Scroll down to the watch videos "How to Create Custom Views" and "Using viewLinc Display"

In a recent viewLinc development meeting, our technical support team for the viewLinc Continuous Monitoring System mentioned a feature that is underused, but once discovered, is a delight to viewLinc users. This is the viewLinc Views Manager. 

Maybe you know all about Views Manager and have been using it for years. But if not, you are going to enjoy how quick and easy this makes using Vaisala’s continuous monitoring system.

Product development manager Chad Hagberg has worked on viewLinc for over 14 years. Chad knows that Views is probably underutilized, even by some long-term viewLinc users. 

“There are a couple reasons people either don’t know about or use the Views Manager,” says Chad. “Often someone other than the users, either a project manager, administrator, or Vaisala’s field support, will initially set up the monitoring system. The other reason is that it takes an initial time investment to set up your own views. In our experience, once people do this, they find it makes getting information from the system a lot easier. Some systems are quite large. In these systems it’s incredibly useful for a user to be able to see only what’s important to them when they log in. 

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In viewLinc, Views Manager allows each user to set up customized views. Once this is done, the information relevant to your areas of concern load each time you log into viewLinc. In viewLinc 5.X, you can see your created views in the Overview. 

Views Manager is more specific than viewLinc Sites. Sites shows how the administrator envisioned the monitoring system and configured it. The Views Manager is how a specific user or group wants to see their monitoring data. 

 Views Manager allows each user to create their own folders and organize according to how they use the system

“For example, say I want to see temperature readings only for the areas I’m responsible for. I create a view of just temperature and put it on a dashboard. Then I see only the temperature measurements. Another example of how to use Views: I might want a view of all the freezers in a facility, so I have a view of those applications in one view. Or I can create another view for my ambient temperature and humidity, or one view of my incubators.”

Setting up your own views in viewLinc gives you a quick, consolidated view of what’s important to you, organized in a way that makes sense to you.  Choose your favourite from your views in order to prioritize the information you use the most. Each time you log into viewLinc, your favourite view is the default. Views Manager allows each user to create their own folders and organize according to how they use the system. 

viewLinc Display

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“You can also create a view to use with viewLinc display” says Chad. “This is ideal in situations where you have a mounted monitor or device where several people would like to see certain information displayed.”

This site allows users to create displays for mounted monitors, smart TVs, and tablets in viewLinc Display, for example: your.viewLinc.url/display/. In viewLinc display, users only have access to views that have been created in Views Manager. viewLinc display is a perpetual login, it will default to the view created for display on lab walls, entries, security stations, and other locations where multiple users may want to see conditions displayed continuously. 

It stays connected. If the network connection breaks, viewLinc just keeps trying to connect and automatically recovers the display. Users don’t have to keep logging in, they simply see the data displayed. 

Other viewLinc Tips and Tricks

•    Select your language – English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese, coming 2021: Italian.

•    Right clicking – users often only use left click. But right-click will give you access to quick menu items. For example, in the Alarms tab, if you right click on an alert you can acknowledge quickly. In Sites, a right-click will give you a pop-up trend of a given location. Right-click is the quickest way to see reports and other tasks.

•    Quick trend – In a trend view, you can multi-select by holding control and selecting several measurements, select several and drag into trend view. For example, if you want to only see the temperature values from multiple locations, you can multi-select those locations and see only temperature in the trend. 

•    Shift-click also works to select multiple values in Sites. Then right-click to find the menu that allows you to create reports, pause alarms, etc. 

•    Multi-select works in many trees and tables in viewLinc and allows you to perform the same action on multiple items. For example, apply the same threshold template to multiple locations, or edit multiple location threshold settings.

Questions? Contact us to learn more…