Asset Templates

Asset Template provides a basic structure of an asset.

Asset Template’s purpose is to avoid copy-pasting signals and metadata for fleets that have many assets based on the same kind of resources (such as ship, car, forklift, …). The concept is similar to programming; having classes (i.e. Asset Templates) and their class objects (i.e. Assets).

Typical workflow for modeling real-world resources is as follows:

Create an asset template that models a particular resource. Add signals, metadata and dashboards to the template.
Create assets based on asset template, and fill in their information (name, description, serial number, …)
When the asset model needs to be changed (e.g. a new signal is needed), modify the asset template. The changes are immediately migrated to assets that are based on the template.
So the benefit of using Asset Templates comes evident only after the number of Assets increases. Then the larger Asset fleet becomes easier to manage.

You can also create new versions of the Asset Template, and then migrate Assets to the newer Asset Template when the Asset will support the new template format (typically by updating the Asset’s software).