provides a secure tunnel between the edge instance of FIN and a remote user without needing VPN or IT support.
All of this is possible by using FIN Technology on your next project. Join the FIN Generation and dare to be different in 2024.
Topics from this blog: FIN Stack Graphics Builder Systems Integrator Smart Buildings FIN Framework Technology Dashboard BAS
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