ExpertViewer FAQs and HowTos: Connections & Data Access

Yes - if the devices are connected to OPTIME. The ExpertViewer is compatible with the whole OPTIME ecosystem: OPTIME wireless vibration sensors, OPTIME smart lubricators (C1/C4) and the wired condition monitoring systems ProLink and SmartCheck, as long as they send their data to the OPTIME cloud. In that case the ProLink / SmartCheck measurement data appears in the plant tree like any other measuring point, and you can analyse it in parallel to your OPTIME sensor data.

Currently not possible: opening data from ProLink or SmartCheck devices that are operated offline / standalone, i.e. that do not send their data to the OPTIME cloud. For these devices please use the Schaeffler SmartUtility software, which is designed for direct access to standalone SmartCheck and ProLink devices.

No. The ExpertViewer works completely online and permanently communicates with the OPTIME cloud to retrieve data. There is no local measurement database on your hard disk - if you have no internet connection (e.g. on a train without Wi-Fi), you cannot analyse data.

What the software does do is caching: data that has already been downloaded, in particular trend data, is temporarily stored on your disk. When you look at the same data again, less has to be reloaded and the display becomes faster. This cache does not, however, enable a full offline mode.

Because of the online architecture, the performance of the ExpertViewer also depends on the quality of your internet and network connection.

If the ExpertViewer worked yesterday and suddenly fails to load data today, the cause is almost always the internet or company network connection, not the software itself:

• Proxy servers in company networks sometimes respond slowly, which can lead to timeouts while loading data. In many cases this resolves itself within a day.
• Check whether the required Schaeffler endpoints are reachable from your network (see the FAQ entry on network and firewall requirements).
• Check whether you can reach your OPTIME dashboard in the browser with the same host address - if not, the problem is the general connection to the OPTIME cloud.

If the problem persists, please contact our support and provide the software version, your Windows version, your OPTIME subscription name and, if requested, the log files of the ExpertViewer.

When you start the ExpertViewer for the first time, the connection list is empty and you need to set up your OPTIME account once:

1. In the start window select New OPTIME ecosystem and click OK.
2. In the Connect to OPTIME dialogue, click Add to create a new database connection.
3. Fill in the following fields:
   • Alias: any name for the connection, e.g. your company name.
   • User name and password: exactly the same credentials that you use to log into the OPTIME dashboard or the OPTIME app (typically your email address and your OPTIME password).
   • Host address: the same address that you enter in the browser to access your OPTIME dashboard, e.g. mycompany.schaeffler-optime.io. Simply replace the placeholder with your subscription name.
4. Click OK to save. The connection is stored, so this setup is only required once.
5. Double-click the connection to connect to the OPTIME cloud.

The ExpertViewer follows the permissions of your OPTIME account: you see exactly the organizations, plants and assets that your OPTIME user has access to.

The ExpertViewer is built like a browser: you can open several tabs and even several program windows in parallel.

• Several organizations within one subscription: with one login you see all organizations (plants, customers) that belong to your subscription and that your user has access to. You can load them in one window or open one window per organization to keep things tidy.
• Several separate subscriptions (separate logins): each OPTIME subscription is a separate data environment with its own login. Data of different subscriptions cannot be displayed in one window. Set up one database connection per subscription and open a separate window per customer, then switch between the windows.

An OPTIME subscription can contain several organizations (e.g. individual plants or end customers). When your account has access to more than a handful of organizations, the ExpertViewer asks you which ones should be loaded.

The reason is performance: while connecting, the ExpertViewer loads the complete asset structure, the alarm states and all alarm notifications of the selected organizations. Loading all organizations of a large subscription at once can take a long time.

Our recommendation: select only the one or two plants you actually want to analyse in this session. If you need to work on several organizations in parallel, you can open a second program window and load a different organization there - the ExpertViewer behaves like a browser in this respect.