Create SCADA (Graphical) Dashboards

A SCADA dashboard gives you the ability to view your sites, equipment, sensors, or data as virtual representations with logical connections and flows. Like all Samsara dashboards, the graphical view is easy to build with drag and drop components and can be replicated across assets. This dashboard lets you set colors for alerting thresholds, display key values, group assets, draw flow lines, display graphs, and link out to more detailed analysis when needed.

To get started, navigate to the Dashboard section of the main navigation and select Create, or you can navigate to a specific asset and select Create within the dashboard sub-section. You’ll be brought to a new SCADA dashboard creation screen.

Helpful Video Tutorials:

Steps:

Basics: Within the top navigation you can undo, redo, copy, paste, delete, rename your dashboard, cancel (which will delete your progress) or save (which will save your progress).

Icons: On the left you’ll see options for creating the dashboard. Drag and drop the icons onto the screen to arrange them according to your site. Once you have an icon in the dashboard, you can click into it to configure it and associate it with a data input. Give it a title, e.g. Pump Jack 1, and search for a data input, e.g. Pump State. You can then decide if you want to show the value, round that value, or set a threshold associated with a color.

Icons options:

Graphs: You can also create a graph for visualizing data, e.g. the flow rate of Pump Jack 1. Drag and drop a line chart into the dashboard, give it a title, select a data input, and scale the Y axis if needed. If you’ve created an additional dashboard that provides more details into the operations of a specific asset or process, you can link out to it by selecting one within the “Navigate to” drop down.

Cards: It may be helpful to group information together, e.g. Pump Jack 1 with a graph of the flow rate. You can use a card module for this. Drag and drop the card module into the dashboard, then drag and drop the pump icon into the empty card module. If you want the graph to show up below the pump icon, click “add row”, then drop the graph into the “add components” section.

Lines: Once you have multiple icons you can connect them with lines. When you hover over an icon you’ll see four gray bars on each side. Click and hold down from one gray bar to another gray bar to create an arrowed line between them. For example, you can draw a line connecting Pump Jack 1 and Pump Jack 2 to the Separator icon. Click into a line to configure the color and whether or not it has an arrow.

Meters: You can use a meter icon to display values in relation to maximums that you set. For example, you can create a tank associated with a data input for tank level. Drag and drop a tank in, create a title, select a data input, and set a maximum. This maximum will determine the virtual tank fill level based on its current value, e.g. if the maximum is 200 and the tank level is currently at 100, it will look half full. You can also add numeric thresholds that will change the color of the tank fill, e.g. red for critical, orange for high, purple for medium, blue for low, or simply set to standard gray.

Misc: Additional dashboard options include text, key values, or labels. You can use text or labels to add information or clarification where needed, and key values are associated with a data input so you can add more data to icons or processes. All of these options can also link out to additional dashboards.