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Production & Cleanroom

Seeing Is Believing: How elproMONITOR Cloud Helps Quality Teams Find and Respond to Deviations

Learn how elproMONITOR Cloud floor plans, dashboards and live status updates help GxP quality teams locate and act on deviations across facilities.

Seeing Is Believing: How elproMONITOR Cloud Helps Quality Teams Find and Respond to Deviations
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Every environmental monitoring system collects data. The harder question for quality and operations teams is how quickly they can understand it. Which sensor is out of range? Where is it? Is anyone already handling it? In a facility with dozens or hundreds of monitoring points, answering those questions can mean logging in, searching sensor lists and asking colleagues which fridge sits in which room.


In our previous article on elproMONITOR Cloud, we looked at how alarms are configured, escalated and documented. Now we’ve asked Sascha Schultes, Product Manager for elproMONITOR at ELPRO, to show us what happens after the data arrives: how floor plans, the dashboard and the sensor analysis view work together so teams can view the live and previous states of their facility as well as move from an alarm notification to the exact sensor and the data behind it.

From Collecting Data to Seeing It: Floor Plans

The floor plan feature places each sensor on an image of the facility, so sensor status is shown can be viewed at a glance, including where the equipment is located in the facility. Setting one up is simple: upload a layout image (a simple drawing, a building plan or even a 3D rendering), switch to edit mode, and drag each sensor to its location. Sensors can be filtered by group to make placement easier in larger sites.

 

“Compared to our on-premises solution, creating a floor plan in elproMONITOR Cloud is quite easy and interactive. You can do it yourself: upload an image of your facility, then place all your sensors by drag and drop.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Because floor plans are maintained by users rather than built as a one-time project, they can keep pace with the facility.

 

“If you replace a fridge or move it to a new location, you simply adjust the sensor on the floor plan. Then everyone knows exactly which fridge or freezer has which sensor inside, and where it’s located.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Hovering over an icon shows the current measured value. Users can also choose to display sensor details permanently, turning the floor plan into a live readout of the whole area.

Green, Yellow, Red: Status at a Glance

Each sensor icon on the floor plan changes color with its state, so anyone looking at the plan can read the situation without interpreting numbers. Sascha Schulte explained: “If a sensor is within its normal temperature limits, it’s green. If a warning comes up because the temperature has reached a certain level, it turns yellow. And if there’s an alarm, it’s shown in red.”

In a demonstration Sascha walked through, a sensor had passed its upper warning limit and gone into alarm, so its icon showed red. The floor plan also flagged that the deviation was still unacknowledged, showing not only that something went wrong but no one had taken responsibility for it yet.

One Double-Click to the Full Story

The floor plan is also a starting point for investigation. Double-clicking a sensor icon opens its sensor analysis page, where the relevant information for that monitoring point sits together:

  • The measurement curve, defaulting to the last seven days, with quick filters for the previous week or month and zoom for any time range

  • Warnings and alarms marked directly on the curve as yellow and red bands

  • The count of alarms by type, such as upper limit, lower limit or digital input failures

  • Device issues such as low battery or weak signal strength

  • A full list of deviations for that sensor

 

“From the floor plan, you can double-click a sensor and go directly into the sensor analysis. There you see all the relevant data for that unit: the measurement graph, the warnings and alarms, all the deviations. Everything is in one place."

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

For a quality manager reviewing an excursion, that means the context needed to judge severity, including how long it lasted, how far it went and whether it has happened before, is one step away from the map.

Quick Links: Visibility Without System Access

Not everyone who needs to know the status of a room needs access to the monitoring system. The quick link feature creates a shareable link to a single floor plan. Anyone with the link sees that floor plan live, with current sensor colors but nothing else.

 

“You can share a quick link with a third party that has no access to elproMONITOR Cloud. They see that specific floor plan, and only the floor plan, but they do not have access to sensors, the calibration register or anything else.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Quick link viewers have no permissions in the system, which keeps the productive environment and its GxP records protected while still sharing the information people need to act. “It’s really useful when you want to provide a visualization without full access to the productive environment,” stated Schultes.

Determining who receives a quick link will depend on each customer’s procedures. Sascha Schultes: “It could be a study nurse, for example, who just needs to know: when this sensor icon turns yellow, I have to take action. And when it’s red, it may be dangerous, and I may need to leave the room. That matters especially in cleanrooms where you may have toxic substances.”

Status on the Wall, Not Behind a Login

Because a quick link is always live, it can run on any screen. “If you have a big hallway in front of your cleanrooms, you can use the quick link to display that floor plan on a monitor. All staff can view directly what is going on inside the cleanroom. They look at the screen, see all the sensors are green, and know everything is fine. Customers don’t need to be in front of a computer log in to the monitoring software. They can see the sensor status right away,” said Schultes.

