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Dashboard Guide

The Scada3k dashboard provides a real-time overview of all connected machines and their data points (Nodes).

TV Dashboard

This specialized TV Dashboard is designed for large screens (e.g., factory floors) to provide a high-visibility overview of machine statuses.

Key features of the TV Dashboard:

  • Read-Only: The TV Dashboard is purely for monitoring. It does not allow any control or input operations.
  • Auto-Refresh: Data is refreshed continuously without needing a page reload.
  • Panic Mode: If a machine reports an error (via its configured error_node), the entire machine card flashes red, a critical error icon is displayed, and the error message takes over the card to ensure it's noticed immediately.
  • Warnings: If a machine reports a warning (via its configured warning_node), an orange banner with the warning name appears at the top of the machine card.
  • Dynamic Text Sizing: Node values are scaled automatically to use available space effectively.
  • Customizable Colors: You can set a specific text color for each node (via tv_dashboard_text_color in the Node admin) to highlight important metrics.

Dashboard Overview

Standard Interface Overview

The standard dashboard is organized into cards, where each card represents a single machine.

Dashboard Overview

Machine Card

Each machine card contains:

  • Machine Name and ID: Displayed in the header.
  • Node List: A grid of all data points associated with the machine.

Node Card

Each node card shows:

  • Node Name and ID: Human-readable name and technical identifier.
  • Current Value: The last reported value.
    • Numeric: Displayed as a number (e.g., 115.4 °C).
    • Boolean: Displayed as ON (true) or OFF (false).
  • Last Change: Timestamp of the last update.
  • Warning: If a value from a machine is invalid, a warning message is displayed here.
  • Grafana Chart: A historical trend chart for the last hour.

Machine Status

At the top of each machine card is a color-coded status bar showing the machine's overall state:

  • Green — OK: No alarm is active. If the machine has a configured status node, its "OK" message is shown.
  • Gray — Stopped: The machine's status node reports that the machine is stopped; its configured "stopped" message is shown.
  • Red or Orange — Alarm: One of the machine's configured errors is currently active. The bar shows the alarm's name and severity. The color depends on the severity code: higher-priority alarms (P1, P2) are shown in red, lower-priority alarms (P3–P5) in orange.

Alarms are configured by an administrator under Admin Panel → Machine Errors: each entry maps a Node and a triggering value (Activation Value) to an error code, name, and severity. While an alarm is active, an Error Event is recorded with its start (and later, end) time; depending on configuration, an alarm can also automatically open and close a maintenance Task — see Machine Errors (Alarms) in the Maintenance Guide.

Controlling Nodes

If you are logged in and a node has write permissions (Read-Write or Write-Only), you can change its value.

Numeric/String Nodes

For Integer, Float, Byte, or String types, an input field is available. 1. Enter the new value. 2. Press Enter or click the Set button. 3. The value is sent to the machine.

Boolean Nodes

For Boolean types, toggle buttons are available: - Turn ON: Appears if the current state is OFF. Click to set the value to true. - Turn OFF: Appears if the current state is ON. Click to set the value to false.

If the state is unknown, both buttons are shown.

Computed Nodes

A Computed node doesn't receive its value from a machine. Instead, its value is calculated on the fly from a math formula that combines the values of other nodes.

Configuring a Computed Node

  1. Go to Admin Panel → Nodes, create (or edit) a node, and set Data Type to Computed.
  2. Save the node, then open its Current Value section below and enter the formula in the Value field, e.g.: ${motor_temp} + ${offset}
  3. Supported operators are +, -, *, /, parentheses, and unary minus (-${node}). You can reference any number of other nodes.

Referencing Nodes in a Formula

  • Same machine: ${node_id}, e.g. ${motor_temp}.
  • Another machine: ${<machine_uuid>.<node_id>}, e.g. ${550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000.motor_temp}. The machine's UUID is shown in the Admin Panel.
  • A Computed node can also reference another Computed node — the formula is evaluated recursively. Circular references (directly or through a chain of nodes) are rejected when you save.
  • Only numeric node types (Integer, Float, Boolean, Byte) can be used as operands; referencing a String node raises an error.

Limitations

  • Computed nodes are evaluated on demand, each time their value is read. No history is stored for them, so they cannot be exported to Prometheus or charted in Grafana — set Export to Prometheus to off (this is enforced when saving the node).
  • A Computed node's value can't be set directly from the dashboard — it's always fully determined by its formula. Set its Access Level to Read-Only so the dashboard doesn't show a write control for it.
  • If a formula references a node with no value yet, an unknown reference, or divides by zero, the node's Value is shown empty and the reason is shown in its Warning.
  • Because incoming values from TCP/S7-connected machines are written directly to a node's value, avoid reusing a Computed node's node_id in a machine's TCP/S7 mapping — doing so would overwrite its formula.

Authentication

  • Public Access: The dashboard is viewable by anyone without logging in.
  • Write Access: To change a node's value, you must be logged in. A Login link is available in the top-right corner.
  • Logout: If you are logged in, your email and a Logout button will be visible in the header.

Custom Dashboards

Beyond the standard dashboard, Scada3k ships several ready-made dashboard layouts and lets you mount any of them — or a fully bespoke one — at a URL of your choosing.

Built-in Dashboard Views

Dashboard Template file Description
Standard Dashboard dashboard.html The default view described above: full node detail, write controls, and maintenance tasks.
TV Dashboard tv_dashboard.html Read-only, large-screen overview with Panic Mode for alarms (see above). Mounted at /tv/ by default.
Management Dashboard dashboard_management_cz.html Collapsible per-machine tiles with alarm and task statistics (last day/week/month) plus a top-5 most frequent errors breakdown per machine. Read-only. Czech language only.
Service Dashboard dashboard_service_cz.html Collapsible machine tiles with write controls, plus a combined task list across all machines with a "Close all" shortcut. Czech language only.

Management Dashboard Management Dashboard Node Values Figure: The Management Dashboard, collapsed per-machine tiles and their expanded node values.

Service Dashboard Service Dashboard Node Values Figure: The Service Dashboard, collapsed per-machine tiles and their expanded node values.

Registering a Dashboard

  1. Go to Admin Panel → Dashboards.
  2. Add a new entry and set:
    • Name – a display name for your own reference.
    • Template – pick one of the templates available on the server (the built-in ones above, or a custom one built for you).
    • URL – the slug it will be served at, e.g. management makes the dashboard available at https://<your-domain>/management/.
  3. Save. The dashboard is live immediately, no restart required.

The Management and Service dashboards don't include a login link. If you need write access there, log in first via the Standard Dashboard or /login/ in the same browser.

We can also build a fully bespoke dashboard tailored to your operational needs — combined multi-machine views, long-term trend visualizations, custom KPIs and production targets — and add it as a new template you can register the same way.

Custom Dashboard Example Custom Dashboard Photo Figure: An example of a custom production monitoring dashboard deployed for a client.