Webinar Wednesday - January 2023 Webinar Q&A - APIs

[jessica_smith]

Hi Everyone, 

During the January 2023 webinar, where the Facility Monitor Beta was covered in detail, the Q&A section was full of curiosity about Autodesk Tandem's APIs. So, we wanted to summarize and share the API questions sent our way. To learn more about our APIs, click here, and to join the Facility Monitoring Beta, click here. 

• Can we build and set custom thresholds (by using AI or another type of algorithm) for the sensor data? 
  This is a common feature request that we hear. Today, the Tandem API provides the ability to update metadata on elements in Tandem, in the future, a property in Tandem could be linked with the sensor data to define a threshold for further analysis or automation related to incoming sensor data, and the API could be used to manage or change this threshold over time. 
  
  
• Can Tandem run [on-premises] for orgs that will not entertain cloud solutions? 
  Unfortunately no, Tandem does not support on-prem deployment. 

• There will likely be a lot of work getting IoT control points into Tandem via the API. Unfortunately, many facility maintenance departments are underfunded as it is. This will mean dealing with controls technicians and system integrators even more. For instance, will supervisory controls eventually be supplemented by digital twins? 
  If Tandem is going to continue to grow and achieve scale, then not everything can be custom API integrations. Knowing this, we are focused on repeatability and being user-friendly when looking at workflows that don't require users to program in order to capture and automate importing data into Tandem. Long-term, we are hoping to ease the process and cost that goes into creating the twin-this being a significant barrier for users that can be lessened through repeatability. Learn more about what this could look like here. 
  
  There have been several requests to control XYZ-system through the twin, particularly BMS. There are a couple of things to consider about this, though; the main one being security. Controls are often deployed behind firewalls or on dedicated networks. Creating a good user experience, trusted connections, and appropriate permissions in Tandem will take creative thinking. So, in the long term, there is certainly an opportunity here.
  
  
• Research labs typically have sensors to monitor conditions... could we tie into alarms from those systems and map a graphic (e.g., freezer door left open triggers alarm... alarm changes color of freezer graphic)? 
  Currently, we only support numeric data from sensors/IoT devices. We are considering the addition of boolean and status values to our storage scheme in any case, we overlay color on the room that contains the freezer, and in the future, we may be able to map the status directly to the color of the elements themselves.
  
  
• How does stream data connection with Azure work? Can we connect our Azure IoT Hub service to the Tandem platform? 
  Yes, absolutely. We've created a connection with IoT Hub where you can copy/paste your Azure connection string into Tandem. Then, this will display your list of devices managed in IoT Hub, allowing you to choose some or all of these to be populated into Tandem. Following this step, we provide a webhook that makes it easy to build an event subscription in IoT Hub to forward the data to Tandem for the selected devices.
  
• What is a good use case or best practice recommendation for using Tandem facility monitoring and IoT on a construction site in the different stages of construction progress? 
  Autodesk Tandem's facility monitoring capabilities are open-ended, allowing for various use cases that leverage streaming data. While Tandem is not specifically including support for construction staging or progress tracking, the monitoring capabilities could be used for capturing and tracking site conditions. Typically, live connections to the BMS or IoT systems would get integrated with Tandem as part of the commissioning process.
  
• How many devices are you currently able to connect [to Tandem]? Also, how many data points (on average) in those devices can you control/monitor? 
  We do not have an upper threshold on the number of devices, data points per device, or frequency of readings per connection. We do not currently offer the ability to connect back to control points in the facility.  

Watch the January 2023 Webinar recording at inTandem.Autodesk.com and see what all the fuss is about.