What do YOU think of our software services and eLearning courses?
This is a great intro to one of those things which sounds simple, but needs some explanations and examples.
There is a lot here - you really really need to try every exercise and really really need to pay attention to your mistakes as you start.
I wouldn't recommend this if you have no coding experience. And if you have I would recommend you keep it in check. Axon is quite ... interesting
Really like the ability to test scripting in real time.
Very well paced and structured course with a fun story that actually ties the theory and practice a bit more than just an abstract overview
Very well designed and truly enjoyed detailed explanation and Videos
Pretty Fun all around and informative. Thanks for the great course!
The coding problems were very helpful, but I would've much preferred to have some structured coding sections and more examples. It would take you from answering a fill in the blank question to doing a block of code which sometimes seemed like too steep of a transition.
Great introductory course for Project Haystack. The course is very well put together, blending the projects documentation and course material very well. I will definitely be taking the more advance courses to further my knowledge!
very useful for users of SkySpark
I just loved the way you guys put all the pieces together. You guys did fabulous job in making this training session easy to understand and learn.
Interesting course, learned a lot. Wish there were more examples.
Project Haystack is the key to unlocking the value of the vast quantity of devices' data in the buildings. If you want to embrace the future of the "digital twin", learning Project Haystack is necessary.
We hear you Jinzhao!
The course was comprehensive and covered all the basics needed to start TAGGING!
The SkySpark Engineer course is more challenging than the SkySpark Analyst, but it gives me more details about how SkySpark works, from the hardware to the software. The courses include tons of details! And even after passing the exam, I cannot say I grasped all the knowledge. Recommend for people with a passion for data analysis in buildings!
We are really pleased you found so much benefit from this - thank you Jinzhao!
The course was well-balanced and not too easy, making you think harder about answering the questions correctly to proceed to the next stages. Overall, it was a fun and interactive course that was enjoyable and informative.
Great to hear Paul! We've designed these as fun puzzle-solving courses - not simple "presentations" of information. It's certainly great to be appreciated :)
Training was very interactive and made it easy and fun to learn with the story mode.
Be very careful how you answer questions in the exam, they are very tricky and wording/selections are not clearly reflected in the exam material. Other that that it is a nice course that does a good job walking you through using SkySpark.
We are glad you enjoyed the course Richard! Question wording is always something we're happy to review and improve as an ongoing effort.
This is a very comprehensive intro for everyone interested in building data analysis and SkySpark. If you want to learn SkySpark, Fantom Factory is the best choice.
Thank you very much Jinzhao!
It was challenging, but I really enjoyed it!
I found the gamification side of the course both provided some entertainment through the characters and story (I loved Glitch!), and made me want to push myself through getting all the badges.
I found that the challenges were difficult enough to test me, but not so difficult that it caused me frustration.
I particularly noticed how well written each problem was, with what was expected of you being laid out clearly. It definitely teaches you to read the questions carefully!
Thanks for the great feedback Daniel, we're glad you enjoyed it!
A lot of the questions were phrased in ways that I did not understand what the expected output should be
We're sorry to hear this Jayden. We are always happy to help with training queries and this is why we implemented a feedback option throughout all of our courses. If you'd like to go over anything with us please get in touch!
Great introduction.
Thank you Kimo - glad you enjoyed!
This course is a great way to explore SkySpark for the first time. I loved that there was a story and a demo project I could follow along with. I also enjoyed that I was learning about SkySpark and its applications in a thoughtful and structured way.
Thanks so much Delaney, we have worked really hard to make the experience of learning SkySpark fun as well as useful!
If you are new to programming or Axon, this course is extremely helpful and approachable! The in course exercises help to solidify concepts and the story helps to put tasks and skills into perspective. This course is the best way to introduce yourself to Axon!
Fantastic feedback thank you so much!
A useful introduction from the source.
Thank you Richard, we worked hard with the Project Haystack organisation to make the content really useful.
Loved the training. Gave me a comic book feel which made it enjoyable to get through.
Some questions were ambiguous which made it difficult to understand what you were implying when completed assessments at the end. Totally understandable, you don't want to give away the answer / help too much but some things didn't come to mind as easily.
Loved how we would go back to review information while taking the exam! Definitely helped.
Thank you Lesly, it's great to hear that our comic book style made the learning more enjoyable!
