Attribute meta into notebook input

Help
1

Hi Losant team:

I am trying to read into device and attribute meta data into a notebook. When I output the device meta data, I am only getting the device meta data (no attributes). Is there a way to export the meta data including attribute names and tags?

Thanks!

Mike

2

As you’ve discovered, we do not include device attribute metadata (descriptions and attribute tags) in notebook device metadata inputs. I’m filing a feature request to get that added; we’ll have to figure out a CSV format that makes sense for such a thing.

I can think of two possible workarounds in the meantime:

  1. An External URL input that points to a webhook configured to wait for a reply. This then fires a workflow that returns the devices you want to include in the notebook execution.
  2. An External URL input that pulls a file containing all of the device metadata; that file could come from application files. (It would be on you to keep this file up to date.)

The downside is the URL would have to be public, so anybody with the link could retrieve the data. You could add a token as a query param and require that to validate before retrieving the data in case #1, which would add some level of security.

3

Thanks Dylan - I appreciate the addition to the feature request list.

That work around sounds appropriate as well. I’ve started down the path of assembling the required information as JSON on a payload path and passing it into the notebook call as context.

Appreciate the response as always!

4

Better late than never! Tuesday’s platform update allows for creating device metadata notebook inputs in JSON format, and when you do so, each device’s attribute configuration (names, attribute tags, etc.) are included in the data.