Platform Update - Device Endpoint Authorization, Beckhoff Trigger Enhancements, Instance Usage Notifications

Today's update greatly streamlines the development of Experiences with built-in device authorization; adds configuration file support to the Beckhoff Trigger; and adds usage notifications to the Instance Manager.

Device Endpoint Authorization

With Device Endpoint Authorization, the platform can now automatically check that an experience user is associated with a device. For example, if an experience endpoint accepts a device ID as a path parameter (/devices/{deviceId}), you can now configure that endpoint to verify that the user is associated with whatever device ID was provided.

Large applications built on Losant often include dozens of endpoints that act on specific devices. This feature removes a great deal of duplicated authorization logic across those workflows. In many cases, this feature replaces the need for Device: Verify Nodes. As an additional benefit, the device object is automatically added to your render context and workflow payload. This often removes the need for a Device: Get Node.

Beckhoff Trigger Enhancements

The Beckhoff Trigger can now receive its configuration from the Gateway Edge Agent's TOML configuration file.

[[triggers]]
name = 'MyBeckhoffSubs'
type = 'beckhoff'
localAmsNetId = '192.168.5.150.1.1'
localAdsPort = 32750
targetAmsNetId = '5.123.154.18.1.1'
targetAdsPort = 851
routerHost = '192.168.5.220'
routerTcpPort = 48898
cycleTimeMs = 100
subscriptionItems = [ 'GVL_Var.TestDint1' ]

This feature is particularly useful if your PLC network and PLC tag configuration is known up front. This information can be predefined in your configuration file and be flashed as part of your gateway provisioning process. This feature also makes it possible to dynamically change the Beckhoff Trigger's behavior by modifying the configuration using the Agent Config: Set Node.

Instance Usage Notifications

Instance Usage Notifications make it easy to send custom notifications when a child organization's payload or notebook usage exceeds a percentage of its monthly limit.

The primary audience for this feature are platform resellers who would like to warn customers when they're near resource limits. This feature also applies to private installations that would like to create internal notifications as a way to monitor their own resource consumption.

Other Updates

As always, this release comes with several other features and improvements, including:

• Instance members can now view the payload and notebook usage for child organizations directly through the Instance Manager.
• When exporting an application, you can now optionally provide a callback URL that will be invoked when the export is complete.
• More options have been added to the dashboard time jump buttons. Thanks Allan_West for the suggestion!
• The platform no longer enforces a smaller payload size limit when sending commands to Embedded Edge Agent devices. The limit is now the standard 256kb.

What’s Next?

With every new release, we listen to your feedback. By combining your suggestions with our roadmap, we can continue to improve the platform while maintaining its ease of use. Let us know what you think in the Losant Forums.