Frequently asked questions for IoT Central

You may need:

• This information if you contact support.
• The Azure subscription your application uses to locate billing information in the Azure portal.
• The application's ID when you're working with the REST API.
• The application's version to complete tasks such as adding a connector.

To get information about your IoT Central application:

1. Select the Help link on the top menu.

2. Select About your app.

3. The About your app page shows information about your application:

   

   Use the Copy info button to copy the information to the clipboard.

Each Azure subscription has default quotas that could impact the scope of your IoT solution. IoT Central limits the number of applications you can deploy in a subscription to 100.

If you need help, you can file an Azure support ticket.

For more information, including other support options, see Azure IoT support and help options.

Azure IoT Central uses Azure IoT Hub as a cloud gateway that enables device connectivity. IoT Hub enables:

• Data ingestion at scale in the cloud.
• Device management.
• Secure device connectivity.

To learn more about IoT Hub, see Azure IoT Hub.

Azure IoT Central uses DPS to enable devices to connect to your application. To learn more about the role DPS plays in connecting devices to IoT Central, see How devices connect. To learn more about DPS, see Provisioning devices with Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service.

Applications that use a standard pricing plan are charged per device, with the first two devices free, per application.

In the pricing section, you can upgrade or downgrade your Azure IoT pricing plan at any time.

1. Go to the Pricing page in the Application section.

   

2. Select the Plan and then select Save to upgrade or downgrade.

There are three ways you can register a device in your IoT Central application:

• Automatically register devices when they first try to connect. This scenario enables OEMs to mass manufacture devices that can connect without first being registered. To learn more, see Automatically register devices.
• Add devices in bulk from a CSV file. To learn more, see Import devices.
• Use the Devices page in your IoT Central application to register devices individually. To learn more, see Add a device.

A device can connect to an IoT hub directly using a connection string or using the Device Provisioning Service (DPS). IoT Central always uses DPS.

To connect a device that was connected to IoT Hub to IoT Central, update the device with:

• The Scope ID of the IoT Central application.
• A key derived from the application's group SAS key or X.509 certificate.

To learn more, see How devices connect

To interact with IoT Central, there must be a device template that models the device capabilities. To learn more, see What are device templates?.

The Troubleshoot why data from your devices isn't showing up in Azure IoT Central includes steps to diagnose connectivity issues for devices.

When a device is blocked, it can't send data to your IoT Central application. Blocked devices have a status of Blocked on the Devices page in your application. An operator must unblock the device before it can resume sending data:

When an operator unblocks a device the status returns to its previous value, Registered or Provisioned.

If the device status is Waiting for Approval on the Devices page, it means the Auto approve option is disabled:

An operator must explicitly approve a device before it starts sending data. Devices not registered manually on the Devices page, but connected with valid credentials has the device status Waiting for Approval. Operators can approve these devices from the Devices page using the Approve button:

If the device status is Unassigned, it means the device connecting to IoT Central doesn't have an assigned device template. This situation typically happens in the following scenarios:

• A set of devices is added using Import on the Devices page without specifying the device template.
• A device was registered manually on the Devices page without specifying the device template. The device then connected with valid credentials.

The operator can assign a device to a device template from the Devices page using the Migrate button. To learn more, see Manage devices in your Azure IoT Central application > Migrating devices to a template.

The first time you access the application, you must navigate to the application URL link you received from the administrator

You can have up to 200 organizations, including nested organizations.

No, devices can only belong to one organization. You can move a device to a different organization.

Yes, a user can belong to one or more organizations. For each organization assignment, the user can also have a different role. For example, Tom can be an administrator at Plant A, and an operator in Plant B.

No, experiences such as device groups, dashboards, and jobs are associated with a single organization.

Monitoring in the Azure portal is useful for operations monitoring. The audit log in an IoT Central application lets you see who made changes to entities within the application.

Currently, you can't store more than 30 days of data in the audit log. Entries older than 30 days are deleted automatically.