Digital Input widget
What this widget is for
The Digital Input widget puts the site's digital input channels on the dashboard. Each channel appears as a labelled status indicator — on or off — that reflects the live state of the physical input. Useful for monitoring contactor states, switch positions, alarm contacts, generator-run signals, and other on / off signals connected to the site.
Use it when you want a permanent on-screen view of binary signals. For adjusting numeric settings use the System Variables widget; for power and energy use the chart and icon widgets.
Companion guides
- Dashboard overview — how to add, move, resize, and remove widgets.
- System Variables widget — for setting numeric / dropdown configuration; this widget is the digital-on/off equivalent.
- Power Flow widget — the high-level live view of the system; this widget zooms in on specific binary signals.
Where to find it
Open the Dashboard, click the pencil icon to enter edit mode, then click Add New Widget. Search the picker for Digital Input and click Add Widget.
The widget at a glance
The widget shows:
- A title at the top (editable).
- A list of input channels with their current on / off state. The state is shown both visually (colour or indicator) and as text — On / Off, High / Low — depending on how the input has been configured upstream.
The state updates live as new readings arrive from the digital input device (model 25 internally).
Configuring the widget
Open the gear icon. The settings dialog lets you:
- Title — name the widget so a row of Digital Input widgets remains distinguishable (e.g. "Generator signals", "Alarms").
- Channel selection / labels — depending on the site's configuration, you may be able to filter which channels appear and how they're labelled. The defaults follow how the device was set up at commissioning.
Reading the inputs
- Each channel's current state is shown immediately and updates whenever the underlying signal changes.
- The labels reflect how the input was configured — for example a channel wired to a generator's run signal might be labelled "Generator running" with on / off mirroring whether the generator is on.
What an input means depends on how the site is wired and configured. The widget shows the state of the contact; whether that means "the alarm is active" or "the alarm is OK" depends on whether the wiring is normally-open or normally-closed. If a state looks inverted, check the channel's configuration with whoever commissioned the site.
Who can do what
- Any signed-in user can add the widget, configure its title and channel display, and read the live states. The widget is read-only — it shows input states and never drives them.
Common issues
- A channel is always "Off" even though I know the signal is on. Either the wiring is reversed (normally-closed instead of normally-open, or vice versa), or the channel isn't connected to the source you think it is. Have it checked physically; the widget displays what the input device reports.
- The state doesn't update. New readings aren't arriving. The Auto Update option in your View Settings controls a periodic background refresh — leave it on so the stream reconnects after a glitch.
- The channel I want isn't listed. Only channels the site's digital input device is reporting are available. If a wire was added to the device after the dashboard was set up, refresh the page (or remove and re-add the widget) so the new channel is picked up.
Tips and gotchas
- One widget per purpose. A "Generator" Digital Input widget with just generator-related channels reads better than one widget with every signal on the site.
- Use clear labels. A channel labelled "DI 3" means nothing to a viewer; "Roller-door closed" tells the story. Setting clear labels at commissioning makes the dashboard usable by non-engineers later.
- Pair with Plant Control Notifications. A signal change that fired an event will appear both on the Digital Input widget (state change) and on the notifications widget (event entry). Together they show "what happened" and "what the system did about it".