Anode Meter Portal
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Administration Help

Help for C-Born administrator workflows in Meter Portal.

Users

  • Self-registered external users appear in Pending User Approval until approved. Approving a pending user emails them that their account is ready.
  • Invite user creates or updates a user, grants the supplied site, generates a temporary password, and requires password change at first sign-in.
  • Invite email is sent through the configured SMTP relay when Send invite email is checked.
  • Roles are CBornAdmin, CBornUser, and PlantUser.
  • Site access controls which site-limited archives and library items a plant user can see.

Library Publishing

Publish Library Content is used for both Downloads and Documentation. Choose the area, category, product or meter type, version, title, visibility, latest flag, notes/release notes, and file before publishing.

  • Use visibility All approved users for common firmware, manuals, or packages.
  • Use C-Born only for internal content.
  • Use Specific sites when content is limited to named plant codes.
  • Marking an item as latest clears latest on older items with the same area, category, and product.
  • Notes are shown to users before download and should include release notes or compatibility guidance.

Update Packages

Admin > Update Packages publishes staged app and firmware update packages and pushes them to plant gateways for over-the-air rollout to meters.

Roles

  • CBornAdmin — can view, publish, and push update packages.
  • PlantUser — can view and push published packages to a plant gateway. Publishing remains C-Born admin-only.
  • CBornUser — does not have update package access.

Publishing a Package

Select the hardware type (SC20, G120, or EMX), then drop the app, optional SDK firmware, and readme files onto the upload target. The hardware type is selected automatically based on file extensions: .tca or .ghi → SC20, .hex → G120 (use the dropdown to switch to EMX).

  • SC20: drop one App_<sdkVersion>_<label>.tca, an optional .ghi SDK file, and an optional readme.
  • G120 / EMX: drop one App_<sdkVersion>_<label>.hex and an optional readme. No SDK file is needed (the NETMF firmware SDK is assumed up-to-date on all G120 meters).

The portal generates manifest.txt automatically from the bundle contents and compresses the app file with Deflate before pushing to the gateway. Compatible meters (firmware with AnodeMeter.Compression support) receive compressed chunks for 4–5× faster over-the-air transfers; older meters receive uncompressed data transparently.

Publishing stores the files and metadata only. Push targeting and install policy are chosen at push time, not publish time.

When Also publish to Downloads library is checked, the publish also creates a Downloads > Firmware library item from the .tca file. This gives sites without a gateway setup access to the firmware through the standard Downloads page. The library version can be set independently; if omitted the SDK version from the app filename is used. Release notes are extracted from the readme file: everything before the first horizontal-rule delimiter (---, ===, or ___) becomes the library item notes.

Push Options

  • Target scope — All sites for full rollout, Specific meter for a single test meter, or Specific site codes for a phased rollout.
  • Install policy — Prompt operator asks the meter operator to confirm installation; Automatic installs without operator interaction.

Plant Gateway

The gateway URL is the address of the plant-local AnodeMeterService HTTP gateway. The AnodeMeterService web gateway listens on port 1958 by default (port 1957 is the meter TCP connection port). In testing the gateway runs on localhost; in production it is the plant gateway machine on the plant intranet.

  • Save stores the URL in browser local storage for all portal modules.
  • Test connection calls GET /api/anodemeter/status on the gateway and reports service name, version, and database/read/write availability.
  • Push fetches the package files from the server and posts them to the gateway from the browser. The gateway stages the package in its durable UpdateStore and meters pick up the update on their next connect cycle.

Managing Published Packages

Each published package row has three actions:

  • Push — sends the package to a plant gateway for OTA rollout.
  • Library — publishes the package's .tca file to the Downloads > Firmware library after the fact, in case the publish-time checkbox was missed. The SDK version from the app filename is used as the library version.
  • Retract — permanently removes the package from the portal database and deletes its staged files from disk. Use this when a problem is found with a published package, before re-publishing a corrected version. Only CBornAdmin users see this button.

Update Flow

The meter initiates update checks during its normal connect cycle. The gateway gates transfers by battery charge and idle state (USB-connected meters bypass these gates). Files are transferred in 512-byte CRC-verified chunks with resume support. When all files are verified, the meter alerts the operator or installs automatically depending on the push policy. After install the meter reports its new version back to the gateway.

Portal Notes

Portal Status Notes appear on the Home page. Use them for current notices such as firmware releases, service installer updates, manual updates, or operational warnings. Notes can be published, hidden, re-shown, and categorized as Info, Success, or Warning.

Download Status

Download status lists published library items, latest status, visibility, download count, and most recent download. Use History to see which users downloaded a specific item and when. Hide removes an item from Downloads without deleting it; tick Show hidden items and use Unhide to restore it.

Discussion

The Discussion board is open to all enabled portal users: anyone can start topics (Portal Feedback, Meter Operation, Gateway & Service, General), reply, and edit their own posts.

  • Administrators can Hide individual posts or whole topics — a soft delete that only admins can see and undo.
  • Lock stops further replies and edits on a topic while keeping it visible.

Configuration Drafts

Config drafts shows each user's active autosaved configuration edit state. Open a draft to inspect the XML during support or export it for recovery. Drafts are separate from immutable archive saves.

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