Maintaining your site

Your devices are installed and data is flowing. From here, a short routine keeps it that way and catches the small things before they turn into gaps in a report. Most of it happens from your desk in a few minutes a week, so the site walk can focus on what the Dashboard tells you to go and look at.

The routine has four parts: a weekly health check, the site walk, a monthly check that the software still matches the site, and the jobs that come up when something needs to change. Each part below says what it is for, then links to the pages that take you through it.

Every week: check device health from your desk

Two checks, in this order. Online is not the same as measuring what you think, so the second matters as much as the first.

• Check your devices are online (two minutes on the Dashboard: power, battery and signal for every device)

• Sense check your data (gaps, readings that do not make sense, missing photos and audio, devices measuring the wrong thing)

Then the site walk

Head out with a list, not a hunch: start with the devices the Dashboard flagged, then give the rest a quick look while you are there. Check the panel and the mounting on every device, even the ones that looked fine from your desk. A panel with grass growing over it is still charging today and flat in a fortnight.

• If a device goes offline (read the light, power cycle, clear the panel, sort out the signal; most cases never need a call)

• Solar controller: check it is charging, and reset it (what its three lights mean, and how to reset it)

Every month: check the software still matches the site

Once a month, or whenever the site changes stage. Sites change faster than their records do: devices move, people leave, and thresholds set at the start stop fitting the works.

• Check your devices and Monitoring Points (the right device in the right place, no duplicates, settings complete, one naming convention)

• Check your rules and notifications (the right alerts to the right people, at thresholds that fit the current works)

• Check your site details and records (site details, the user list, daily notes, and where each device is up to on calibration)

When something needs to change

Devices are not fixed for the life of a project. These pages cover each change so the data record stays unbroken through it.

• Move or end the device (move it to another Monitoring Point, end monitoring, or fix the dates afterwards)

• Swap a device (when calibration is due or a device needs fixing: SiteHive sends the replacement)

• Calibration and certificates (how SiteHive manages calibration, and where to find your certificates)