Labview VI Controls won't link to my NI Data Dashboard

[George1020]

Why wont the controls in my labview VI link to the NI Data Dashboard? My indicators link perfectly. When I set up the server and then do the "poll web service" on the data dashboard, it never shows me the control options to link them.

[jattas]

Currently in Data Dashboard 2.0 you can only connect inputs (controls) to a web service if you use a "Call Web Service" button. Polling Web Services only support outputs (indicators).

You have a couple options if you are interested in polling with input values. The Call Web Service button supports configuring repeated calls while you are pressing it. Or you can add a method to your web service on the server side that sets the values of the inputs one time, then have your existing method poll the outputs based on the last value of inputs that were set by the other call. Let us know if you would like more advice on how to set that up.

[George1020]

Thank you for the quick answer! I'm going to try to set up the call web service button now. However, can I do that and poll at the same time? 

Additionally, can you provide detals on how to change the web service to set the values one time and therefore let me call it on its last inputs? For this type of method, do I need to change the controls on labview before it syncs the outputs with the data dashboard???

[George1020]

I've tried using the call web service function, but again, I only see the outputs (indicators) as options for me to link to.

[jattas]

It is indeed possible to call and poll a web service at the same time. The only restriction is that you can't both call and poll the same web method in one dashboard. I'm not sure why you wouldn't see your controls on your poll web service, but maybe this will help:

I've attached a small example. In this example, I have two LabVIEW VIs that are exposed as two web methods in the same web service.

1. "Set Inputs" has two controls (x and y). When you call it, it saves the two values in a global variable.
2. "Get Outputs from Last Inputs" has one indicator (sum). When you call it, it reads the two values from the global variable and returns the sum in its indicator.

In Data Dashboard, I set up a dashboard where the "Set Inputs" method is connected to a call web service button and the "Get Outputs from Last Inputs" method is connected to a polling web service. I created controls for the inputs to the call and I created an indicator for the output of the polling. When I run it, I can set values for the input, press the button, and see the result from the output.

If this doesn't help make things clearer, maybe you could post your VIs and dashboard so we could give you more specific advice.

[George1020]

That all makes sense to me and I got almost everything to work. I now have two VI's, one with the inputs and one with the outputs. I also created the global VI and I am positive that I linked everything together correctly. Now the only issue I am seeing is that when I try to call the inputs from the labview dashboard on my ipad I can only see the outputs. I have tried calling and polling both VI's and all I see are the outputs as options to link to my data dashboard. Any ideas on why this is happening?

[George1020]

I've attached all of my files in hopes that you can see the issue I'm seeing. For some reason I really can't get the inputs to show.

[jattas]

At an initial glance, I can't see anything wrong. Maybe it's just an issue of the changes to the Web Service not making it into Data Dashboard? To fix that, make sure you try the following:

1. In LabVIEW, build and deploy your web service again (right click My Final COAST and select Build, right click again and select Deploy)
2. In Data Dashboard, re-bind your Web Service button (tap the button, tap the green/gray connection button below it, navigate to your FINALCOAST service again, maybe even press the refresh button, and select your /inputs web method).

If that still doesn't work, could you post the three VIs in your project? They were missing from your last post.

[George1020]

Here are the three VIs

[jattas · Accepted solution]

It looks like there were some problems with your web service URL mapping. The "inputs" method was pointing at the wrong VI (COAST.vi instead of inputs.vi). And the controls on inputs.vi had spaces in their names, which meant that LabVIEW couldn't create the automatic URL mapping. I've attached a project and VI that has these issues fixed. If you rebuild and redeploy the web service, hopefully you will see the inputs in Data Dashboard.