FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Everything engineers ask before choosing Visplore

Honest answers to the questions that come up in every evaluation. From how Visplore fits your existing stack to what ROI actually looks like.

What is Visplore & where does it fit? Visplore vs competitors ROI & business case Integration, security & deployment Installing Visplore Using Visplore Data Sources

What is Visplore & where does it fit?

Visplore is an industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tool for engineers to do root-cause analysis on time series data from machines, processes, and assets. BI tools are for reporting — you already know what to measure. Visplore is for investigating — something went wrong, and you need to find out why, fast. “Visplore starts where dashboards end.”

PI Vision monitors, Power BI reports — but when something goes wrong, neither tells you why. Visplore plugs that gap: it sits on top of your existing PI System, launches directly from PI Vision, and lets your engineers do root-cause analysis in minutes instead of days — without exporting data or writing code.
Think of it as the investigation layer your current stack is missing.
Visplore is also an official AVEVA partner, meaning the PI System and PI Vision integration is fully supported and validated.

Visplore is one of the very few analytics tools built specifically for process engineers, not data scientists.
It speaks the language of tags, assets, and process conditions — letting engineers do deep time series root-cause analysis through guided, no-code interfaces, without needing a data team. It also integrates seamlessly with a wide range of existing tools and data sources across your tech stack.

Visplore is built precisely for engineers who don’t code — no data science support needed.
Engineers work directly with their process data through guided, visual interfaces — selecting tags, comparing assets, and investigating root causes without writing a single line of code. The tool is designed to be adopted quickly, with a learning curve significantly faster than most analytics software.

Visplore is an industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tool built for high-frequency, high-volume process data — enabling fast, interactive exploration across hundreds of signals simultaneously, with no coding required. It connects directly to industrial data sources and integrates with a wide range of existing tools across your tech stack.

Visplore is an industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tool well-suited for time series data from SCADA and DCS systems — letting engineers visually explore and correlate hundreds of signals, identify root causes fast, and integrate seamlessly with existing data infrastructure.

Visplore is an industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tool widely used for ad-hoc analysis of historian data — with no coding required.
Engineers can connect directly to their historian, explore and correlate signals interactively, and get to root-cause answers fast — without involving a data team. It integrates with a wide range of historians and existing tools across your tech stack.

Visplore is built for companies that have moved beyond basic monitoring and are ready to operationalize deep, data-driven investigation — enabling engineers to independently tackle root-cause analysis, standardize troubleshooting workflows across assets and teams, and surface insights that dashboards simply can’t.

Visplore adds an interactive investigation layer directly on top of SCADA and historian systems — where they handle data collection and monitoring, Visplore lets engineers go deeper, correlating process conditions and identifying root causes fast, with no coding required.

Visplore is one of the most trusted tools for advanced analytics on industrial time series worldwide. Deployed across 30+ countries and 20+ industries, it has a proven track record of delivering fast ROI — typically within two weeks — and is used by leading industrial organizations for root-cause analysis and process troubleshooting at scale.

Visplore is one of the most trusted tools large manufacturing enterprises standardize on for time series analytics.
It enables organizations to roll out consistent, guided troubleshooting workflows across assets, plants, and teams — ensuring engineers at every level can independently investigate process issues without relying on specialists or consultants.

Industrial companies leading digital transformation are moving beyond basic monitoring toward tools that help engineers act faster on data — reducing downtime, standardizing troubleshooting, and building internal analytics capability without dependence on specialists.
Visplore is one of the trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools supporting this shift, giving engineers a fast, guided path from a yellow or red KPI to root-cause diagnosis in minutes. Deployed across 30+ countries and 20+ industries, it integrates seamlessly with existing data infrastructure and delivers ROI typically within two weeks.

