Actions

Through Actions, users can be notified about tasks to be performed to continue using the machine or improve the quality of results, consumption, and performance.
For more information about how to configure actions and their visualization in the DPS, you can refer to the Aided Maintenance configuration guide.

Creating an Action Definition

To add a new Action Definition to a Thing Definition, you should:

Enter the Involvement / Actions page.
Select the Thing Definition to edit.
Press the Add Action button.
Provide the required information.
Press the Save button and edit the additional information, if needed.

Editing an Action Definition

An Action Definition is described by the following sections:

General

Name: the name of the action visible to users (e.g., act_00123).
Label: the friendly name used in the DPS as an alternative to the name, which can be a code or something more technical.
Description: the short text describing the action.
Group: the name of the group the action belongs to.
Work Time: the estimated time in minutes required to complete the action.
Topic: the topic to which this action belongs
- Consumables
- Performance
- Maintenance
- Operations
Type: one of the types defined in the Settings section (e.g., Check, Lubricate).
Priority: the priority used to order actions
- Low
- Normal
- High
Icon: the icon to be displayed within the pages for this type of action.
Due Period: the time period from the date of activation within which the action is recommended.
Mandatory reason for the discard: if selected, when the action is discarded, it will be requested to specify the discard reason through a note, or by selecting one of the discard reasons specified in the Settings section.
Limit this action visibility depending on the user type: you can select the user types that have visibility on the action of this type.

Activation Condition

The condition that is verified by the DPS to activate the action.
The activation condition can be:

None

The action can be activated only manually from the Action List widget or via API.

Event Based

The action is automatically activated when an event occurs (e.g., a failure or an anomaly).

Period Based

The action is periodically activated (e.g., every X months).

Usage Based

The action is automatically activated when the cumulative sum of the value of a metric reaches a specific threshold (e.g., 500 working hours).

A usage-based action has an internal counter on the metric, which every day sums up all the deltas between consecutive values (reset-aware).
When the action internal counter reaches the specified threshold, the Action is automatically activated.
When the action is marked as done, the internal counter will be reset. Even if it is executed in advance, for example, if it was started manually.

User Reported

The action must be manually reported by the DPS user through the Action List widget or via API.

Done/Discarded Condition

You can specify metric-based conditions to automatically mark an action as done or discarded according to the value of a specific metric. For instance, the action informing the user that a cartridge must be replaced can be automatically marked as done when the user replaces the cartridge, and the machine publishes the new consumable level.

Within the Done Condition, if the Active Condition is based on an Event, it is possible to select whether the action is to be marked as DONE automatically when the event is closed.

Rescheduling

In case the activation condition is period-based, you can also define whether the action is Reschedule.
If selected, end-users will be able to change the periodicity of an action. For instance, the OEM proposes to check filters every month, but due to the utilization of the machine, the end-user may decide to check filters every 3 months.

Technical Description

Here, you can provide the text/HTML that describes in a more technical way what the user must perform to complete the action in the DPS.

Translations

Here you can specify the translations in the various Languages for the Label, Description, and Group.
Translations will be used for action sorting and list searching.

Properties

Here, you can select the Action Properties to be made available in the DPS when an Action of this type is created and edited.

Spare Parts

In this section, you can define which spare parts this action requires to be completed; for instance, you can list the spare parts to be replaced.
Each referenced spare part is described by the Code, a numeric quantity, and optionally a format (e.g., 1 liter tank).

Actions Settings

In the Actions page, you can access the Settings section, which allows you to define some elements commonly used by all action definitions.

In this section, you can configure:

Action Types: the list of types (value and label) you can associate with each Action Definition, and that can be used by technicians to order the actions to be performed.
Discard Reasons: the list of reasons (value and label) the DPS user can select when an Action is discarded.
Issue Types: the list of issues (value and label) the DPS user can select when an Action is marked as Done with Issue.

Edit Action Properties

In the Actions page, by clicking on the Action Properties link present in the page footer, you can define the properties to be associated with each Action Definition.

The page displays the list of already defined Action Properties, and by pressing the Add Action Property button, you can add a new one.
By clicking on an Action Property row, you can edit it.

To be used, properties must be associated with the Action Definitions. The same property can be used among multiple Action Definitions.

The Action Property editing page is subdivided into the following sections.

General

Label: The label displayed within the pages (e.g., Priority).
Name: The name uniquely identifying the property.
Description: The description that is displayed under the property within the Action editing pages.
Type: The property value type, one of Boolean, Date, Double, Float, Integer, Long, or String.
For more details about types, refer to the Property Types article.
Unit: The unit displayed along with the property value (e.g., kg). It is available only for numeric properties.
Default value: The property default value assigned when an Action is created.
Data Type: In case of numeric values, you can define whether the property values are DISCRETE or CONTINUOUS, and then you can also define Dictionary or Thresholds.
Group: The key used to group properties within editing dialogs.

Rendering

Order: The order used to sort properties within editing dialogs.
Selection: The selection mode (radio, select, switch) for multiple values.
Values: The set of value and label pairs in case of selection.
Mobile scanner enabled: If selected, when using the Mobile App, you can leverage the camera scan capabilities to fill the property field.

Availability

Make this property available to all action definitions: If selected, the property is automatically associated with all Action Definitions.
Make this property available to uncoded actions: If selected, the property is made available in the uncoded action creation dialog within the DPS.

Constraints

Mandatory: The property cannot be left blank. When creating a new object or updating an existing object, if the value of the property is missing, the backend reports an error.
Writable by DPS users: If selected, the property can be written by DPS users on the Action instance.
Min: The minimum value used to validate numeric properties.
Max: The maximum value used to validate numeric properties.
Step: The increment step for numeric types.
RegEx Validation: You can specify a regular expression (e.g., ([a-z])*)to validate STRING properties.
Optionally, you can also define the error message to inform the user in case of wrong values.