Get Started with Connections
A connection is the link between UpBlue and a data source: a PLC, an MQTT broker, a sensor gateway or an external system. The connection describes where the data lives. Rules describe which values to collect. One connection can have many rules.
For example: one OPC UA connection to the PLC of Line 1, with a rule for the speed, a rule for the temperature and a rule for the product counter.
Three kinds of connections
| Kind | Runs on | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| Local | The UpBlue Collector in your factory network | Machines and devices inside the factory: MQTT, OPC UA, Modbus, IFM IO-Link |
| Cloud | The UpBlue cloud, no Collector needed | Data that is already on the internet: webhooks, external MQTT brokers, streaming APIs. See Cloud Connections |
| UpBlue Connect | Plug-and-play UpBlue hardware | Machines and meters without any data connection. See UpBlue Connect |
Create a connection
Source and type
A connection is created within an organisation. Go to the UpBlue Management Environment to open an organisation. Go to the connection page. You can also create a connection from the collector page. This will automatically attach the connection to that Collector.
Choose the source: Local, Cloud or UpBlue Connect. Then choose the connection type.
Name
Give the connection a name. The name is only for identification and can be changed later. For example: PLC Line 1 or Energy meters Hall 2.
Labels
Labels tell UpBlue where the data of this connection comes from. The Enterprise and Site labels are prefilled with your company and organisation name. Fill in the location as far as it makes sense: Area, Cell, Unit. All labels are optional and can be overridden per rule. Read more about labels.
Think carefully about the labels you choose! Changing them later will have effect on your dashboards. Read more about this here.
The connection lifecycle
A connection goes through the same steps, whatever the type:
- Configure — fill in the connection fields (address, protocol settings). Changes are saved automatically. Fields that differ from what the Collector is currently running are marked, so you always see what is not live yet.
- Test — Click: to test from the Collector, live in your factory network.If the button is gray, first attach a Collector.
- Add rules — define which values to collect. Test each rule the same way.
- Start — Click: (or Update Connection after changes) to send the configuration to the Collector and run it.
- Stop — stops the connection on the Collector. A connection must be stopped before it can be deleted.
Cloud connections skip the Collector: they are started and stopped directly, and have a built-in log viewer.
Need the same connection twice, for example for a second identical machine? Use Copy in the connection list and change the address and labels.
Rules
A rule instructs the connection to collect one specific value (or group of values) and turn it into a tag. What a rule looks like depends on the connection type — a Modbus rule has a register address, an MQTT rule has a topic. The type pages describe all fields.
Every rule has the same three building blocks:
Tag
The tag is the name of the value: temperature, speed, counter_line1. Read more about tags.
Transformations
Raw machine signals are rarely dashboard-ready. Transformations clean and convert values at the source: remove duplicates, count products from pulses, measure runtime from an on/off signal, scale a value. Read more about transformations.
Output
Where does the value go? Every rule has an output section:
Send to UpBlue
On by default. The value is stored in UpBlue and available for dashboards, operations and alerts. Turn it off if you only want to forward the value elsewhere.
Create events
Open an event when a condition becomes true, and close it when it becomes false. This is the way to track production runs and downtime: for example “the line runs when the speed is greater than 10”. The events appear as operations under the selected Operation tag. Read more about operations.
Outgoing Connections
Forward the values of this rule to one or more outgoing connections, for example your own internal MQTT broker. This way UpBlue can feed your Unified Namespace: collect a value once, use it in UpBlue and in your other systems. Combined with “Send to UpBlue” off, the Collector can even work purely as a local data router.
Testing rules
The test runs live on the Collector and shows exactly what would be collected: green rows are ok and will be stored, red rows are rejected. Open a red row to see why. Test your rules before starting the connection — it is the fastest way to get a working setup.