This is my fourth course with Fantom Factory. I think I like this one the best. Not only does it teach how to use Axon, it inadvertently demonstrates the true potential of Skyspark.
Well done for completing all of our SkySpark courses Cory! Don't forget you get to keep the Journals for long term access to key reference material too!
Straightforward and easy to understand
Just as we'd hoped when we made it - thanks Douglas!
We genuinely love what we have with in this SONICx product and the future prospect of developing on such an outstanding base.
Thank you Samuel, we're excited to see where we take this - together!
Several other vendors integrated with the same system API and our Fantom Factory Web Socket Connector was the only one that worked flawlessly.
We're really pleased to hear this, thank you Craig!
We are over the moon with our custom made dashboards - and all inside SkySpark too! We showed this to a major client of ours and they loved it!
We will definitely be developing this further with you, thanks guys!
Fantastic news - we look forward to working with you more!
no teaching in understanding how to integrate in a BMS
I'm sorry to hear this Markus. I'd just like to post part of our email chat for the benefit of other readers, if I may:
"Right now I am writing my thesis about Project Haystack... Unfortunately, I couldn't find a process anywhere on how to integrate project haystack into my building, neither at the controller level nor at the software level."
You are right that there are no practical examples of how you may apply the model to a Building Management / Automation System. The course teaches pure Project Haystack and is completely BMS agnostic.
In our experience, use of Project Haystack tends to be "features already built into a BMS", rather than "knowledge an end user applys to a BMS" - and the integration is highly dependent on the BMS itself. For example, the FIN Framework and SkySpark systems embrace Project Haystack fully.
Incidentally, another tool worth knowing about is nHaystack which allows Niagara stations to converse via the Haystack protocol.
We wish you all the best with your thesis and hope you reach out to the Project Haystack forum (as we suggested) for help with the specific detail you need.
It's a great starting point for beginner's in data modeling!
A rather complicated subject is simplified very well.
As every module unfolds, so does the mystery around Haystack tagging methodology.
Strongly recommend this to anyone new to Haystack, before trying to explore the website!
This is fantastic to hear Sumita - it's exactly what we hoped to achieve. Awesome!
Great demonstration and database for experimenting through SkySpark
Thanks Larry, we're really proud of our SkySpark Analyst course!
Great training, really enjoyed the illustrations and exercises utilizing the project haystack Docs.
Now that I understand the Ontology there are so many use cases, I want to tag everything.
We're very happy to hear you enjoyed this course Jason! We think it offers plenty of benefit for people at all levels of experience.
This training has significantly helped me increase my Skyspark knowledge. The course was great! Especially with all the interactive opportunities.
We're pleased that our Viewbuilder course has delivered real benefit to you Cory, thanks for sharing this with everyone!
The short videos and pages made it easier to stay focused.
This is music to our ears Craig.
This course was put together fantastically.
Very well structured, and I enjoyed the ability to interact and practice what I learned. When I needed support, they were quick and eager to help.
I'm excited to take my next course!
We appreciate your comments Cory, the interactive nature of our eLearning is important to us. This will put you in a great place to really explore our SkySpark Viewbuilder course to create some fantastic dashboards!
Awesome tech support and help.
Fantastic to read this - thank you Scott!
The examples are clear and all information is understandable
We always like to hear this Alicia! You'll love Haystack Essentials even more!
Great balance between clear information and enough embedded testing to encourage working through everything without skipping.
Emphasis on understanding, not just rote learning.
Fantastic comments Russell thank you! We've carried this approach to training through the full Haystack Essentials which really dives into taking your knowledge of tagging to the next level!
The course was well tailored to understand and get hands-on experience with HayStack
We're really pleased you enjoyed the Haystack Essentials course Ashwath.
This training gives one a really great introduction into analysing in SkySpark.
Thank you Bryan this is great to hear!
This training gives one a really great introduction into coding with Axon in SkySpark.
Thanks for the great feedback Bryan! This course illustrates how a basic knowledge of how Axon works can help many people to work with SkySpark data - without needing programming skills!
Tricky subject matter.
Thanks Scott! Learning SkySpark for the first time can indeed by tricky and often overwhelming - which is why we've produced modular courses to help break down relevant content and make it all easier to apply.