The same principle also works outside cleanrooms, for example in warehouses. According to Sascha Schultes, tablets showing the floor plan can be mounted at different points throughout the facility. “In my opinion, this is easy to implement, as tablets are affordable.”

 

The Dashboard: What Needs Attention Right Now

While the floor plan answers “where,” the dashboard answers “how much.” It gives a live summary across all sensors, or a selected sensor group, of:

  • Current alarms and warnings

  • Deviations, split into unacknowledged and acknowledged, active and inactive

  • Connection status, including sensors with no connection and sensors reloading data they buffered locally during an interruption

  • Retired sensors, battery levels and signal strength

 

Coming in elproMONITOR Cloud 5.1: Click-Through Links and a Statistical View

elproMONITOR Cloud 5.1, planned for release in November 2026, builds on the dashboard in two ways. First, each figure becomes a link to a filtered list of the sensors behind it. If the dashboard shows five sensors with low battery, one click lists those five, with no need to check sensors one by one.

 

“With elproMONITOR Cloud 5.1, you have links everywhere, so you can jump directly to the specific sensors. If you click on the sensors with no connection, you see all of them directly and can check what is going on.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Second, a statistical view beneath the live dashboard shows how alarms and warnings have developed over time. Users choose a time frame, such as the last seven days or the last month, and the counts aggregate to that period. The view also ranks sensors by how many warnings and alarms they generated, highlighting hotspots that may warrant a closer look.

 

“You see how many deviations and warnings you had over the last month and also where you have a hotspot, meaning which sensor has the most warnings and alarms. From there, you can jump directly to that specific sensor.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Putting It Together: One Dashboard for Every Role

For a quality manager overseeing several sites or a large facility, data from individual sites is not viewed in isolation. It comes together in a single dashboard, so the status of the entire organization is visible in one place. Employees with permission only for their own site or specific equipment see exactly that data and nothing more. Active alarms still reach the right people immediately through email and SMS notifications, and from the notification they can go directly to the affected sensor.

Sascha also recommends checking the dashboard on a regular schedule, even when no alarm has been sent.

 

“As a quality manager for several sites, I would check the dashboard maybe every two weeks, just to get a glimpse. If for some reason there are warnings you don’t receive notifications for, you’ll see them there. And if you don’t know where a sensor is located or at which facility, you can check the floor plan instead of asking multiple people about it.”

Sascha Schultes, Product Manager elproMONITOR, ELPRO

 

Whether someone is responsible for all sites or just one, the result is a single path from the first signal to the source of the problem. “You have everything in one place, if set up correctly: from the deviation to the dashboard and the floor plan, directly to the sensor,” explained Schultes.

Seeing Is Believing

The value of visualization depends on setup. A floor plan that reflects the real layout, with sensors placed where the equipment stands and updated when it moves, is what connects an alarm to a location and a location to the full sensor record. As Sascha puts it, “Seeing is believing.”

See floor plans and the dashboard in action: watch the on-demand elproMONITOR Cloud webinar with Sascha Schultes and Mike Quinn, or talk to an ELPRO expert about mapping your facility’s monitoring points into elproMONITOR Cloud. Learn more at elpro.com/en/elpro-monitor.

 

Frequently Asked Questions: Visualization and Alarming in elproMONITOR Cloud

How do I create a floor plan in elproMONITOR Cloud?

Upload an image of your facility layout, such as a building plan, a drawing or a 3D rendering, then open edit mode and drag each sensor to its location. Sensors can be filtered by group, and icons can be repositioned at any time when equipment is moved or replaced.

What do the colors on the floor plan mean?

Green means the sensor is within its normal limits. Yellow indicates a warning, for example when a value reaches a defined warning level. Red indicates an alarm. The floor plan also shows when deviations have not yet been acknowledged.

Can I share a floor plan with someone who doesn’t have an elproMONITOR Cloud account?

Yes. A quick link gives view-only, live access to a single floor plan. People using the link cannot open sensor data, reports or other areas of the system, which makes it suitable for corridor monitors, warehouse tablets or staff who only need to see status.

What does the elproMONITOR Cloud dashboard show?

The dashboard summarizes current alarms and warnings, acknowledged and unacknowledged deviations, sensor connection status, retired sensors, battery levels and signal strength.

How can I quickly find where a sensor with an alarm is located?

From the dashboard or an alarm, go to the affected sensor’s analysis page for its measurement history and deviations. If floor plans are set up, the floor plan shows exactly where that sensor is located in the facility, so there is no need to ask colleagues which unit it monitors.

 

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