Influx DB

Connect with an InfluxDB time series database

Note: InfluxDB has multiple versions. Marple supports InfluxDB 2 and 3 (IOx), the two latest and most used versions. Our integration for v3 is relatively new, so let us know if you have a different experience than v2 at support@marpledata.com.

⚠️ InfluxDB 1.x is not supported. Please migrate to a newer version of InfluxDB to use Marple.

InfluxDB logo

Contents

The documentation below is structured in two parts

  1. Set up (only first time)

  2. Visualising and saving data (finding the right data)

Note: some more advanced Marple features are not yet available for InfluxDB data. We'll be adding them in future releases.

1. Set up

Preparing your Influx database

To get started with InfluxDB, you will need the three credentials:

  1. URL: the web link, like http://influx.mycompany.com

  2. Token: a connection token which looks like a long random string

  3. Organisation: the organisation where your data belongs to

  4. Custom HTTP headers: only if your InfluxDB requires these

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If you have an IT department you might need to ask them. If you have access to the InfluxDB web application, you can obtain these credentials yourself with the steps below.

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If you don't like to read, here's a video that covers this "1. Set up" part.

Tutorial video how to connect to your influx database

1. URL

The URL can be read from your browser bar. Be sure to only include the part before the first slash ("/"). Some examples of valid URL's:

  • http://influx.mycompany.com

  • http://influx.mycompany.com:8086

  • http://ec2-3-66-214-234.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com:8086

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Often the URL will include the port 8086. Make sure to include it (and the colon ":")

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⚠️ Important: make sure that the URL is accesible from outside your company network/VPN. You can try this by accessing the URL using your phone on cellular network. If this is not the case, you will need the help of IT to set up port forwarding.

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The InfluxDB URL is in your browser bar

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2. Token

Use the load data menu to access the "API tokens" section.

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The API tokens overview page

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You can choose to reuse an existing token (A) or to generate a new token (B).

The most secure option is to create a new token:

  1. Click "Generate api token" and choose "Read/Write API Token"

  2. Enter "Marple" as the description

  3. Select what buckets you want Marple to be able to access (or select "all buckets")

  4. Save the token

  5. Click the token to open it

  6. Copy the value to the clipboard, you'll need it to set up Marple

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Creating a new token

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Copying a token

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3. Organisation

The organisation can be found in the about section.

The organisation name in the InfluxDB web app

4. Custom HTTP headers

Optionally, you can add custom HTTP headers to the InfluxDB connection. If you need those, make sure you have the header names and values ready.

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Making the connection

Create a new InfluxDB connection in the data library.

Enter the credentials (URL, token, organisation, custom HTTP headers) obtained from the InfluxDB application or your IT administrator. You can choose an easy to remember name for this connection.

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Click "Test Connection" to check if the credentials work. If all is well, save the connection.

2. Visualising data

Selecting data

After your connection is all set up, it's time to visualise the data in your buckets. Go to the library, select the bucket of your choice and press OPEN BUCKET.

In the visualisation view, you can configure the data:

  1. Select the bucket: switch to a different bucket if you like

  2. Setting time range: pick this as narrow as possible for a nice result‍

  3. Filter on tags: narrow down by selecting a bucket and specific tags

  4. Group by tags: select which tags your data should be grouped on

  5. Save your data settings in a snapshot: reuse it later without having to specify the settings again

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Hint: visualisations will have the best result when you narrow down by selecting enough tags. If you leave the tag filtering open, your snapshot can contain multiple datasets layered on top of each other.

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Once in the visualisation tab, you unlock the same Marple features as for files. You can drag signals to plot them, create share links, etc. See the analysis documentation for more information.

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Save data settings in snapshots

Influx databases can contain a lot of data. Often, you only want to visualise a small part of that at once. A snapshot lets you choose a small part of the data.

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You can think of snapshots as files. They appear in the library and are shared with your team members. They can also have metadata.

Visualising snapshots works the same as you would with files:

  1. Click the checkbox (or double click the snapshot)

  2. Click "Visualise"

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