Bosch IoT Device Management - will be discontinued by mid 2024

Device sets and filters

To follow this page, your entry point is Bosch IoT Suite UI (Developer console) > Devices.

Once you have registered a number of devices, you can create device sets and filter through them in order to facilitate the device search process and to use them in defining the scope of mass management operations.

Table of contents:

Device sets

A device set provides a certain structure and represents the context where the devices are located. There are two types of device sets - Directories and Tags.

Expand the Device sets and filter blade via the Restore button and let's have a look at each option one by one:

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_expandBlade.png

Directories

The Directories view is opened by default.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_defaultView.png

By using the Directories view, you can organize devices hierarchically according to various criteria - location, type of device, organization group, manufacturer etc. This tree-like structure brings the following advantages:

  • You can define management tasks over a whole set of devices that are forming a separate branch.

  • You can locate a particular device much easier.

  • You can view only the directories you are interested in.

Add a directory

  1. Click the blue + button.

  2. In the dialogue that opens, enter a unique directory Name.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_createDirectory.png



  3. Click OK. The newly created directory will appear in the directories tree.


Manage directories

You can manage each directory through the Actions button on the right.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_manageDirectory.png

Bosch IoT Device Management provides options to:

  • View the details of the specific directory.

  • Delete the directory.

  • Move the directory into another parent directory.

  • Add another directory to this directory as a child.

Move a device to a directory

To move a device to an already existing directory:

  1. Select the device of interest.

  2. Click the Device actions button on the right.

  3. Then click Move to directory as shown in the screenshot below.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_moveDeviceToDirectory1.png
  4. In the menu that opens up, select the directory which should include the device and click Move.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_moveDeviceToDirectory2.png
  5. From then on this device is regarded to be part of this directory. If you select the directory on the left, the Devices blade on the right will be populated with only the devices that are part of this particular directory. In our example it is only device-01.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_moveDeviceToDirectory3.png


A device can be part only of one directory, so later on you can move a device to a different directory using the same flow.

Tags

Tags are very useful when you have to group devices according to various criteria and find them later on. Unlike directories, a device can belong to multiple tag groups, i.e. can have multiple tags attached to it.

Tags are not visible by default. To open the Tags view, or any of the other two options:

  1. Click the Settings button of the Device sets and filters blade.

  2. Check Tags.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_openTags.png

  3. The Tags view will open below the Directories.

Add a tag

The flow for adding a tag is the same as described in Add a directory .

  1. Click the blue + button.

  2. In the dialogue that opens, enter a unique tag Name.

  3. Click OK.

Manage tags

The Bosch IoT Suite UI provides options to:

  • View details about the selected tag.

  • Rename the tag.

  • Delete the tag.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_manageTags.png

Assign a tag to a device

The flow for assigning a tag to a device is very similar to moving a device to a directory:

  1. Select the device of interest.

  2. Click the Device actions button on the right.

  3. Click Assign or remove tags.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_assignTagToDevice_steps.png
  4. In the menu that opens up, select the tag that you would like to assign to the device and then Close.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_assignTagToDevice2.png
  5. Now, when you select the particular tag from the list of already created tags, the Devices blade will be populated with only the devices assigned to this tag.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_assignTagToDevice3.png



Device type


Filters

Besides the possibility to filter by Directories and Tags, the Bosch IoT Suite UI provides two predefined type specific filters that can enrich your filtering criteria even further.
These are Device type and Via gateway.

As explained in the Device list page, Bosch IoT Device Management distinguishes three types of devices - standalone device, gateway device or virtual-or edge device via gateway.

The Device type predefined filters allow you to automatically filter only a specific type of devices, for example only gateways.

  1. Click the Settings button of the Device sets and filters blade.

  2. Check Device type.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_deviceTypeView.png

  3. The Device type view will open below the Tags.

  4. Select the device type of interest and the Devices blade will be populated with only the devices of the selected type. In our example we select Gateway device and see our provisioned gateway - gateway-01.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_deviceTypeSelected.png

Via gateway

If you are interested only in devices connected via a particular gateway you can use the other predefined filtering option - Via gateway.

  1. Open in the same manner as the previous options.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_viaGatewayView.png

  2. Fill in the field Thing ID of gateway. In our example, we will type in example.iot.dm:gateway-01.

  3. As soon as you type in a valid Thing ID, the Devices blade will be populated with all devices connected via this particular gateway.
    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_viaGatewaySelected.png


Custom RQL

Further, you can add your own filter, by simply setting a valid RQL expression into the given field. This custom RQL filter expression will be combined with the other filters.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/custom-rql.png

A custom RQL expression defines a RQL filter by aggregation of relational and logical operators and by usage of the fields describing the devices (e.g. features, attributes).

See Parameters and operations for the syntax supported by the digital twin layer.

Examples:

  • Devices with "Bosch" as manufacturer:
    eq(attributes/manufacturer,"Bosch")

  • Devices with thing ID greater than "A000":
    ge(thingId,"A000")

  • Devices with a "lamp" feature, and which are located in the living-room:
    and(exists(features/lamp), eq(attributes/location,"living-room"))


Fields used in the filter need to be part of the search index in your namespace.


Managing filter criteria

Once you have created device sets that suit your needs and/or have added a predefined filtering option you are able to save these settings as dynamic custom filters and use them at a later stage. These custom filters will be applied to devices satisfying the defined conditions.

All filtering mechanisms can be combined without any restrictions.

Save filtering criteria

To demonstrate this use case lets move more devices to a single directory and assign more devices to a specific tag.

In our example we will add all devices to the Europe directory and assign the Manufactured by Bosch tag to two of them.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_saveFilter1.png

Then we will add criteria for only standalone devices.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_saveFilter2.png

This will be the combined filtering criteria for our example case. Now lets save it.

  1. Click the Save button at the top.

  2. Enter a unique name for your filter.

    images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/dm_DeviceSetFilters_saveFilter3.png
  3. Click Save.

Apply a filter

You can then select your custom filter from the Load filter drop down menu.
Selecting the filter will automatically apply it to the Devices blade on the right.

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/select-filter-1.png

images/confluence/download/attachments/2221978954/select-filter-applied.png

To delete a filter use the Delete filter button on the right of Save.

Now that you know how to create Device sets and filters let's have a look the other way around - to the device itself.