Administration and Governance

Account Owners in Tulip manage controls and settings within a Tulip instance and/or workspace. The areas account owners can be responsible for include:

• Set Up Your Tulip Instance
• User Management
• App Management
• Shop Floor Management
• Workspace Management (Enterprise and above)

In addition to the information in this article, account owners in regulated industries also need to be aware of GxP best practices and protocols for governing and validating apps. GxP administration and governance involves:

• App Lifecycle Management and Validation
• Maintaining Digital History Records

Who should be an Account Owner?

How you decide to delegate Tulip responsibilities is up to you, but we’ll share a few scenarios we’ve seen:

In instances of small organizations with one Tulip Champion, there may be only one main account owner who is responsible for everything mentioned above, excluding workspace settings.

In larger organizations, responsibilities may be divided as such:

• A central team manages initial setup of the Tulip Instance, including: standardizing brand colors and color palettes, user roles, app templates, and training site leads
• Site Leads at each site are responsible for workspace and shop floor management
• Citizen Developers manage apps and app solutions relevant to their productions
• IT works with operations to ensure the shop floor is properly set up and manages Interfaces (display devices), Edge Devices, Machines, Vision, and Connector setup
• A Data Lead standardizes a Common Data Model and manages Tulip tables

The Need for a Control Program

Without a control program, it becomes difficult to track who is responsible for specific changes or developments within the platform. When roles and responsibilities are not set, solution development can slow or stall indefinitely.

Additionally, unauthorized users or untrained users may make changes that go live immediately without understanding the potential consequences. This can lead to data corruption or errors, such as deletion of table records, running the wrong version of an app, or testing an app incorrectly and logging false data. Untrained users might also break apps or make significant changes to apps without saving snapshots of previous versions.

It’s important to determine who is responsible for each area of the platform. In your account settings, you will find the default roles Tulip provides and the access level associated with each. Each role is documented within the platform.

Finally, as your organization grows, the lack of a control program can hinder your ability to scale and grow. Without standardized procedures and controlled access, it can become too difficult to manage an increasing number of users, apps, and data sources. Governance may not seem important if you only have one app builder or one or two apps, but when you expand from an app to a solution and your instance starts filling with dozens to hundreds of tables, apps, app folders, connectors, etc. you’ll need a standardized and documented process for managing and maintaining everything in your platform.

Design Your Own Control Program

Designing a control program involves setting up a workflow that manages access rights, monitors app development, and standardizes app lifecycle management.

The end-to-end workflow for account owners in general manufacturing looks like:

• Setup initial Account settings and appearance such as the color palette, date and time, etc.
• Define user roles and permissions. Each role should have tailored access to their responsibilities to prevent unauthorized actions.
• Track user training either with an internal training program or with Tulip University certificates.
• Learn which areas of the platform are version controlled (e.g. changes made to the development version of an app do not go live until published, whereas changes made to Tulip tables go live immediately).
• Implement a rigorous app development and publishing process by standardizing the use of snapshots, documentation, and changelogs. Additionally, you might require an app to undergo usability testing with operators or that a Solution Lead review an app before publication.
• Use the Recent Activity feature to monitor changes and user activities.
• Publish apps into production on the shop floor. Assign apps to stations on the shop floor and purchase/set up interfaces (display devices) for the apps to run on.

By integrating all these elements, account owners can build a comprehensive control program to ensure the right people have the appropriate access, apps are thoroughly vetted before going live, and all users are adequately trained to use the Tulip platform effectively.

Account Owner/Governance Controls Checklist

Use the checklist below to ensure you have set up and accounted for all governance features relevant to your organization. For detailed information on each area, refer to:

• Set Up Your Tulip Instance
• User Management
• App Management
• Shop Floor Management
• Workspace Management (Enterprise and above)

• Set up Your Tulip Instance

  • Customize Account Settings
    • Account
    • API Tokens
    • App Exchange
    • Color Palette
    • Custom Widgets
    • Date and time
    • Edge devices
    • Frontline Copilot®
    • Network Access
    • Player
    • Users
    • Workspaces (Enterprise)
  • Maintain Your Tulip Instance
    • Monitor Account Usage for overages/opportunities for better resource allocation
    • Monitor Recent Activity to ensure changes are made by verified users
    • Import/Export Activity Data

• User Management

  • Add new users
  • View user permissions and select role for new user based on access level needed (e.g. application builder needs access to the app editor, while an operator only needs viewing access)
  • Edit user details, such as phone number, email, and Badge ID
  • Create custom user roles (Enterprise)

• App Management

  • App Organization
    • Create app folders
    • Move apps between folders
  • App Access
    • Set app roles and restrictions
    • Set approvals
  • App Version Control/Lifecycle Management
    • Manage development versions and snapshots
    • Define publication standards/process
    • Develop an iterative, continuous improvement process that is built on user research and feedback

• Shop Floor Management

  • Setup and manage stations
    • Create interfaces
    • Assign interfaces to stations
    • Assign edge devices to stations
  • Setup and Manage Machines
    • Create machine
    • Create machine types
    • Create machine data sources
  • Setup and Manage Edge Devices
    • Purchase edge devices
    • Register edge devices
    • Setup edge device connection
  • Setup and Manage Vision
    • Create camera configuration
    • Create detectors
    • Create IP cameras
    • Create models

• Workspace Management

  • Customize Workspace Settings
    • API Tokens
    • Approval types
    • Date and time
    • Device uptime
    • Schedules and shifts
    • Users
    • Workspaces

Did you find what you were looking for?

You can also head to community.tulip.co to post your question or see if others have faced a similar question!