You can link a person to a Spot, such as the person responsible for a device or a maintenance contact. The same person can be linked to several Spots: their name and contact details are shared, but each link to a Spot is separate. An attribute’s history lets you check the previous values saved for a single Spot.

Open the Spot and check permissions

In the browser menu, open Assets and content → Assets, devices, tools. Select Default table, find the Spot and open its form by clicking the Spot’s name. Open the Contacts section of the form. This is the current name of the contact list.

Viewing contacts requires permission to view both the Spot and its contacts. To link an existing person, you need permission to edit the Spot. To create a new person, you also need permission to create contacts. Editing a person’s details and unlinking them by updating their details require permission to edit contacts. Deleting the person entirely requires permission to delete contacts and permission to edit all Spots linked to them.

Permission to edit a Spot therefore does not give you all permissions to manage contacts. If an action is missing or saving is blocked, ask your administrator to check both sets of permissions.

Link an existing contact

  1. In the Contacts section, select Add existing contact.
  2. Find the person using the dialog’s column search fields, for example by name, email or company.
  3. On the person’s row, click the circled plus icon in the Selected contacts column. The icon changes to a checkmark. People already linked to this Spot appear as selected.
  4. Select several new people if needed, then click the dialog’s Save button.

Saving the dialog links the people immediately. You do not need to click the Save button at the end of the Spot form to confirm these links. Cancel closes the dialog without saving its selections.

To unlink a person who is already linked, use the trash icon on their row as described below. Do not remove the checkmark in the existing contact selection dialog as a safe way to unlink them.

Create a new contact

First check the list of existing people to see whether the person is already registered. This lets you use the same contact on different Spots instead of creating separate copies.

  1. In the Contacts section, select New contact.
  2. Fill in at least Firstname and Lastname. Add an email address, phone number, title and company as needed.
  3. Check which Spots will be linked in the form’s Select spot selection. The open Spot is selected initially; you can also link the person to other Spots.
  4. Save by clicking the New contact button on the contact form.

In the browser, email and phone can be left blank. If entered, the email must be a valid email address, no more than 250 characters long, and must not be used by another Spot contact. If entered, the phone number must be numeric and 10–15 characters long. Use a phone number consisting of digits without spaces.

The person is created and linked to the selected Spots that you can edit as soon as you save the contact form. If you deselect the current Spot, the person will not appear in this Spot’s contact list.

Edit shared contact details

In the Contacts list, click the person’s First name. Change their details in the form that opens and click its Save button. The change is saved immediately to the shared contact record and also appears on all other Spots linked to the person.

You can also change the person’s links using the form’s Select spot selection. A new link requires permission to edit the target Spot. Existing links to Spots that you do not have permission to edit are retained when you save.

Remove a link or delete the person entirely

Unlink from this Spot only: in the Spot’s Contacts list, click the trash icon on the person’s row. Check that the confirmation says Are you sure you want to delete the selected contact from this Spot? and confirm by clicking Delete. The link to this Spot is removed immediately. The person’s details and links to other Spots are retained.

Delete the person everywhere: open the person’s form by clicking their first name, then click the form’s Delete button. The confirmation states that The contact will be removed from all Spots. Accept it only if the person is no longer needed anywhere. This deletes the contact record and all its Spot links; it does more than remove the link to this Spot.

Deleting the person entirely is blocked if even one Spot linked to them is outside your edit permissions. Permission to delete contacts alone is not enough.

Verify that the action succeeded by closing and reopening the Spot and checking its contact list. If you changed shared contact details, also open another Spot linked to the person and check the same details there. After unlinking, the person should still appear on the other linked Spots.

Contacts in the mobile app

Open the Spot in the Android or iOS app and select Contacts from its action buttons. The button text is split across two lines. If you need help finding the Spot, see Opening a Spot’s details on mobile.

Add a new person using the Add button with a plus icon at the bottom of the contact list. Open an existing person’s form by tapping their card or row. Check the linked Spots on the form; Add Spots on Android or ADD SPOTS on iOS opens the selection of other Spots. Save using Save on Android or SAVE on iOS at the end of the form.

The current create and edit forms in both mobile apps require an email address and phone number in addition to first name and last name. A person saved in the browser without these details cannot be saved using the mobile form until the missing details are filled in. The email format is checked, and the server also checks that the address is unique and that the phone number is numeric and 10–15 characters long. iOS additionally requires at least one linked Spot.

The current iOS contact form clears the person’s title when saved. If the person has a title that needs to be retained, edit their details in the browser. You can maintain the title using the Android form.

On mobile too, the person is shared by all linked Spots. Editing the links retains links that are outside your permissions. On mobile, permission to link a person is checked against permission to edit the Spot’s folder. Use the browser to remove a link or delete a person entirely as described in this article.

Check an attribute’s value history in the browser

The value history shows the saved value events for an attribute on the selected Spot. Permission to read the Spot is sufficient to view it; edit permission is not required.

  1. Open the Device card section of the Spot form and find the attribute you want to check.
  2. Click the blue history icon next to the attribute, which looks like a sheet of paper marked LOG. The window that opens is titled with the attribute’s name.
  3. Select a time period under The attribute was last updated.
  4. Compare the time, Old value, New value and User information on the rows with the attribute’s current value.

The default time period is six months. The preset options are 1 month from today, 3 months from today, 6 months from today and 12 months from today. In this history, they refer to a period extending backwards from today, rather than future events or whole calendar months.

Anytime retrieves the history without a time limit. For a custom period, select Between dates... and enter the start and end dates in the Date range selection that appears. Both boundary dates are included in the search as whole days. The newest events are shown first initially.

If the person responsible for an event cannot be matched to user information, the column displays Unknown user. This alone does not explain why the user is missing.

Distinguish a value change from saving the same value again

The history may also contain rows saved from mobile where the old and new values are the same. Such a row indicates that the value was saved again, rather than changed. For example, a row with Old value: 100 and New value: 100 does not mean that the reading increased.

Only fetch value changes is initially unchecked. When you enable it, these rows where an unchanged value was saved again are filtered out. Filtering only changes the contents of the history list; it does not delete saved history.

You can narrow down the list using the column search fields and export the table to Excel using the history window’s Export view to Excel button. If an event you expected is missing, check that you have the correct Spot and attribute, widen the time period, and clear unnecessary column searches and the value change filter. Also check the current value in the Spot’s Device card section.

Viewing the history or selecting a row does not restore a previous value. If a value needs correcting, change the actual attribute on the Spot form with the appropriate edit permissions and save the Spot.

Choose the right history

This value history covers the values of one attribute on one Spot. Changes to a Spot’s operating status belong to a separate status history; see Spot status and disabling a Spot. Other data changes can be investigated using the general change history.

The history of the Device card’s shared attribute structure shows attributes being added and removed, rather than the values of an individual device. See Device card attribute change history.