The Client

FieldVision provides software solutions to entities that wish to monitor environmental variables through the use of digital sensors. Their initial market was to provide data processing and reporting for the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) which collected weather data from farms across Canada.

The Problem

FieldVision’s core offering is to provide data monitoring and alerting services for their clients in the farming and construction industries using real-time data collected from IoTs and industry specific monitoring systems. In order to properly service these sectors, FieldVision had to solve three key pain points most often faced by their clients.

Data Volume and Scale

Collecting large amounts of data, particularly in the context of Internet of Things (IoT) and time series data, presents unique challenges for organizations. IoT devices generate continuous streams of data at an unprecedented scale, often in real-time or near-real-time, requiring specialized data collection mechanisms and robust infrastructure capable of handling high-frequency data flows. The diversity of IoT environments and the need to ensure data integrity add complexity. Harmonizing time series data from various devices with varying sampling frequencies and formats is crucial for deriving meaningful insights. Furthermore, addressing data privacy and security concerns, including the need for end-to-end encryption and access controls, is essential. Balancing the potential benefits of IoT data with the imperative to safeguard privacy and secure critical infrastructure remains an ongoing challenge for organizations in this domain.

Real-Time Monitoring and Alerting

Achieving near real-time updates requires a well-designed infrastructure capable of handling high-speed data streams efficiently. Latency in data processing can result in delayed alerts, which can have serious consequences, such as financial losses or safety hazards. Ensuring the scalability, fault-tolerance, and reliability of alerting systems is paramount, as they need to operate continuously, even under heavy loads.

Reporting

Generating scheduled reports is a necessary but often time-consuming task for many organizations. Extracting relevant information from large datasets, formatting it, and presenting it in a meaningful way for decision-makers can be a labor-intensive process. Automation tools and report generation systems can help streamline this process, but they require careful configuration and maintenance.

The Solution

FieldVision worked with Quadratica to develop their Client Portal application and strategy for handling large amounts of data that can come in bursts. The proposed solution is able to scale with the number of clients as well as devices connected to it.

Reporting

Generating scheduled reports is a necessary but often time-consuming task for many organizations. Extracting relevant information from large datasets, formatting it, and presenting it in a meaningful way for decision-makers can be a labor-intensive process. Automation tools and report generation systems can help streamline this process, but they require careful configuration and maintenance.

Data Management

There are two ways that clients can submit sensor data to FieldVision’s API. The first way is through FieldVision’s own GSM or WiFi enabled dongle that connects directly to sensors out in the field and the second way is through API integration where clients can submit large amounts of data through a secure API interface. Both methods will push all incoming data to a scalable ActiveMQ instance where it will await processing from FieldVision’s data processor. This method allows the API to process data in near real-time as well as not be overwhelmed with large influxes of data. This is paramount as many devices in the field can go offline for extended periods of time due to lack of solar power or network connectivity but will still log data for when power and/or network connectivity is restored resulting in large amounts of data being sent at once.

Alerts and Notifications

Many of FieldVisions clients are in the construction industry where monitoring of existing infrastructure as well as air and noise quality are extremely important as they must often fall within regulatory constraints. It is therefore important that any deviations from the norm must quickly be addressed. Quadratica devised a solution where users can be notified through email or in the app in real-time but in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the recipient. Alerts are clearly displayed to the user and details about what triggered the alert can be quickly viewed in the notification pane on the user’s dashboard.

Automated Customized Reports

As stated above, most clients require some sort of reporting to be generated for them that they can keep for auditing purposes or to quickly share with the wider team. Quadratica devised a solution where reports can be generated per widget or for an entire dashboard of a user. The former will provide more detailed information whereas the latter will provide general information for a quick snapshot.