Tutorial: how to integrate Helvar routers, devices and groups

Configuring the Helvar routers, devices and groups using the discovery wizard

HelvarNet provides a discovery service to find Helvar routers and their devices. To use this discovery feature, the Helvar interface includes a discovery wizard that can be used to discover routers and drivers and generate the required configuration and definition files.

To start the wizard, the Core Server must be stopped. If the Core Server is not running, select Start Wizard … from the menu HelvarNet within the Core Studio.

Open

After having started the wizard, the wizard initiates the discovery process. During the discovery process, all discovered routers and their devices and groups are shown.

Afterwards, all discovered routers, devices and groups are shown. Devices and groups that are not part of your current workspace are shown in green, italic font. In addition, a checkbox for selecting the device or group is shown. Devices and groups that are already part of your workspace configuration are shown in normal font and no checkbox is available.

Now, select the devices and groups that you want to add to your workspace configuration. If you want to select all new devices and group, use the button Select all new devices. When the selection is finished, press the button Next.

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Then, the new router configurations are shown. Note that existing routers within your configuration are not shown – only new ones. If no new router is added, this step is skipped.

Verify the configuration and adapt the default values for Heartbeat Seconds and Read on Reconnect if required. Afterwards, press the button Next.

Then, the new group configurations are shown. Note that existing groups within your configuration are not shown – only new ones. If no new group is added, this step is skipped.

Verify the configuration and adapt the default values for Fade Time Seconds, if required. Afterwards, press the button Next.

Then, the new device configurations are shown. Note that existing devices within your configuration are not shown – only new ones. If no new device is added, this step is skipped.

Verify the configuration and adapt the default values for Fade Time Seconds, Is Emergency Device and Poll Power Consumption Seconds if required. Afterwards, press the button Next.

The last step shows all definitions – including existing and new ones. Press Finish to save the new definitions.

Using the Server Items of the configured Helvar routers, devices and groups

After having started the Core Server, open the Item Tree to see the server items that are generated by the Helvar driver. All server items are located in the subtree NETx\XIO\HelvarNet.

Each Helvar router is listed as a gateway within the gateway manager of the Core Studio. In addition, each router has a GATEWAY item which shows the connection state of the router. The connection state is monitored by sending heartbeats in the configured interval (see https://netxautomation.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PLATFORM/pages/1561755761 ).

Each Helvar router has two subtrees – Devices and Groups. The Devices tree contains all devices and its data points. The Groups tree, on the other hand, contains all groups of the routers and its data points.