ThreadWare is built from modules - Sales, Production, Quality and so on. An administrator gives you a role in each module, for each company you work in. The menu is built from those roles. So if something in this guide is not in your menu, it has not been given to you yet. Ask your administrator, or log a support ticket. To see what you currently hold, click your initials in the top right and choose My Access & Roles.
On top of that, you only see tags at the sites you are assigned to. Two people with the same role at different sites see different tags.
Can I use it?
| Role | What it opens |
|---|---|
| Instrument Viewer | Machine and instrument graphs, and tag status. This is the everyday role. |
| Home Dashboard Viewer | The private office dashboards: Solar Dashboard, Instrument Details, and output control. |
| Instrument Admin | Everything above, plus tag setup - see the Instrument Tag setup guide. |
The pages
Menu ▸ Instrument Graphs
| Page | Use it when you want to... |
|---|---|
| Instrument Graphs | ...look at one tag closely, over any period, and export it. |
| Machine Graphs | ...see one machine's tags side by side as small charts, grouped by the parts of the machine. |
| Tag Status | ...check which sensors are still reporting and which have gone quiet. |
| Company Instrument Graphs | ...do the same but scoped to one company you work in. |
| Company Mini Dashboard | ...watch a few key numbers refresh live on tiles. |
| Instrument Details | ...see the detail behind a tag. Needs Home Dashboard Viewer. |
| Solar Dashboard | ...watch solar generation and power use. Needs Home Dashboard Viewer. |
Instrument Graphs - one tag in detail
The main charting screen. It opens showing a week of readings at full detail, with daily lowest and highest values underneath.
- Pick a tag. The picker narrows step by step: Company (only shown when you can see more than one), Machine (or Not on a machine), Section (only when the machine has sections), then Tag. Or type a tag number, name, machine or section into Search any tag and pick the match. The last five tags you opened sit underneath as Recent chips, and the picker remembers your last company and machine on this device.
- Choose how far back to look. Either click the time button to step through the presets, or set Date from and Date to for an exact period.
- Click Load Data.
The time presets step through: 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24 and 48 hours, one week, then roughly one month, two months, three months, six months and one year.
The buttons along the top
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Load Data | Fetches the readings for the period you chose. |
| Download | Saves what is on screen as an Excel file. Greyed out when there is no data. |
| Y Axis | Switches between starting the up-and-down scale at zero, and zooming in on just the range the values actually cover. Starting at zero is honest; zooming in shows small changes. |
| Area / Line | Fills in under the line. Only available when the Y axis starts at zero - a filled area on a zoomed axis is misleading. |
| Refresh | Reloads with the newest readings. |
What you see
- The main chart - every reading over your period. Hover to read a value, drag to zoom, double-click to zoom out.
- Daily Min/Max - the lowest and highest each day, 30 days by default. This is usually the more useful chart for spotting a slow drift. It has its own days button.
- The current value - a big tile with the latest reading, its unit and the tag name.
Wind direction is drawn differently. A wind-direction tag shows a compass dial with a pointer and a bearing in degrees instead of a line chart, because a line from 359 down to 1 looks like a huge swing when the wind barely moved.
Readings that were discarded
A sensor with a loose wire can report a number that is simply impossible, such as 5000 degrees on an oven that cannot pass 300. ThreadWare checks each reading as it arrives against the tag's believable range. An impossible reading is not saved, so it does not bend the graph, set off an alarm or spoil an average. It is kept on a separate list, and the graph tells you plainly that it happened:
- A red ✕ along the top edge of the chart, at the moment of each discarded reading. Hover over it to read the value, the limit and the time.
- A red line of text under the chart title, for example "3 readings were discarded in this period as impossible (highest 5000 °C, limit 300 °C)".
- An orange open ✕ marks a reading that was kept but listed: either the company is still in its trial week (see below), or the value jumped further from the previous reading than the tag's jump limit allows. A jump is never discarded, because a sudden change can be real - a machine starting, for example.
The chart keeps drawing the last believable value across the gap. If you think a discarded reading was real, tell an administrator: they can put it back, with its original time, and widen the range. Nothing is lost for good.
If a sensor sends only impossible values for several minutes, the banner says "Sensor fault suspected. No believable reading since 14:32". From that moment the ordinary alarm for that tag cannot work, because it has nothing believable to judge. Treat it as a fault to be fixed, not as a quiet machine.
