Use the Siemens Insights Hub Monitor Example

Last modified: April 18, 2024

1 Introduction

You can write Mendix apps which analyze data held in Insights Hub, the open, cloud-based, IoT operating system from Siemens. To help you build your app, the Siemens Insights Hub Monitor Example app is available in the Mendix Marketplace and can be used as the starting point for a new Mendix app.

This documentation provides more explanation of the Insights Hub example app. Please note that this app is not production-ready. It is designed as an example of how you might begin to build a Mendix/Insights Hub app.

You can get more detailed information on how to deploy your app to the Insights Hub Platform in Siemens Insights Hub – deployment. If your are interested in how to develop an Insights Hub app with Mendix, visit the Build an Insights Hub app with Mendix learning path.

2 Prerequisites

To run your app on Insights Hub, you need to complete the prerequisites described below.

2.1 Roles

You need an Insights Hub user account on a tenant including a Developer Cockpit - for example, a Start for free tenant. This account needs the following core roles:

  • mdsp:core:Developer
  • mdsp:core:StandardUser
  • mdsp:core:TenantUser

3 Opening the App in Studio Pro

Open Studio Pro without opening an app and follow these steps:

  1. Open the Switch to menu in the top bar of Studio Pro and click the Marketplace icon to open the Mendix Marketplace in the browser:

  2. Enter Insights Hub Monitor in the search box and select Siemens Insights Hub Monitor Example from the search results:

  3. Click Download, and store the SiemensInsightsHubMonitorExample_V2_0_0.mpk on your local machine.

  4. Go back to your Studio Pro and select Import App Package… from the File menu to import the downloaded app package.

  5. Confirm the App name, and the App directory, then click OK:

4 Deploy and Run the Example App

A Mendix-based application for Insights Hub can be deployed to Mendix or to Insights Hub. Deploying to Mendix is quite easy and is the preferred option as you can then use the Auto Registration process. For more information about the deployment options see Deploying to Insights Hub.

To start the Auto Registration process just click the Publish button.

Once your app is deployed to Mendix, click View App.

Your default Browser will open and when your app starts, it will trigger the registration process.

4.1 Auto Registration

All apps running within Insights Hub need to be registered. When you open your app for the first time, it will recognize that is currently unregistered and ask you to perform the registration. You can do this manually in the Developer Cockpit, but the easier way is the Auto Registration process we follow here.

  1. Click Start Auto Registration.

    Choose app registration

    The process now tries to figure out on which tenant your app should be registered. Therefore you have to sign in.

  2. Enter your credentials and click Sign In.

    Choose app registration
  3. Give a Display Name, Internal Name, and, optionally, a Description in order to register your app.

    Choose app registration

    On a Start for Free tenant the admin role will be assigned automatically to your account. For all other tenants, you have to select at least one application user role which will be assigned to your account automatically.

  4. Click Register to start the registration process on your tenant.

    After a few seconds, a summary page is shown.

    The Siemens Insights Hub Monitor Example app uses quite a lot of Insights Hub APIs. When you register an application you also have to grant access to each API you want to use in your application. Therefore, you have to do this for the Operations Insight application.

  5. Click Developer Cockpit to take you to grant access to the APIs.

    Choose app registration

    A new tab opens showing the registration detail of your app.

  6. Click Configure to add the required Insights Hub roles.

    Choose app registration
  7. Add the following Insights Hub API Roles to your app and assign them to correct application roles admin and user, as shown in the table below:

    Insights Hub application role Admin User
    mdsp:core:assetmanagement.standarduser X X
    mdsp:core:em.eventcreator X
    mdsp:core:em.eventmanager X
    mdsp:core:em.eventviewer X X
    mdsp:core:iot.filAdmin X
    mdsp:core:iot.filUser X X
    mdsp:core:.iot.tsaUser X X
    mdsp:core:.iot.timUser X X
    mdsp:core:mindconnect.fullaccess X
    mdsp:core:mindconnect.readonly X X
    mdsp:core:tm.tenantUser X X
    mdsp:core:tsm.full-access X
    mdsp:core:tsm.read-only X X
    Choose app registration

    The app configuration is finished now.

  8. Switch back to the Registration completed! browser tab and click Launch your application, which will start the app.

    Choose app registration

4.2 Scopes and Roles

The auto registration process has created two Insights Hub application Roles admin and user:

Developer Cockpit application roles

You can assign these application roles to users in the Settings app found on the launchpad.

In addition, the auto registration process has created two Insights Hub application Scopes admin and user and assigned these to the roles as follows:

Developer Cockpit application roles

The example app has two Mendix user roles, Admin and User. These are mapped to the two application scopes admin and user.

This means that an Insights Hub user who is given the Admin Role for the app will be given the admin scope and will therefore have the Mendix user roles admin.

Relationship of Insights Hub App user roles with Mendix App user roles

For more information see the Insights Hub documentation Roles and Scopes for Applications.

5 Run the app locally

To run and test your app locally follow the steps described in Local Testing.

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