As IoT deployments evolve beyond simple monitoring to intelligent automation, the need for flexible, customizable rule-based systems has become critical. That’s why we’re excited to introduce Smart Rules NEW, a powerful evolution of our proven Smart Rules functionality that removes traditional limitations while maintaining the ease of use of the original design.
Smart Rules NEW represents a significant advancement in democratizing advanced analytics within IoT environments. By leveraging the powerful Analytics Builder framework underneath, it eliminates the traditional constraints of predefined templates, while maintaining an intuitive interface for rule creation and management.
In this article, we’ll explore how Smart Rules NEW revolutionizes rule-based automation across your Cumulocity deployment, from device management to asset operations, delivering the flexibility to build exactly what your operations require.
Revolutionizing Rule Automation with Complete Flexibility
Key Advantages Over Traditional Smart Rules
1. Complete Customization Freedom
Configure rules through an intuitive interface while gaining access to sophisticated logic capabilities. Make simple adjustments that weren’t possible before—such as triggering alarms only after 10 minutes of threshold breach, pausing notifications after the first alert, or combining multiple data sources into complex decision workflows.
2. Enhanced Operational Capabilities
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Custom alarm workflows: Create sophisticated notification and escalation systems
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Multi-sensor data correlation: Combine measurements from multiple devices for comprehensive analysis
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Advanced mathematical operations: Implement flexible calculations and trend analysis
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Time-based pattern recognition: Detect operational patterns over extended periods
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External system integration: Connect with APIs and downstream systems
3. Flexible Deployment Contexts
Smart Rules NEW introduces powerful new deployment options that extend beyond traditional use in Cockpit dashboards:
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Device Management: Apply rules to individual devices or device groups for operational monitoring
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Asset Management: Deploy rules across asset hierarchies for business-focused automation
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Cross-context flexibility: Rules can operate at the appropriate level for your use case
Enhanced Device Management Capabilities
Smart Rules NEW can bring powerful new capabilities to traditional device management scenarios:
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Advanced Connectivity Monitoring Detect anomalies in device communication patterns, such as extended periods without messages or unexpected spikes in data transmission that may indicate configuration issues.
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Flexible Device Health Scoring Establish comprehensive health scores combining multiple device metrics and trigger alerts when devices fall below acceptable thresholds.
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Operation Status Monitoring Track device operations that remain in “pending” or “executing” status for extended periods, enabling proactive intervention before timeouts occur.
Expanding Beyond Devices: Asset-Level Intelligence
Another significant enhancement in Smart Rules NEW is native support for asset-based rule deployment. This capability enables the following scenarios:
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Asset Measurement Aggregation Combine data from multiple linked devices to create comprehensive asset-level metrics, such as total energy consumption across all meters in a building or average temperature readings across multiple sensors in a production area.
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Asset Performance Scoring Establish comprehensive performance indicators that combine multiple operational metrics to provide holistic asset health assessments and trigger maintenance alerts.
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Cross-Asset Correlation Analysis Monitor relationships between different assets in your hierarchy to identify operational dependencies and optimize overall system performance.
Core Configuration Experience
Smart Rules NEW maintains the familiar workflow end-users / consumers expect, while unlocking advanced capabilities and more flexibility for model authors / creators.
End-users / Consumers
Step 1: See an overview of active rules
Within the application you’re in, select a device, group or asset and click on the Smart Rules NEW tab.
Step 2: Add a new rule
Click on “Add Rule” to open up a list of available rules for configuration, prepared by your solution administrator. (note: the list of available rules might be empty up to the point your solution administrator has made a first model available for you to select from)
Step 3: Configure the selected rule
The right-hand side of the panel now shows all information and parameters that can/should be configured.
Note that 1 of the parameters will be automatically configured to be the device, group or asset context from which you are working.
Step 4: Activate the rule
Once all information and parameters are configured, you can activate the rule by sliding the button on the top right from an Inactive to Active state.
Model Authors / Creators
Step 1: Navigate to Analytics Builder
The Smart Rules NEW are powered by the Analytics Builder functionality of the Streaming Analytics application, which has been powering various analytics and automation capabilities for many years with its flexible drag&drop user interface.
Step 2: Start from Samples or Build your Custom Model
Begin with enhancing the familiar Smart Rules templates via the “Samples” tab or create entirely custom logic using Analytics Builder’s pre-built blocks.
Note: while the Samples come prepared to be made available as Smart rules NEW, your Custom Analytics Builder Model needs to be configured with template parameters (see Smart rules (NEW) plugin - Cumulocity documentation for more details)
Step 3: Configure the model to be available as Smart Rules NEW
To enable Smart Rules NEW to link a template parameter to represent a device, group and/or asset; select “From Context” in the Value Selection drop-down and configure “Source or Destination” to represent the desired appearance.
Business Impact and Strategic Value
Smart Rules NEW delivers significant business value across multiple dimensions:
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Accelerated Automation Deployment: Reduce time-to-value with flexible but intuitive rule creation tools
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Enhanced Operational Intelligence: Move beyond simple alerts to sophisticated automation workflows that adapt to your business needs
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Reduced Technical Complexity: Leverage visual modeling instead of custom coding for advanced rule logic
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Scalable Rule Management: Deploy and manage sophisticated rules across device fleets and asset hierarchies from a single interface
Ready to experience Smart Rules NEW?
We hope that this short introduction inspires you to try it out yourself and start thinking about evolving your traditional smart rules towards Smart Rules NEW. The public preview is available via preview features and all the existing traditional smart rules templates are available as ready-to-use samples in Analytics Builder to get you started.
Learn More:
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Rewatch our “What’s new” webinar series (July | October) where we demonstrated the Smart Rules NEW capabilities and explore advanced use cases.
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For comprehensive details about Smart Rules NEW capabilities and configuration options, refer to our Analytics Rules Plugin documentation.
Give it a try and share with us your feedback!
Note: Global Smart Rules Usage
Traditional Smart Rules included a “Global Smart Rules” feature that allowed rules to be created in a global context and automatically applied across your entire inventory (devices, groups, configurations, and applications). As we continue developing Smart Rules NEW with its enhanced flexibility and context-aware deployment capabilities, we want to ensure we fully understand how our customers leverage this global functionality.
If you currently rely on Global Smart Rules in your operations, we’d love to learn more about your specific use cases and operational patterns. Please reach out to nick.vandamme@cumulocity.com to share your Global Smart Rules usage scenarios.