PlcConsole

Site Automation

Site Automation organizes devices into sites, zones, actors, actions, and sensors. It is intentionally exposed as a structured workflow instead of being scattered across separate screens.

Manual Home

Site Automation Workflows Site Structure Site Settings Zone Detail Device Board Editors Edit Site Edit Zone Edit Actor Edit Sensor Edit Action

Site Automation Workflows

The site-management flow centers on a site picker, zone picker and a device area that merges actors and sensors into one collection. From there, the app lets you filter by scope, mark favorites, refresh visible sensors and open the editors for detailed metadata.

Site Automation is a foreground control and monitoring layer over the active PLC profile. Device filters show All, Controls, Sensors or Favorites; the zone picker can show one zone, all zones or favorite zones. Reordering is intentionally available only under the All device filter, so a hidden device cannot move unexpectedly within its zone.

Sensor auto-refresh reads only currently visible sensor tiles while the Site Automation screen and app are active. A sensor range bar uses the final displayed measurement after multiplier and offset, not the raw PLC register value. Auto-refresh stops when the app is no longer active.

Actor actions map to helper-style M and S bit registers. Do not treat the app as the physical safety system: PLC ladder logic remains responsible for output interlocks, motor safety, timers and safe failure behavior.

Hierarchy: Site Settings opens the tree and lets you add, edit, delete, export or import the full hierarchy.

Zone focus: Zone detail shows the actors and sensors that belong to one zone and exposes the zone-level actions directly beside the sections.

Unified board: The device area can switch between list and grid layout and filter by All, Controls, Sensors or Favorites without splitting actors away from sensors.

Site Structure

Site Settings

Description

Site Settings is the top-level editor for the site tree. The screen exposes the current site, the zone list and the per-zone actor and sensor counts, which is useful before opening the zone detail view or rebalancing the automation model.

Archive safety: Export saves the full hierarchy. Import validates the selected JSON, then replaces the current site tree, including default-site and favorite settings; export before importing if the current configuration must be retained.

Counts: Counts help the user understand whether a zone is mostly control-oriented or sensor-oriented before entering it.

Selection: The sheet preserves the current site selection while the user works through edits or imports.

Zone Detail

Description

Zone detail narrows the view to one zone and shows how that zone is composed. It is the best place to inspect the actors and sensors that belong there, see the local summaries and open the edit or clone paths without going back to the full site tree.

Focused view: Use this when you want a focused view of one zone’s devices or need to compare the actor and sensor lists side by side.

Hand-off: The detail page exposes both actor and sensor sections directly, which makes it a practical hand-off screen between overview and editing.

Management: Zone-level favorite and delete actions remain visible so the zone can be managed without hunting through the broader tree.

Device Board

Site management grid showing actors and sensors together in one device list

Description

The main device board is where actors and sensors live together. The app can show them in a list or a grid, filter them by control or sensor type and sort them by the shared per-zone order so they can be freely interleaved instead of being artificially split into two top-level pages.

Tile entry: Tapping a tile opens its editor, which keeps the grid useful as both an overview and an entry point to detailed configuration.

Overflow menu: The overflow menu provides edit, clone, favorite, move, refresh and delete actions. Move Up and Move Down reorder devices only within their zone and are disabled unless the device filter is All.

Tile data: Sensor tiles can show live value, timestamp and optional range bar information, while actor tiles expose direct action buttons.

Editors

Edit Site

Description

Edit Site updates the site name and the site-level metadata. The view model keeps the record local until the user saves it, which makes it safe to rename the modeled location while keeping the rest of the tree intact.

Name reuse: Keep the site name meaningful because it is reused in zone, action and history summaries.

Tree scope: Site edits are part of the same local tree that can be exported and imported.

Shared label: When the app shows the site picker or the zone detail page, the same name is reused there too.

Edit Zone

Description

Edit Zone updates the zone name and zone-level data. That matters because the zone name is displayed in the zone picker, the zone detail screen, the device cards and the history titles that refer back to the automation setup.

Picker scope: The zone picker can show All or Favorites in addition to specific zones.

Device scope: Zone changes can affect which actors and sensors appear in the current scope and which device rows are eligible for the current device filter.

Alignment: The sheet is the right place to keep site organization aligned with the physical PLC area or room it represents.

Edit Actor

Description

Edit Actor defines the actor name, type, favorite state and the action list attached to that actor. Under the hood the editor keeps the action list tied to the selected actor, so cloning or deleting the actor also preserves the expected child-action relationship.

Templates: Actor templates can start with suggested actions, which saves time when the same type of controlled load repeats across zones. Template actions are initially unmapped, so edit each one and assign its M or S address before using it.

Editable actions: Actions are still editable individually after the actor exists.

Draft clone: Clone is a draft-first action, which means the user reviews the copied structure before it becomes a separate live actor.

Edit Sensor

Description

Edit Sensor binds the sensor to a PLC register, defines how the raw value becomes a user-facing measurement and then layers threshold colors and optional range visualization on top. Numeric readings are decoded using the selected interpretation, then displayed as register value multiplied by scale plus offset, formatted to the selected decimal places and optional unit.

Bit and numeric readings: Bit registers use custom labels for 0 and 1 and can flag either value as an alarm. Wider registers use the Measurement, Thresholds and Visualization sections.

Range bar: Enable it only when both minimum and maximum values are known; the minimum must be lower than the maximum. The bounds use the final displayed measurement, not the raw register value.

Threshold colors: Each threshold accepts a number or Not set. Its color box opens the color picker; these warning and critical colors are shared preferences, so changing one changes that threshold color across sensor tiles.

Repeatability: Clone and delete are supported here because sensors are often repeated with only address or name changes.

Edit Action

Description

Edit Action binds a named action to a helper-style M or S bit register, icon and behavior. The resulting action is rendered directly on its actor tile, so the mapping section repeats its site, zone, actor and address context before the action can be saved.

Behavior: Actions support Pulse, Hold, Set On and Set Off. Pulse durations are limited to predefined values from 50 ms to 1,000 ms; Hold writes while pressed and releases when the touch ends.

Mapping clarity: The mapping section describes the site, zone, actor and register relationship being edited, which helps prevent confusing a physical output register with a logical action.

Draft clone: Cloning an action opens a draft copy first so you can adjust the register or label before committing it to the actor.