OnPing Recap: 2023

Well, it’s a brand new year for us here at Plow Technologies and OnPing. We like to take a step aside and recap some of our biggest accomplishments from 2023, and of course take some time to think about what we could have done better. We can’t fit the entire list in a reasonably sized post, but we thought it was worth going over a few of the biggest developments for OnPing and some of the goals we have for the year to come.

Improvements to OnPing’s Central Functions in 2023 :

Stability and Performance:

We made major improvements to performance, decreasing load times and making daily workflows faster. We also made improvements to our testing and analytics to improve the way we build and understand OnPing.

More people are using SSO services like Google passwords  or in coroporate settings through the Microsoft suit, and being able to login using a Google or Microsoft account is a huge ease-of-use improvement. OnPing should now  feel more natural in these widely used environments. 

Drivers:

Aside from subtle improvements to our core device drivers, we also added or significantly updated drivers for WellPilot, Lufkin, SPOC and Unico pump off controllers, making OnPing’s already robust set of oil and gas SCADA tools even better.

Integrations:

This year we added integrations (aka the ability for OnPing to speak directly with other applications) for several other cloud SCADA and data collection software platforms including OSI, Tank Logix, Site Pro, Elynx, and Enbase. Making OnPing a great environment to combine many different types of data, from many different sites, and make sense out of it all in one format.

Lumberjack Edge Computer and LAS Improvements:

Lumberjack, and it’s Lumberjack Application System, became an even better and more usable edge computing system this year. We want the Lumberjack system to be as close as possible to having a powerful on premises server rack that can somehow do the big computing and communicating needed on site, but also be as easy to remote update and deploy new ideas to as an iPhone. We got LAS even more diagnostic tools and made the indications easier to understand. We added both a ping tool and a ping-a-port tool. We also added a network diagnostics tool. We added a multi-proxy engine that allows you to forward multiple devices at one time. Every year it gets better, and it will again get even better this year. 

Now, Let’s Look at Some New Features OnPing received this year :

Inferno:

Inferno became our new scripting language of choice this year. We developed this ourselves to address the specific needs of scripting for industrial automation data and control. The power and flexibility of inferno is helping us with tasks like frac tracking reports, emissions tracking and test well tracking. Also advanced comm loss detection and sensor failure detection.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, Inferno has so so much more to offer and you will all be seeing more of it in some truly innovative and exciting new features coming very soon.

Data Tables:

Data Tables represent a whole new way of interacting with OnPing. Right now you can make them ad-hoc and filter them like you would any database table. Data tables are designed to stay performant even when you add 1000s or rows. You can use them to query your site for information. You can set up sub views of the data tables with built in filtering that can be different on different pages. This will allow you to craft tables across multiple views. This new feature also has some exciting next steps coming soon, you can read a more detailed announcement about Data Tables in the recent announcement.

Ticketing:

Did you know we have ticketing? OnPing learned strings this year, by that we mean the OnPing databases learned to store data that had both letters and numbers this year. We have already put this new capability to use in a new Ticketing application to allow for fully customizable tickets to capture human entered data to be tied in with other information captured by OnPing’s existing systems. There will be even more of this coming, but the first stages are already operable now.

OK, so, What Comes Next? What Does 2024 Have in Store?

A lot of this year will be using these pieces we built this year to power features that are far grander in scope, things we’ve dreamed of for a while but needed an infrastructure to tackle.

Inferno is going to continue it’s growth into other parts of OnPing, Control Parameters, Masks and even playing a large role in a truly useful set of AI / ML tools that we are sure will be unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Some of our newer features like Data Tables and Ticketing will be showing up in other applications within OnPing to change the way data and facilities are viewed and interacted with, the first couple of these coming very very soon.

We will also continue with software integrations, new protocols, new drivers, and new data visualization and analysis tools. We will continue to push OnPing ahead and find advanced solutions to newer and more challenging problems.

As our users, our customers, we can’t wait to hear what you think of any of these things, we would love to know the tools or functions you dream of, or problems that continue to bother you that we may be able to solve. We’d love to hear about all of it, and we can’t thank you enough for choosing our products and our team to be your data partners.

Happy New Year and we wish you a successful 2024!