Administration Help

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 — under More info on a Downloads item, directly on the card in Manuals — and should include release notes or compatibility guidance.

Release notes file

The optional Release notes file picker fills the Notes box from a text (.txt or .md) file, replacing whatever was in it. This suits a ReadMe that carries a product's whole release history: publish it with each new version and every version's notes show the full history, not just the latest changes. The text can still be edited before you publish. Only the text is used — the file itself is not uploaded or stored (limit 256 KB, UTF-8).

PDF companion

The optional PDF companion is a second file stored with the item. Download then delivers the PDF instead of the main file. Use it for a document authored as an HTML page, where the main file is the HTML shown by View and the PDF is what people save. Do not use it for notes or any other file you still want people to download as well — it replaces the main file on Download, so a text file there would be delivered instead of an installer. For notes, use the Release notes file picker above.

A PDF does not have to be added at publish time: on Download status, each item has a file picker with Attach PDF (or Replace PDF if it already has one).

HTML items

An HTML item also gets a View button that opens it in a new tab instead of downloading it. It is shown with scripts and form submissions disabled, so the HTML must be self-contained: inline CSS and images embedded as data URIs, because only that one file is stored.

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. Release notes are extracted from the readme file: everything before the first horizontal-rule delimiter (a line that is exactly ---, ===, or ___) becomes the library item notes.

The Library version is the application's own version, and is filled in from the readme's Vn line (for example Vn 4.4.1.4). It is not the SDK version in the file name — that is the firmware the package needs, a different number. A readme can describe several packages, each under a header line naming its file (App_2.3.0.3_20261010.tca). The version is taken from the Vn line under the header that matches the package being published, so the same readme can be used for a release built for two firmware versions (for example 5.0.0.1 for firmware 3.0.2.1 and 4.4.1.4 for firmware 2.3.0.3). If no header matches, the topmost Vn line is used. You can always type the version yourself; publishing is refused if none is found. The row's Library button uses the same rule.

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 version comes from a Vn <version> line near the top of the package's ReadMe.txt (e.g. Vn 4.4.1.0, right under the App_<sdkVersion>_<label>.tca header) — add one if the readme doesn't have it, or publish from the Publish Package flow above with an explicit Library version instead.
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.

Gateway Settings

Admin > Gateway Settings remotely views and updates a plant gateway's own database connection and authentication mode, using the same gateway URL mechanism as Configuration and Update Packages (Save, Test connection, Load settings).

SQL passwords are write-only here — never displayed or round-tripped from the gateway — and can be stored Encrypted (DPAPI, machine-local, meets policy) or Plaintext (testing/troubleshooting only). The active mode is shown, with a warning when Plaintext is active.
Switching to Encrypted does not remove an existing Plaintext copy by itself — use Delete plaintext password (type DELETE to confirm) once Encrypted mode is active and has its own password stored.
Test DB connection checks the gateway can reach its database with the currently saved settings.

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. Each row also shows whether the item has a PDF companion, and lets you Attach or Replace it (see Library Publishing).

Retract is different from Hide — it permanently deletes the item's database row and its stored file(s), with no undo. Use it to clean up an item that's genuinely no longer needed (a superseded manual version, a mistaken publish), not as an alternative to Hide for something you might want back.

Updating a Published Item

Manuals and Downloads item cards show an Update button (CBornAdmin-only) that jumps to Publish Library Content with Area, Category, Product, Title, Visibility and Site codes already filled in from that item — set the new Version, add fresh notes, and choose the new file(s).

The Retract the previous version after publishing checkbox (checked by default when arriving this way) publishes the new version first, and only retracts the old one once that succeeds — so a failed publish never leaves a product with no version at all. Uncheck it if you want to keep the old version published alongside the new one.

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.