This is the best interactive training that I have received in decades! The Program gives you a great hands-on experience! Highly recommended!
What an endorsement - thank you very much Askhan!
A brilliant course for learning the ins and outs of Axon.
There definitely is a steep learning curve compared to the other course but with time and practise and answering the practise questions, it does help a whole lot to remember.
Thank you Jhan! Yes this course definitely requires dedicated time and concentration to gain the most benefit - as you found. :)
Great course to prepare for creating views and dashboards. Excellent way to review the course through the assessment.
I'm glad you enjoyed the final assessment Jhan. Thank you for the comments.
Offering Fantom Factory eLearning courses alongside our own training has been really beneficial for us as a distributor. We can give a wider range of choice to our customers in HOW they want to learn SkySpark.
We use Fantom Factory eLearning internally to onboard all of our new hires and it helps us to get everyone up to a set standard of knowledge really quickly. Then we can spend more time on the advanced stuff! Even our own in-house trainer learned this way.
It's a pleasure to collaborate with you Alper, thank you!
Fantom Factory offers a well-designed HTTP extension that is well-documented and easy to use. Also, they were happy to work with us to customize the functions to meet our specific needs.
Fantom Factory already had a product that met most of our needs. Much better to work with you to tweak it than reinvent the wheel ourselves.
Thank you for sharing your comments, loyal returning customer who cannot be named!
Fantom Factory kindly offer their eLearning through our partner platform - Springest (by StudyTube) at our request.
The result is that our global BAM colleagues are able to order eLearning courses easily through internal ordering systems. This makes the finances really easy to manage and we are very happy!
We really appreciate your comments and we are very happy to help!
Our clients love the learn at their own pace aspect of the training courses.
We are a (SkySpark) VAR so it is good to recommend other alternatives to clients.
This is great to hear and we are very happy to support Yorkland Controls with our eLearning options.
Emma, Henry, and Steve provide expertise, experience, and resources that's helped to resolve technical issues, knowledge gaps, and solve problems that our users experience each day.
Working with Fantom Factory through web meetings and email correspondenses is easy, and is something I plan to continue with for the future.
For development in Fantom, Steve's name is almost always the first that is recommended in the Skyspark community.
After working with Steve its clear that he works to understand the application and the problem that's being resolved and provides a solution that runs efficiently.
Thank you Justin! It's a real pleasure working with you and Intellastar.
Fantom Factory was responsive and willing to meet our needs.
Fantom Factory has been willing and able to meet --and even help shape-- our development needs, and they do it with a positive attitude, thoughtful questions, and reasonable timelines.
Besides the development work, their training products are excellent and have saved us significant internal training time.
Thanks Sam! We look forward to future collaboration with you on your SkySpark endeavours!
The HTTP Client Extension has given us the ability to interact with external APIs in an easy and efficient way. Its functionality allows us to do all kinds of operations getting the desired results.
The Fantom Factory team is very knowledgeable and also accessible. Very friendly and maintain good communication.
Much appreciated Joe! I'm pleased to hear you're getting real benefits from using this authentication tool.
This training made me feel a lot more confident with SkySpark.
I appreciated the self-paced schedule and am glad to have the journal as reference going forward.
This is fantastic news Sarah! The Journals will also update automatically in your account over time so you can stay up to date with new releases!
This training provide basic essentials and lays a foundation for project haystack
Hey Jeff, now you can see why we chose such a great name for the course! Thank you for the feedback.
I can recommend this course to anyone getting into Axon. I have already taken Skyfoundry's Skyspark Essentials myself, but still felt very unsure due to the language barrier and the speed of the course.
With this course I feel more confident and have a better understanding of Axon. Also because I was able to complete it at my own pace.
The information and exercises are well structured and build on each other. The whole thing is well linked with the story mode, which sometimes makes you smile and gives the exercises a "sense".
Overall, a very motivating course where you can learn a lot.
Thank you for the detailed feedback Manuel, it is great to hear you had so much benefit from this course. We absolutely believe in "applied learning" - with a little humour along the way too of course!
Well structured and it was fun using Axon expressions through the instance to find what I needed. Instance use is perfect to practice and understand platform and course more.
I'm pleased to hear you enjoyed using the data queries in the training Jhan. Practice makes perfect after all!
