Shelby Dev Blog

New Analytic Profiles — Now With 3rd Party Support!

PowerFlex 523/525 and PowerFlex 753/755 Level 2 Analytic Profiles are now DPI-based (Drive Peripheral Interface), providing more accurate Descriptive (753/755) and Diagnostic (523/525) analysis. In addition to improving the PowerFlex profiles, we’ve added a Level 2 Kinetix 5500, a Beta Level 2 Stratix 5400 profile, and Festo CPX-based device profiles. The Festo CPX-FB36 valve is the first third-party device that Shelby can analyze at Level 2!

Action Deck Cards + TeamONE

Feature parity between our mobile application, FactoryTalk TeamONE, and Shelby has also been leveled up! Now, Action Deck module users can hide Resolved Action Cards as well as see Device Aliases (user-assigned device names) for Action Cards.

Enhanced Network Control

Administrative users can now change ETH1 settings without a Factory Reset. Additionally, there’s now more fine-grained control over how Shelby communicates on a specific Ethernet port, to help eliminate unwanted traffic on an IT network.

Shelby Bot: Now With Device Aliases & Fault Codes

As promised, the bot is getting smarter! The bot now knows about Device Aliases answering questions about device maintenance issues, and if you need help deciphering the Fault Code Messages, look no further than the chatbot! We added a Fault Code database for a bunch of devices – check out the supported device list, and try out a question like “What can I do to fix fault code 2 type 1 on a Kinetix 5700” and see the magic happen.

Device Aliases

We have had numerous customers asking for a way to add custom names to the assets that are found by Shelby. Now, an administrator can add custom Device Aliases to more easily identify their assets by simply exporting a CSV of existing assets, editing the CSV file with their desired Device Aliases, and importing this CSV file back to Shelby!
Above: Shelby’s Asset List, Dashboard, and Action Cards using new Device Aliases.

Action Cards Performance

We’ve made some improvements to Action Cards as well, adding cards for when devices go offline, and increasing the performance of the Action Deck over-all. The Action Deck now uses a more efficient algorithm to display and dismiss cards more quickly in this 1.5 release as well as decreasing the amount of data sent between Shelby and the web browser. Also, did we mention that we now support Firefox too?! Take advantage of the Action Card performance on Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer!

Engineering Units in the Trend Control

The new additions to the Trend Control will aid in more easily identifying trend lines. Each trend line in the Trend Control will now have the corresponding engineering units visible helping identify multiple trend lines in a single Trend Control. Do not forget that you can easily click on the Trend Control Units to toggle on and off any desired trend line.

New and Updated Profiles

Again, we have released new, basic profiles for multiple devices, including diagnosing common errors on the FactoryTalk® Historian Machine Edition (ME) Module, expanding the basic profile for Kinetix® 5700 Servo Drives to include the newest catalog numbers, as well as the Shelby bot’s ability to know about L85Z and 1768 CompactLogix™ Controllers and can discover devices on the 1768 bus.

Users of TeamONE equipped with a Shelby (FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices) appliance can now get their Action Cards on-the-go!

Mobile Action Cards let you find out about maintenance problems and faults, any time you have wireless access to your Shelby — and the best part is its available in the free version of TeamONE!

As our first release on the phone, there are a few caveats to be aware of, but we’re excited that we were able to collaborate with the TeamONE dev team to leverage the functionality and extensibility of two great products.

To use the new Action Deck module you’ll need the latest update on your phone, and a current build of Shelby software running on your appliance. Your phone will also need to be on the same network as your Shelby (either via WiFi or remote VPN access).
Once you’re ready, you’ll be able to add a new connection in the “Connect” module on your phone. Be sure you click the “…” button and change the Connect type to “Shelby Appliance.”

After you fill in the details of your appliance, hit Save. The Action Deck module will appear on the second page of your TeamONE’s home screen and will be ready to use any time your phone is on the same network as your Shelby!

Some of the afore-mentioned caveats:

• Action Cards aren’t pushed to your phone — you have to go look to see what’s new.
• Votes are stored in your phone, and are unrelated to votes you make on your laptop or desktop browser. This is something we’ll improve as we deepen our integration with TeamONE over time.
• Some of the newest Action Deck features coming in our next Shelby release won’t be in the phone version right away (things like hiding resolved cards).
• Action Cards on your phone are driven by your Shelby, not your phone, so keep your Shelby up-to-date to get the latest insights into your operation.
• Each TeamONE user can only connect to a single Shelby appliance. Future mutli-Shelby functionality may become a paid feature, depending on how we decide to tackle that.