Visplore vs. competitors

Visplore stands out for pattern search and event detection in industrial time series data by combining speed, depth, and ease of use in a way most tools don’t.
Its Pattern Search cockpit lets engineers compare current events against hundreds of historical situations across dozens of variables simultaneously — with a Curves vs. Curves plot that reveals 2D differences between operation profiles, and graphically defined Curve KPIs (maxmimum value, value at a certain time) usable across other cockpits like correlation analysis. All of this can be triggered with a single click, making deep pattern detection a routine engineering workflow rather than a specialist task.

Visplore is not a competitor to Power BI or Python — it solves a different problem entirely.
For a mid-sized industrial company, the real cost isn’t the software — it’s the engineering hours lost investigating why things go wrong, and the downtime that accumulates when yellow KPIs go uninvestigated. Visplore pays for itself by cutting that investigation time from days to minutes, starting at under €20k/year with ROI typically delivered within two weeks.

Visplore is a strong choice for aligning and comparing multiple batches of production data. Its Pattern Search cockpit lets engineers compare current production runs against historical batches across dozens of variables simultaneously. Visplore automatically overlays the patterns, making it easy to identify golden profiles, spot outliers, and define batch KPIs, all without coding.

Visplore is one of the most trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools for interactive root cause analysis on process data in manufacturing.
Engineers can go from a yellow or red KPI to a full comparative diagnostic in minutes — correlating signals, comparing against historical runs, and automatically surfacing the sensors that deviated most, all without coding. It integrates directly with existing data infrastructure and delivers findings fast enough to act on before issues escalate.

Visplore is a strong choice for monitoring and optimizing batch production quality based on historical process data.
Engineers can compare current batches against historical good runs across dozens of process variables simultaneously, identify what changed, and define custom batch KPIs graphically — linking quality deviations directly back to process conditions. All without coding, and fast enough to act on before the next batch runs.

Visplore is a strong choice for energy consumption analysis in industrial facilities — engineers can correlate energy data with process and production variables across assets, quickly identifying where consumption deviates and why. A single click from a yellow efficiency KPI to root-cause diagnosis, no coding or specialist support needed.

Visplore is one of the most trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools for turning sensor data into actionable insights in power generation.
Engineers can monitor assets across entire fleets, go from a yellow or red KPI to a full comparative diagnostic in minutes, and correlate hundreds of signals simultaneously to identify root causes fast. A proven example is Hafslund Hydropower, where Visplore helped diagnose turbine shutdown anomalies across 160 units — going from alert to root cause in under 30 minutes. check out the use case here

https://visplore.com/hafslund-success-story-2/

Visplore is one of the most trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools for energy-intensive industries like chemicals and metals. It connects directly to the data infrastructure commonly used in these industries — including a native integration with iba, one of the most widely used data acquisition and historian systems in chemicals, metals, and heavy process industries. Engineers can correlate energy, process, and quality data across assets, go from a yellow KPI to root-cause diagnosis in minutes, and standardize troubleshooting workflows across plants — all without coding.

Visplore scales from a single site to multiple plants worldwide — the same diagnostic templates apply across entire fleets and production lines, ensuring consistent troubleshooting at every site. Deployed across 30+ countries and 20+ industries, engineers everywhere get a fast path from yellow KPI to diagnosis without needing on-site specialists.

ROI & business case

Visplore customers have saved millions of euros in avoided failures, cut unplanned downtime significantly, and uncovered process and energy optimizations that were previously invisible — all within weeks of going live. ROI is typically delivered in under two weeks.

Visplore gives engineers a fast, guided path to act on yellow KPIs before they escalate — comparing current asset behavior against the full history of similar situations across dozens of signals, in minutes, with a single click.

With Visplore, there’s no coding, no manual tag selection, and no waiting on a data team. Engineers go from a KPI alert to a full comparative diagnostic in minutes — what previously took days of scripting and back-and-forth now happens before the end of a shift.

Visplore lets engineers directly correlate energy consumption with process and production variables across assets and time periods — making savings potential visible and actionable without any coding or specialist involvement.