Only tags that have a believable range are checked. A tag nobody has given a range saves every reading it is sent, as it always did. An administrator sets the ranges - see the Instrument Tag setup guide.
Machine Graphs - one machine at a glance
- Pick a Company (and a Site when the company has more than one).
- Pick a Machine. All tags at the site shows everything, as before; Not on a machine shows the tags nobody has put on a machine yet.
- ThreadWare draws a grid of small charts, one per tag, grouped under the machine's sections (Mixing, Packing, ...) in the order set on the Machines & Work Centres page.
- Click any small chart to open that tag in the full Instrument Graphs screen.
The page-level Y Axis, Area / Line and Refresh buttons apply to every chart at once. If a site has a lot of tags, only some are drawn at first - use the "show more" control to load the rest.
Tag Status - is the sensor alive?
The first place to look when a number seems stuck. It shows the last time each tag reported.
There is a search box, a Site filter, and three counters at the top. The table shows Site, Tag ID, Name, Value, Unit, Last Updated, Status and Discarded (24 h), with the rows colour-coded.
Discarded (24 h) carries a red badge with a number when readings of that tag were discarded as impossible in the last 24 hours. Hover over the badge for the last time and value. A fourth counter at the top says how many tags have such a badge. The value shown in the row is always the last believable reading.
| Status | Means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Online | Reported within the last hour. | Nothing. It is fine. |
| Recent | Between one hour and one day ago. | Normal for a slow-changing measurement. Worth a look if it should update often. |
| Stale | A day or more, or nothing at all for a week. | Something is wrong. Report it, or check the tag's Device settings if you are an administrator. |
Click any row to jump to that tag's chart.
A sensor that has not written for a while is not necessarily broken. ThreadWare only records a reading when the value changes. A tank level that has not moved genuinely has nothing new to say. Judge it against how much that measurement should move.
Company Mini Dashboard - live tiles
A small set of chosen tags as big tiles, refreshing every 15 seconds. Each tile shows the label, the value, the unit, and when it was last updated - or "Older than 1 week" if it has gone quiet. Click a tile to open the full chart.
A tile carries a red badge when readings of its tag were discarded as impossible in the last 24 hours; the number is how many. While a sensor fault is suspected the tile also says "No believable reading since 14:32" in red. The tiles on the Home page do the same. The value on the tile is the last believable reading, never the impossible one.
Which tags appear is chosen by an administrator under Administration ▸ Configuration ▸ Minidashboard Tags. You can also build your own personal set from My Dashboard Tags.
If you see "No instrument tags are configured for this company's sites, or you do not have access to them", either nobody has chosen tiles for that company yet, or the tags are at a site you are not assigned to.
Solar Dashboard
Solar generation, use and battery figures on one screen. Needs the Home Dashboard Viewer or Instrument Admin role.
Charts on a TV
ThreadWare can show these charts full-screen on a Samsung display in a boardroom or on the factory floor. That is set up once by an administrator, who activates the TV against your system. Nothing for an ordinary user to do.
When something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your tag is not in the picker | It is at a site you are not assigned to, or it is marked hidden. Ask an administrator. |
| The chart is empty after Load Data | No readings in that period. Widen the period, then check Tag Status. |
| The line looks flat | Either the value genuinely is not moving, or the Y axis is starting at zero and the changes are small. Turn Y Axis off to zoom in. |
| Download does nothing | Load data first - the button is disabled with an empty chart. |
| A red ✕ along the top of the chart, or a red badge on a tile | Readings were discarded as impossible. See Readings that were discarded. One now and then is a glitch; a row of them is a sensor or a wire that needs attention. |
| The value has not changed although the machine is running, and there is a red badge | The sensor is sending only impossible values, so ThreadWare keeps showing the last believable one. Report it as a sensor fault. |
| A year of data is very slow | Expected. For long periods use the Daily Min/Max chart instead of full detail. |
| Every tag on one machine or Node stops at the same moment | The program that brings those readings in (the OPC client or the Modbus reader) has stopped or lost its connection. An administrator can check under Administration ▸ Product Licence ▸ Supporting programs; see Where the readings come from. |
| Machine Graphs shows no sites | You are not assigned to any site in that company. |
Related guides
- Instrument Tag setup - creating and configuring tags.
- Tag Analytics - predicting where a reading is heading.
- AI Assistant - you can also just ask "what is the humidity in the packing hall right now?".
- All guides