As always, feedback drives our teams and helps us learn, so let us know what you think!

While prepping 20+ Shelby demo units for 2017 Automation Fair, we wrapped up our 1.1 Fall Content Pack features and deployed them to The Shelby Sync Server!

Be on the lookout for these new features in this release:

Profiles, Profiles, Profiles

We released new, basic profiles for multiple devices, including E300 Electronic Overload Relays, ICE2 Controllers, Kinetix® 5700 Servo Drives, PowerMonitor™ 1000, PowerMonitor™ 500, PowerMonitor™ 5000, and SMC™ Flex Soft Starters.

CIP Bridging

With increasingly complex networks seen at our customers’ facilities, we have had multiple requests for the ability to access different networks through a backplane. Starting with this release, we enabled the second ethernet port and the ability to manually configure CIP Bridging in the device detection section in your Control Panel. This will allow Shelby to browse more devices on a different network connected to your backplane.

Chatbot

Not sure what a particular assessment means? What is this Action Deck anyway? The Shelby Chatbot can now help you understand more of the information that you see.

Offline Device, No Problem

We enhanced our historical data collection to clearly show the state of the device when it went offline and then continue to trend the data again when the device comes back online.

Action Cards + Analyzer

Prior to the Fall Content Pack release, Action Cards votes were based on the device, but now, voting on a card will be voting on the device’s analyzer. We also added a “Resolved” state for Action Cards that were once faulted, but are now resolved.

Coming To a Device Near You

We have multiple beta customers testing out Shelby Action Cards inside their TeamOne iPhone or Android App! Be on the lookout for this update rolling out to the TeamOne App soon!
iPhone | Android

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back for our next set of release notes! Happy Holidays!

– Team Shelby

As promised, 1.1 has been released to the Shelby Sync server. Cloud-connected Shelby’s will update automatically. If your Shelby doesn’t have an Internet connection, you can use your PC to help it out.

Although this was primarily a bug-fix update, and an opportunity to flex our new seamless synchronization capability for simplified updating (no ControlFlash necessary!) we did get one major feature enabled: Shelby now supports dual networks, and manual search ranges. This enables a number of topology options:

Connect to two separate and isolated network segments or VLANs with one appliances
Connect two an automation network on one port, and a higher level information or analytics system on another port
Search outside of the deployed subnet, and include or exclude ranges of IP addresses to fine-tune Shelby’s discovery and analysis
Our next update is aimed primarily at expanding and deepening our device support. More news will be posted here as we finalize what will be ready in the fall. Hope to see you all at Automation Fair 2017!

The Shelby Team is proud to introduce FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices 1.0. After just 16 months of rapid development, we delivered our install media to the factory to be paired with the VersaView 5400 Industrial PC creating something completely new — what we call the Shelby appliance.

For maybe the first time in this space, a product will bend itself to the user, instead of forcing users to learn complicated installation and configuration procedures. In about 5 minutes, an average user can complete the set-up wizard — known in consumer electronics as “OOBE” (Out of Box Experience) and be up and running. Shelby needs power and an ethernet connection to an automation network with one-or-more Ethernet/IP devices on it. That’s it. For most users, that’s all the set-up needed.

Shelby doesn’t require a controller, and it doesn’t depend on the Cloud. Everything it needs is in the appliance: a comms stack, a Historian, its analysis and device profiles, web-based visualization, and even the bot all live inside one little hardened PC.

In this release, we have what we call “Default” support for every ODVA-compliant Ethernet/IP device, regardless of manufacturer and “Basic” analysis for over two thousand Rockwell Automation devices. We’ll be adding “Enhanced” analysis for select devices as we move forward with updates.

And updates will be coming quickly! We have our first update release planned for July, fixing some late-breaking issues, and a “Content Pack” release adding new device profiles coming this fall. Shelbys that are connected to the Rockwell Automation Cloud will update automatically; those that are not can be updated with the help of another Internet-connected PC.

Stay tuned here for release details and update information!