Rightech IoT Cloud v2.3

February 11, 2021

The preparation for this release was aimed at introducing platform sharing mechanisms. We wanted to give users the collective management tools of the IoT project.


List of major changes in the platform:

creating and managing projects – now users can invite other users to join the project
changing the approach to tariffication
changes in the platform interface
new basic model for working with LoRaWAN devices
interface for configuring geofence’s events
ability to enable two-factor authentication
Configuring critical message alerts

Projects

In this release, we decided to review the process of creating IoT solutions based on the platform.
We introduce a new concept for the platform – Projects. The project is the place where your IoT case is created. This is a separate space that contains user models, objects, automatons and other platform entities associated with your specific IoT project. The projects are isolated and don’t cross with each other. In addition, the project is a convenient tool for the joint creation of an IoT solution, since other users can be invited to it. Individual roles can be set for different users, determine the capabilities available to them – from creating and editing objects to sending commands (more on this in the section’s role and command).

Users can switch between their projects.

Switching between projects:

Project creation

To create a new project, you need to go to the project management menu (through your personal account or by clicking on the button in the project selection menu).

Projects creation:

Project administration

In the main menu of the platform, there is a new section for project management – Administrator. It contains tools for managing the project team, setting up roles, and creating API tokens.

Team

The team management menu allows you to invite other members to join the project.

Project team:

There are two ways to invite a person to a project. In both cases, it is necessary to define the role with which the user will participate in the project.

2 ways to invite to the project:

  1. Sending a link to the user’s e-mail. In this case, a letter will be sent to his mail with a link to accept the invitation.
    IMPORTANT: This link works only for the e-mail specified in the invitation. If the recipient of the letter does not have a Rightech account, then in order to accept the invitation, he must register with the platform with this email address. Links of this type expire after 24 hours. You will not be able to join the project using a link with another account.
  2. Create a universal link using the “Create Link” button. In this case, any user registered on the platform will be able to join the project at this link. Links of this type work until they are withdrawn by the administrator and the limit of users of the project is exhausted.

The Team section contains a list of project users, their roles and the status of sent invitations. The project owner can exclude users from the project, change their role, and resend the invitation if necessary.

Roles

In order to invite users, you need to select the role with which they will join the project. By default, a maximum-privileged role for managing objects is available, but you can create other roles with any set of available functionality. Project management functions (project editing, inviting new users, operations related to subscription payments, etc.) are now available only to the project owner.

Role editor:

API tokens

The section for creating API tokens has been moved from the user’s personal account to the Administrator menu. Now the token only applies to the project. This means that now API access by token is carried out only to a specific project. The interface of this section itself has not changed.

API tokens:

Project tariffication

Now the license is linked to projects and it configures parameters that will be applied to the entire project. Previously, the license was assigned to objects. This approach was opaque and inconvenient for users. We transferred the current users of the platform to work with projects. If someone has questions about their account – write to us in the telegram chat or email. We will try to resolve all issues quickly.

Each user can create two projects for free. In addition, the basic parameters of free licenses have been significantly increased to simplify the process of getting to know the platform’s capabilities.

Type of limitationValue
Number of objects10
Maximum packet size, bytes256
Packets per day from one object1440 (~1/min)
The number of automatons launched on the object2
The number of handlers launched on the object1
Storage Size, MB10

Platform interface

The appearance of “Projects” is accompanied by a small update of the platform interface. The right menu has been removed. The “Information” and “Messages” buttons have moved to the new top menu. Additional submenus have appeared at the button for entering your personal account to simplify navigation through your personal account. The Rightech account logout button has been moved to the same submenu. The top menu also includes a mechanism for changing projects.

Menu:

LoRaWAN

A model for LoRaWAN devices has been added to the list of basic models (you can select it as a template when creating a model). Regional options EU868 and RU864 are now available. When creating an object with such a model, you must specify the parameters that are required to activate the device. We will describe the process of connecting LoRaWAN devices in more detail in the documentation. This is the first iteration of working with LoRaWAN in our platform, so we ask users to report possible problems with device connectivity and share their ideas for improving the work with LoRaWAN devices.

Object creation screen:

To configure Packet Forwarder on our server, you must specify the following parameters:

"gateway_conf": {
        "server_address": "dev.rightech.io",
        "serv_port_up": 1700,
        "serv_port_down": 1700
}  

Geofences. Selecting events

Now, when assigning geofences to objects, you can select events that will be generated when entering/leaving a specific geofence. By default, events are assigned, predefined in each device model (Geofence entry / Geofence exit).
Selecting events for geofences makes it easy to control multiple geofences for one object. So, in order to solve a simple problem with determining the cases of entering an allowed or prohibited geofence, it is necessary:

  1. Add relevant events to the model

2. Draw geofence

3. Assign it to the object and select the events that will be generated upon entry/exit

4. Create and launch an automaton that will execute the script taking into account the generated events

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

⁣⁣ The security of user accounts is very important to us. RIC gives you the option to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect your account from unauthorized logins. If two-factor authentication is enabled, you must additionally enter a code from a mobile device with an installed authenticator application (for example, Google Authenticator or its analogs).

Login with 2FA:

To enable two-factor authentication, you need to go to the appropriate section in your personal account and scan the QR code through the authentication application on your mobile device. You can turn off two-factor authentication at any time, but this also requires an authenticator app.

2FA settings:

Critical message alerts

We have changed the approach to critical alerts in the platform. The “Additional notifications” setting has been added to the personal account. Enabling this setting adds additional indication to Critical Messages.

Enabling additional alerts:

After enabling this option, the browser will ask for permission to send critical platform push messages, but you don’t have to agree to this.

Enabling this option causes (the following appears in the event of a critical message):

  1. The icon on the object screen shows the presence of unread critical messages. When you click on it, a filter is applied to the Messages window for this object.
  2. Orange indication around the object marker on the map.
  3. Browser push notification with a text message if allowed for the platform page. The screenshot below is an example of such a message received in the Google Chrome browser (OS Ubuntu).
  4. Sound notification.

Indication on the object screen (1) and (2):

Browser push notification (3):


With every new release, we listen to your feedback. By combining your suggestions with our roadmap, we can continue to improve the platform while maintaining its ease of use.
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