3.5 Finding Elements and Data
As your asset model grows, quickly locating the right element or attribute becomes essential. TDengine IDMP provides several complementary ways to navigate and search your asset catalog: browsing the asset tree, searching by keyword or filter criteria, saving searches as reusable Element Filters, and bookmarking frequently accessed elements as favorites.
3.5.1 Navigating the Asset Tree
The asset tree in the left sidebar of the Explorer page provides a hierarchical view of all elements in your model. It is the primary way to browse your asset catalog when you know roughly where an asset sits in the hierarchy.
- Click the ▶ arrow next to any element to expand it and reveal its child elements.
- Click the ▼ arrow to collapse a branch.
- Click an element name to select it and open its detail view in the main pane.
- Hover over any element in the tree to reveal the ⋮ menu, which provides quick actions: New Child Element, Delete, and others.
The asset tree supports arbitrarily deep hierarchies. Expand only the branches relevant to your current task and collapse the rest to keep the sidebar manageable.
Below the asset tree, the sidebar also contains two additional sections: Favorite Elements and Element Filters, described in 3.5.4 and 3.5.5 below.
3.5.2 Browsing an Element
When you select an element in the asset tree, the detail pane displays the following tabs:
| Tab | Content |
|---|---|
| General | Name, path, template, categories, description, location, additional attributes, related documents, annotations, parent elements, and version history |
| Attributes | All attributes defined on this element, with current values, types, units, and last update times |
| Panels | Panels associated with this element, including AI-suggested and manually created panels |
| Analyses | Real-time analysis rules defined for this element |
| Events | Events generated by or associated with this element |
| Dashboards | Dashboards that include panels from this element |
| Child Elements | A list of all direct child elements |
3.5.3 Searching
TDengine IDMP provides a unified Search dialog for finding elements, attributes, dashboards, panels, and events across your entire asset catalog.
To open the Search dialog, click the search icon (magnifying glass) at the top right of the Elements panel header in the sidebar.
Choosing what to search
Use the radio buttons at the top of the dialog to select the type of object to search for:
| Option | Searches for |
|---|---|
| Element | Elements by name, description, template, category, or attribute content |
| Attribute | Attributes by name, description, category, or value type |
| Dashboard | Dashboards by name |
| Panel | Panels by name |
| Event | Events by name |
Running a basic search
Type a keyword in the search box and press Enter or click Search. The results are displayed in a temporary Filter Results view showing the matching items with their Name, Path, Description, Template, and Categories.
Click any result row to navigate directly to that element. To save the search for later reuse, click the Save As button in the Filter Results toolbar — see 3.5.5.
Advanced filters
Click Advanced to expand additional filter fields. For Element searches:
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
| Root Path | Restrict the search to elements within a specific subtree |
| Name | Match elements by name |
| Description | Match elements by description text |
| Attribute Name | Match elements that have an attribute with this name |
| Attribute Description | Match elements that have an attribute with this description |
| Categories | Filter by one or more category tags |
| Template | Filter by element template |
| Created at | Filter by creation date range |
| Updated at | Filter by last-updated date range |
| Maximum Results | Limit the number of results returned |
For Attribute searches, the Advanced panel offers Attribute Name, Attribute Description, Attribute Categories, Attribute Value Type, Maximum Results, Order By, and an Element Criteria sub-section (Root Path, Name, Description, Categories) to restrict which elements the attributes are drawn from.
3.5.4 Favorite Elements
You can mark any element as a favorite for quick access without navigating the full asset tree.
To add an element to favorites:
- Select the element in the asset tree.
- In the General tab toolbar, click the star icon (☆).
- The star fills in and the element is added to Favorite Elements.
To access your favorites, click Favorite Elements in the left sidebar (below the asset tree). This opens a flat list of all favorited elements. Click any entry to navigate directly to that element.
To remove an element from favorites, select it and click the star icon again to toggle it off.
3.5.5 Element Filters
Element Filters are saved searches — reusable queries that you can run at any time to display a filtered subset of elements. They are listed in the Element Filters section at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Saving a search as an Element Filter
After running a search (see 3.5.3), click the Save As button on the left side of the Filter Results toolbar. Enter a name and confirm. The filter is added to the Element Filters list in the sidebar and can be re-run at any time.
Working with filter results
The Filter Results view shows the matched elements in a table (Name, Path, Description, Template, Categories). The toolbar provides the following actions:
| Action | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Save As | Left side | Save the current result as a named Element Filter in the sidebar |
| Redefine | Right side | Re-open the Search dialog to modify the filter criteria |
| Save as Panel | Right side | Save the result as an Asset List Table panel on an element |
| Add to Template | Right side | Add this filter to an element template |
| Refresh | Right side | Re-run the filter to get updated results |
| Export Current List as CSV | Right side | Export the result list as a CSV file |
| Select Columns | Right side | Toggle which columns are shown in the results table |
Re-running a saved filter
Click any filter name in the Element Filters list in the sidebar to re-run it and view the current matching elements.
3.5.6 Locating Data from Events
When investigating an event, you can navigate directly from the event to the source element and its data.
- Click Events in the top navigation bar, or click the Events tab on an element.
- Click an event in the event list to open its detail view.
- In the event detail, click the source element name or path to navigate directly to that element in the Explorer.
- From the element, switch to the Attributes tab to view current and historical values, or open the Panels tab to visualize the data around the time of the event.
This workflow supports rapid root-cause investigation — taking you from an observed event directly to the underlying asset and its data.