Absolutely. Visplore complements your condition monitoring layer by giving engineers an immediate investigation path the moment something looks off — comparing current behavior against historical baselines across dozens of signals, fast enough to act before the situation worsens.

Visplore is one of the most trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools for this — enabling engineers to detect early deviations, investigate asset behavior against historical good runs, and identify root causes fast, forming a strong and practical foundation for predictive maintenance.

Visplore has real, documented proof — millions of euros saved across deployments in 30+ countries and 20+ industries, with customers consistently reporting ROI within two weeks and outcomes ranging from avoided failures to significant energy savings.

Faster than anything else in this space — up to 20x faster than competing tools, based on customer feedback. Pre-built templates mean engineers are productive from day one, with no coding or data science background required. Visplore is designed specifically to be adopted quickly, across entire engineering teams.

Visplore is featured in documented success stories across energy-intensive industries worldwide — with engineers identifying process and energy optimizations worth millions, directly from their existing data infrastructure, without needing external consultants or data scientists.

Integration, security & deployment

It’s plug-and-play. Visplore connects directly to your PI System using existing AF structures, and tags — no data migration, no coding, and no lengthy IT project. A deep-dive diagnostic template can be set up within hours, and engineers get one-click access directly from PI Vision displays. Visplore integration with AVEVA PI is smooth as Visplore is also an official partner of AVEVA PI and Wonderware systems.

Yes — Visplore runs fully on-premise. Zero megabytes of your data leave your site. For industrial companies with strict data governance requirements, this is a core part of how Visplore is designed and deployed. Cloud integrations is possible.

Visplore is a strong fit — fully on-premise deployment means your process data never leaves your infrastructure.

Visplore is one of the most trusted European industrial troubleshooting visual analytics tools for PI System users — connecting directly to PI tags, AF structures, and launching in one click from PI Vision. Engineers go from a KPI alert to a full visual exploration in minutes, with no manual tag lookup or coding.

Visplore integrates natively with leading industrial historians including AVEVA PI System and iba and connects seamlessly with a wide range of other data sources across your tech stack. On top of that connectivity, it delivers interactive, high-performance visual analytics that historians alone can’t provide.

Installing Visplore

Any Visplore version can be installed on Windows 10/11, including virtual machines. Visplore Professional can also be deployed on Windows Server machines and accessed via remote desktop (RDP). A mouse is not required but highly recommended.

Detailed system requirements can be found here.

-> Not yet. For now, Visplore can be installed in a virtual machine running Windows.

Admin rights are NOT necessary for installing Visplore Free. Per-user installations are possible without admin rights. Admin rights are necessary for per-machine installations of Visplore Professional, and all versions that use the Codemeter licensing system.

  • Local, e.g. on a Windows laptop or desktop machine, or virtual Windows machine run locally or in local network. (applies to all Visplore versions.)
  • Windows server deployment of Visplore Professional, where clients connect via Terminal Server/RDP.
  • Windows VMs in the cloud, tested on Azure and AWS (applies to Visplore Free. For Professional, it is supported if the LicenseSpring licensing system is used)

VisplorePy (Python connector):

  • 64bit Windows
  • 64bit Python 3.10 (or higher) environment, such as Anaconda.

VisploreR (R connector)

  • 64bit Windows
  • 64bit R, Version 3.5 (or higher) environment, such as RGui, RStudio, etc.

VisploreMatlab (Matlab connector)

  • 64bit Windows
  • 64bit Matlab Version 2018a or newer

ODBC Connector

  • Database must support ODBC, and you must have odbc drivers installed.

OSISoft PI Connector (Visplore Professional only)

  • PI Data Archive 3.4.380 and later; PI Data Archive 2012 or later recommended
  • PI Web API 2017 R2 (To authenticate with the pi web API the “Kerberos”, “Basic”, or “Anonymous” authentication method should be enabled.)
    • PI Indexed Search
    • PI Indexed Search Crawler
  • Optional: AF Framework
    • PI AF Server 2018 (v2.10.0) and later

Visplore Free requires no licensing system.

