• Home
• Knowledge base
• The site tree

The site tree: branches, controllers, sensors

The site tree is how you describe your site to Bhairava Sense. If you can draw a family tree or an organisation chart, you can draw this.

Branches are places

The tree starts with your site. You add branches underneath it for the places that make sense to you: blocks, floors, rooms, workshops, bays, or, for a fleet, vehicles. Branches can hold other branches, so a floor can contain rooms, and a room can contain a cabinet area.

You choose the names and the structure. There is no fixed layout to follow.

Controllers and sensors go on the branches

When Sensor Discovery has found controllers and sensors, you drag them onto the branches. A controller is placed on the branch where you would go to find it. A sensor is placed on the branch that best tells a person where it is.

Thinking about how to shape your tree

• Mirror the way people talk about the site. If people say "second floor, east wing", make branches for them.
• Keep it as shallow as it can be. Three or four levels are usually plenty.
• Choose the branch that tells someone where to walk. That is the point of the tree.
• Do not worry about getting it perfect first time. Start with the places people already talk about.

The tree does a second job

Once things are in place, the very same tree is what you use to watch the site. Each controller and sensor shows green while it reports and red where it has stopped, in the place you put it and under the name you gave it. You do not maintain one structure for setting up and another for watching.