Alongside the new apps module I have also been working with @cagabi and @beaylott from CarbonCoop on a new emoncms module called Groups which has arrisen out of a number of projects we are involved with that require managing multiple emoncms accounts for multi-site monitoring installations.
This module is also live on emoncms.org and is on github here: GitHub - emoncms/group: In development: Emoncms groups module, but is only at a very early beta release stage so is quite limited at the moment.
Essentially it allows for the creation of groups or projects to which a number of users can be assigned, users are added by entering the username and password of the user. At the moment its possible to see a list of users added to a group and how many feeds are active for each user. Its then possible to login to that user by clicking on the username for quick access.
Here’s an extended description of what we are trying to achieve:
Multi-user administration module.
Administration and groups for multiple emoncms accounts on emoncms.org or other muti user emoncms installation. Providing administrator access to specific users/groups rather than global administration for all users – for which there is a basic implementation inbuilt in emoncms already.
A group:
- Types of installation: “Air source heatpumps”, “Solar + battery systems”
- Particular research project, e.g “Heatpump Study”, “Retrofit study”
- A group of users wishing to compare energy use and generation
Use case 1: An installer of heatpumps, solarpv etc who is monitoring 10-100s of installations, across many sites, providing remote assistance and fault checking.
An administration module would allow an initial emoncms user to add users to their administrator view. Making it possible to remotely manage multiple accounts without logging into each account individually.
Use case 2: A research project monitoring 10-100s of sites. Requiring site status check’s to ensure monitoring is all operating ok. Alerts to signal a system going offline or measurement going outside of expected range.
Advanced multi site data export tools for further data analysis
Use case 3: A group of interested users in a community energy project who want to compare energy use and generation in a group as well as doing a level of consumption and generation aggregation.
There could be in this case a group administrator and then users which are members of the group. There would be specific access permissions for each user type so that such a group administrator may not have access to individuals detailed data but have access to summaries and aggregation.
Todo
V1: Basic groups, administrative user access and active feeds monitor
- Edit group name and description
- Edit user access
V2: User stats
Implement ability to show either:
- a selected real-time feed value in the user list
- an average or total e.g: average temperature in the last day, kwh in the last day
- a calculation e.g: heat kwh last day / electric kwh last day, perhaps implemented as available calculations that are pre-written: e.g: heatpump COP (which would then look for feeds following a naming convention in each users account).
- filtering by above results or/and by installation meta data: e.g heatpump type, house floor area
V3: Basic notifications
- Implement inactive feeds email notification
- Implement alerts based on feed values and calculations e.g alert if COP over last week is below 2.0.
V4: Reports
Perhaps an integration with a dedicated reporting module, ability to send custom reports to users of installation performance etc. Or reports to administrators of overall group/project status
For a full list of ongoing emoncms developments see: https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/active-development-topics/2954/7