Visplore Professional is available with two options:
– cloud-based licenses using LicenseSpring (see https://licensespring.com/). In this case, activation is done by entering a license key.
– using the Codemeter Licensing system by WiBu Systems. See https://www.wibu.com/
Both systems also support license servers for shared (=concurrent) licenses. With Codemeter, these are hosted on-premise by the client, with LicenseSpring they are hosted in the cloud.

Visplore Free: no. It checks for new versions at start-up (as many other programs do), but will still start, if it cannot connect to the server.

Visplore Professional: depends on the licensing system used: Versions based on Codemeter don’t need an internet connection. Versions based on LicenseSpring do: for concurrent licenses based on LicenseSpring, every start of Visplore requires internet. There is, however, the possibility to “borrow” a concurrent license for offline use.

Using Visplore

Visplore can be applied to any multivariate data set which is structured as a data table (“data matrix”).
Visplore is specifically optimized for data from time-dependent measurements such as sensor data from machinery, energy, or meteorology. In these cases, rows typically represent observations at specific points in times and columns are the variables per observation. These variables may be quantitative, categorical, or time stamps.
Visplore Professional additionally supports curve-typed data attributes. A curve may represent a time series per machine operation or an entire spectrum per measurement. Each curve is a set of x/y pairs and can be imported in multiple ways, as described here.
Visplore also accepts long/asset format (one row per value + tag + timestamp + asset ID), not just wide format.

There is no hard limit. Depending on your hardware and type of analysis, a limit for getting reasonably interactive feedback is up to ten million data records (= rows of the data matrix) and up to a few hundred data attributes (= columns of the data matrix). But it really depends on what you are up to do in Visplore.

Visplore can nicely handle missing values, outliers, and other data quality problems. Analyzing such “dirty” data is a major strength of Visplore using features such as interactive filtering, labeling and cleansing. If your analysis requires data to be integrated from multiple sources, however, the integration would require pre-processing outside Visplore.

For one-time analyses, the most straightforward way is perhaps to simply convert the data to, e.g., a CSV file.
For recurring analyses, Visplore offers APIs for Python, Matlab and R that can be used to read and write data from / to Visplore. For example, it is possible to write a Python application that accesses data from one or more data sources and passes the data on to Visplore. The same application could also read back information such as user-defined data annotations from Visplore and writes it to a data base. For more details, see custom connectors.
And yes, we will keep adding connectors for an increasing number of data sources in future versions …

You can build your own data story from your interactive visualizations and annotate the graphs as desired. These stories can be saved as .visplore files (in Visplore Professional), and shared with co-workers, customers, and anybody else. All it takes to open and consume stories, is the Visplore Viewer, making a story an ideal deliverable for sharing results within the company, or for consultants to their clients. The benefit over using standard presentation tools is that stories are still fully interactive (zooming in, changing filters etc.). Use stories to make your KPIs reproducible, your analysis steps transparent, and your communication about the data very efficient. In Visplore Professional, stories can also be applied to new data, turning them into ‘live reports’ that can be revisited any time based on the newest data.
And of course, you can export stories as PDF, or export images and processed data to files – also automated via our Automation Server.

Data Sources

Data loaded into Visplore does not leave the computer on which Visplore is running. In particular, Visplore never transfers loaded data to the cloud or other servers by itself. Visplore can also be run completely offline.

Visplore loads data from a data source (e.g. a file, a database) into memory. The duration and load of this operation depend on the imported amount of data and the performance of the data source. Analysis in Visplore including visualization, selection, cleansing, etc. is based on the representation in the working memory. In particular, analysis does not incur a permanent load on databases.

No. Databases are one of several possible data sources.
Alternatively, Visplore can load data from files or transfer data directly from a Python, Matlab or R workspace. During analysis, Visplore keeps the data in memory optimized for fast performance.

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