Note: this feature is currently in beta testing and is not yet available to all organizations. Please reach out to Samsara Support if you would like to test out this feature.
When you're managing many similar assets, Third-Party Device templates significantly reduce configuration time. Rather than spend hours recreating third-party device configurations for each of your assets, templates allow you to clone a third-party device instances across multiple assets in just a few clicks.
Third-Party Device Templates are currently supported for Modbus RTU, Modbus TCP, and CAN based devices. They can be created in two ways: from the ground up, or using existing configurations. We’ll cover each method below.
Templatizing Existing Configurations
To create a template based off of an existing configuration, find the third-party device of interest in the ‘Third-Party Devices’ section of the Industrial configuration page. Next click the three dots on the far right-hand side of the page for the device and select ‘Templatize’. Name your template and select ‘Create’.
Note: You must have data groups configured for each of your devices registers (SPNs for CAN-based devices) in order to templatize an existing third-party device. If you are missing a data group, you can create it by going to…
Creating Third-Party Device Templates from Scratch
To create a template from scratch, click the ‘Add New’ button, then ‘New Device Template’ in the top right corner of the screen. Next, you should name your template, and select your Device Type. Once you have selected your device type, adjust your device’s settings appropriately. For reference, you can find more detail on basic configuration of third-party devices here.
Viewing your Third-Party Device Templates
You can access all of your templates by clicking on the ‘Templates’ tab from the ‘Third-Party Devices’ section. When you click into your newly created template, you’ll see an orange template indicator at the top of the screen, next to the template’s name.
Creating a New Device Instance Using a Template
To create a new device instance from an existing template, navigate to and select the template you would like to clone, then select the “Create Instance” button. Choose your gateway, select the asset to which you’d like to assign the device and then select ‘Create’. This will create a new instance of a third-party device with the same I/O for a different asset.
Note: Assigning a device template to your asset will unassign already associated third-party I/O
Instances and Updating Templates
An instance is a configuration that has been created using a template. As long as an instance remains associated with a template, any time you make changes to the template, they will also be reflected in all of the linked instances. Each template also displays how many instances will be impacted by the change.
Similarly, when you view a data input created based off of a template, it will have an orange ‘view-only’ indicator. To edit these data inputs, the template must be edited or the device with which they are associated must be unlinked from the template.
Unlinking Instances from Templates
To unlink an instance from a template, navigate to your instance in the ‘Third Party Devices’ section of the configuration page, select the three dots on the right hand side of the page for your instance and click ‘Unlink from Template’
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