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Reporting Service |
  
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Reporting Service
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Reporting Service |
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Overview
The "Reporting" service is an MCL-Mobility Platform service designed to provide specific data to authorized external back-end systems (ex: lists of sites, applications, operators, operator groups, devices, device operators, etc., as well as current information on a device or operator - status, power mode, battery status, login status, etc.).
The "Back-ends" module manages the back-end profiles you create for the external back-end systems that are authorized to communicate/request data from your MCL-Mobility Platform account and it is where you will find more technical documentation on back-end requests that rely on the "Reporting" service (a back-end profile's "Back-end Details" page - "Service(s)" tab).
The information retrieved by the "Reporting" service" for authorized external back-end systems can also be used to feed specific reports in your MCL-Mobility Platform which can be viewed/analyzed in the "Business Analytics" module, specifically, in the "Reporting" sub-module. This sub-module includes a list of template reports, each one with specific information on devices and your account's master data (ex: a list of devices with static or network info, a list of operators, a list of sites, etc.). You can choose the report(s) you want, view the retrieved information and, also, export the exposed data. See Reporting.
Back-end Requests via the "Reporting" Service
The data exchange between the external back-end and your MCL-Mobility Platform account consists of data requests/corresponding answers.
There are two types of data the external back-end can retrieve regarding the account's entities- Static data and Dynamic data.
Static Data - refers to generic information that does NOT change due to account activity. It is a type of data normally used for inventory purposes.
For instance, a site's static data would consist of the name, timezone, the total of associated devices, etc.
In the case of a device, it would be the model, the manufacturer, the device group it is included in, its configuration, etc.
There are specific endpoints to retrieve an account entity's static data (ex: "masterdata/sitelist", "masterdata/sitedetails", "masterdata/devicegrouplist", masterdata/operators", etc.).
Dynamic Data - refers to information that is affected by account activity, meaning, it is current data that is constantly being updated. This type of data is used for monitoring purposes.
For example the dynamic data of a device would be the last contact, battery level, power mode, gps coordinates, network info, etc., and for an operator it would be the login status.
There are specific endpoints to request dynamic data from your account/subscription (ex: "devicestatus/devicedetails", "devicestatus/lowbattery").
"Reporting" Service Limits
There are some limitations to the data exchange between the external back-end and MCL-Mobility Platform:
•There is a limit of 50 back-end requests per minute for each back-end profile. So, if an external back-end requests a specific report more than 50 times within the same minute, it will get the corresponding "HTTP 429 error" responses until the next minute is reached.
•Always consider the entity and the type of information you want to retrieve when defining a back-end request. For instance, not all account entities provide dynamic data (ex: sites).
•The result to a back-end request is limited to 1000 records. To avoid exceeding this limit, we recommend:
a. you use a specific endpoint for each entity and define specific parameters.
Ex: Instead of defining 1 request for the total number of devices within the account, define a request of devices per site (use the endpoint for a site + identify the site) or even define a request per site and per device group (use the endpoint for the site + identify the site and add the "devicegroup" parameter to identify/specify the group of devices to be returned).
b. you use a series of requests with an "offset" parameter to retrieve a complete list of the intended data.
Usage
Be aware that you must have a compatible back-end profile within your MCL-Mobility Platform account (= a back-end profile that includes the "Reporting" service and is associated to the intended site or to all the sites, as required) so it can be applied to your back-end requests. See Back-end Profiles.
If required, you can implement mechanisms to automatically manage back-end report requests:
•a Windows Desktop App (installed in the intended external back-end system(s)). Check for more details in our Knowledge Base.
OR
•an MCL.Net Library (integrated in your back-end application(s)). Check for more details in our Knowledge Base.
OR
•a Java Library (integrated in your back-end application(s)). Check for more details in our Knowledge Base.
Make sure you register/log in to our MCL Community to access our Knowledge Base.
Feel free to contact MCL Support for more information on each option.