Sync

Sync is Silico’s data integration suite synchronising the structure and data of your Digital Twin to existing resources and systems from across your organisation. Sync supports integrating BPMN process map repositories like ARIS and timestamped data points from your systems or as CSV files. Sync stores these integrations and datasets outside of individual projects for use in multiple Digital Twins.

Feature Status

Sync is only available to organisations on silico.app and on private enterprise clusters. Sync core functionality supports the upload and management of CSV data files directly within Silico. Direct integrations with external systems (such as SAP and ARIS Cloud) are available as add-ons for enterprise clusters. Please contact your Customer Success Manager to discuss your data integration requirements.

Accessing Sync

You can switch between the Studio and Sync areas in the top-left corner of your Silico home screen. Whereas Studio handles modelling projects containing Digital Twins, Sync manages data integrations between Silico and your existing systems, extracts data from integrated systems to update Digital Twins, and integrates data from CSV files.

The Sync area is split into two different functionalities: Datasets and Integrations. Integrations establish connections between Silico and your existing systems. Datasets are individual queries of timestamped data from those systems or uploaded as CSV files.

Integrations

Creating a new Integration

The instructions below demonstrate creating a connection to an ARIS process map repository. Requirements for other integrations enabled on enterprise clusters may differ slightly.

Click on the plus icon to create a new integration. You will be asked to provide:

• A connection name: This is the connection's name displayed throughout Silico and can be chosen freely. 
• Instance URL and tenant: Specify the system and location to which you want to connect.
• Username and password: The login details to access the system.

Click submit to create a new integration. Silico will test your integration and alert you to any connection issues.

Using an Integration

There are two ways to use your new integration:

• Importing model structures such as BPMN process maps from repositories like ARIS. After successfully creating the integration, no further work is required in Sync. The integration can now be used in a project to automatically generate Digital Twins based on existing process maps using Silico’s Process Models.
• To query an integrated system and extract refreshable datasets to synchronise your Digital Twin with the most recent information. This is done in Sync’s Datasets area and is described below.

Deleting an Integration

You can delete integrations by clicking on the bin icon on the right-hand side of the data integration.

CSV Datasets

Uploading CSV Datasets

CSV files uploaded to sync must be in a specific format. Each row of an uploaded CSV must reflect a single timestamped data point. Each column of the CSV file can be one of the following:

• A time column containing the timesteps of the data point in ISO 8601 format, i.e. 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z
• A segmentation column specifying the segment each data point applies to
• A variable column containing numerical values

Click the plus icon in the Datasets area to create a new CSV dataset. You can drag and drop a new CSV file into the field or browse and select a file from your computer. Once the file is uploaded, you can change the name of the dataset and match the column and decimal operators to your CSV file. You must also select a time column.

For example, the above CSV file has two time columns. Only one of them is in the correct ISO format and can be selected as the time column of this data set. The middle column reflects a segmentation specifying the region to which a data point applies. The two columns on the right reflect the values of two different variables. Thus, the first row reads: on the first of January 2023, we sold 60 units at an average price of 11 in Europe

Converting Date Formats

Silico requires ISO 8601 date formats to enable your organisation to reflect time and different time zones consistently. To convert dates in Excel to the required format, you can use the following equation:

=TEXT(A1, “yyyy-mm-ddThh:MM:ssZ”) 

where the first argument A1 needs to be replaced with the cell containing your original date.

Updating Versions

A new dataset version can be uploaded using the “Update Version” button in the top right. Once a new version is correctly set up, click “Save Changes”.

Different versions can be viewed using the dropdown on the right above the table. Projects using this dataset in DataTables will automatically load the latest version when entering the project or manually refreshing the data.

Deleting a Dataset

A CSV dataset can be deleted by clicking on the bin icon on the right-hand side of the dataset.

Querying Datasets

Enterprise customers can create datasets that query integrated systems to synchronise the Silico Digital Twin with external data sources, such as an ERP system. The specific requirements of those queries depend on the integrated systems. Please contact your Customer Success Manager to discuss your data integration requirements.