Cumulocity IoT Feedback Portal
Selecting devices and measurements using the current dialog window is clumsy and not very intuitive:
Step 1: SELECT DEVICE
the search box doesn't return intuitive matches, and it doesn't appear to support wildcards.
If you're not certain of the name of a device, so leave the box blank and press the magnifying glass, the list you get is a bit confused: it seems to reproduce the Group tree folders, but also explodes the Group view and shows every device as a top level item.
the update to the searched list is not real-time (as you type), and only updates quite slowly when you press Return or click the magnifying glass.
Step 2: SELECT DATA POINT
There is no search-based filtering capability for this list - if its a long list you have to scroll through the entire list to find what you need.
The list of data points appears to be in a random order - not alphabetical.
The list is quite confusing to read because it takes the form <type> => <name>. This format is not intuitive for users who are inexperienced with how data are organised in the Cumulocity back-end. In general, the <type> is not helpful in locating the right measurement.
Hi Niko,
Regarding "<fragment> => <series>": Confusing might be a better word than non-intuative. In most cases, providing the series is named sensibly, the <fragment> isn't useful information for the user. It can also look "untidy", particularly if the fragment is something "standard", in camelCase with underscores, like c8y_TemperatureMeasurement, for example. Often this results in duplicated/redundant information being presented to the user.
Consider: c8y_TemperatureMeasurement => Pump motor temperature.
Also there are lots of different reasons to manipulate the <fragment> type for different use-cases: for example, selecting a particular fragment type in order to associate a particular DataHub offloading policy, or ODS retention policy - something that a regular user of Cockpit doesn't need to be aware of.
Does this help?
Hi Neil,
many thanks for the detailed feedback. Indeed we are working on improved selectors for both devices as well as data points. An improved version of the device selector will be released with Cumulocity IoT 10.14. The improved Data Point selector with 10.15.
Those improvements should address the feedback that you provided. However, we will continue to use the "<type> => <name>" format (we call it <fragment> => <series>). It would be useful to get a few examples where this format is not intuitive to see if we can come up with good ideas to address this.
Device selector examples screenshot:
Data Pointn Selector: