Today's release provides some major new functionality for your Losant applications. Data Tables are a way to store entirely custom data for your IoT solutions.
Nearly every reasonably complex solution we've seen developed on Losant has brought in an external database to store additional information. This could be work orders, maintenance tickets, custom security rules, or other metadata. Developers and project admins generally don't want to maintain extra tools and services. This is why we brought Data Tables into Losant and seamlessly integrated them into the user experience and workflow engine.
Data Tables can be accessed under the new "Data Tables" main menu. Data Tables are made up of rows and columns. The screenshot above shows an example table to store maintenance tasks. We automatically create a few common and useful columns for you. These include an auto-generated unique ID (id), the date the row was created (createdAt), and the date any field on the row was updated (updatedAt). You can then add additional columns based on your specific use case.
Once the Data Table is created, you can filter and view rows, edit rows, or add new rows directly using the Losant user interface.
The real power of Data Tables comes with their integration into the workflow engine. A new set of nodes allow you to insert, get, update, or delete rows. This provides seamless interaction between your IoT solution's business logic and custom data.
Data Tables has been built on top of our new data abstraction layer. This gives Losant Enterprise customers the ability to layer the Data Table functionality on top of their existing internal databases. By default, Data Tables are stored and managed by Losant, removing the need for any database administration.
With every new release, we really listen to your feedback. By combining your suggestions with our roadmap, we can continue to make the platform easy for you. Let us know what you think in the Losant Forums.