This course helped elucidate terms that are otherwise esoteric, like "Ontology" or "Conjunct", in a way that makes semantic data modeling feel like child's play
This is music to our ears! Thank you April.
Very easily to follow. Clear and concise.
We are happy to hear this Jhan thank you!
These trainings really helped me get the hang of SkySpark.
Good Introduction to Axon and Resources.
Glad to hear you found this useful Michael!
Great method of training.
We are very glad you think so Cory - thank you.
Your interest in SkySpark is obvious. It's great to see a community member contribute to the community at large. It's a good introduction to SkySpark.
We are very pleased to offer a such a practical introduction to SkySpark - where you get to really use SkySpark for the first time. Thanks for appreciating us Roger!
In depth questions. Explores every aspect of the analysis for a building. Well done!
Cheers Tony!
It is an interesting and interactive training, which give you the posibility to learn and to develop new knowledges and skills in terms of playing with data using Axon.
Thanks Florin, we spent a lot of time creating the Axon Command Console to handle the ability to practise with Axon data. We're glad to hear it was worth it!
I am more familiar with skyspark, and this make me more confident working with skyspark
We love to hear this Salam!
Great course!
Thanks Paul!
I went into this course without any prior knowledge of SkySpark or Axon and came out feeling incredibly confident and comfortable describing SkySpark environments and datasets!
The course moved in an extremely linear manner so I never once felt overwhelmed by the new information because it was always presented in a foundationally. The end of lesson tests were designed in a way that it would not be possible to progress unless you completely understood the material, so there are built in knowledge checks that provide useful insight into what you need to focus/study on if you get lost.
The course has bee remarkably enjoyable and I see myself looking into Fantom Factory's other eLearning materials in the near future!
Thank you for the fantastic feedback Darius! We design our questions very carefully around identified key learning points to maximise consolidation and memory retention.
The content covered was excellent and well presented in a clear format.
Having the ability to learn some Axon commands and interact with the console, and be allowed to use trial and error until I understood the requirements was very useful.
This part of the training made the method of constructing AXON commands real and formed a good foundation of understanding. Just needed a bit more of this excellent methodology of learning!!
Many thanks, Richard Jocelyn
This is great to hear Richard, thank you!
We also feel the training module on creating and building Axon filter expressions is very important in this Project Building course. It's great to learn that you found it so useful!
Excellent course!
It covers a lot from basic data types to more complex AXON programming. Also the exercises and exam provide a good way to challenge and use the learned topics.
Thanks again Javier! We're really pleased to hear this!
Training material is clear and easy to follow. Training provides the necessary knowledge to start working on your first project.
I can also say that the support outside the training is also excellent. I had some questions during the training and response was provided via email the next day with proper clarification and additional suggestions.
Thanks for your review Javier, we were more than happy to help!
As a UK company our response times can vary depending on the international timezones involved, but we aim to be as prompt as possible.
They had the skills and the expertise, and the proven track record to get the job done!
Our company has contracted with Fantom Factory to work on several projects including communication drivers (x5), user interface enhancements, and a database replication tool.
Each time they have been quick to develop, test, and turn around a product that has required minimal testing.
They are very patient and are able to resolve ambiguity during the collection of user requirements, resulting in a more useful product with few development iterations.
We wholeheartedly recommend Fantom Factory for all your Fantom development needs!
Thank you Chris, we always look forward to working with Altura; your projects are challenging and fun!
We needed to get data from a RESTful API into SkySpark.
We chose this product from Fantom Factory because the free alternatives did not parse the data or handle authentication as easily.
Highly recommend this pod if you need to do some serious handling of RESTful API data in the SkySpark environment.
That's great news Ian, glad we could help!
This was hands down the best software tutorial I have ever had. Phenomenal course. Great education, fun and entertaining, and very useful for real life scenarios.
SkySpark itself is not difficult to use. They did a great job with the development, its very intuitive. What is NOT intuitive is figuring out how to use it as a tool. Finding what you want is not difficult. Deciding what you want, and figuring out what information will get you there is much more difficult. This is one of the main focuses and the best part of the course. They teach you what to look for and how to find it, as well as how to apply it.
The education was valuable, clear and concise. The exercises were relevant, and I had no trouble navigating Skyspark to find what I needed. I would give this course 6 stars if I could. Thanks FantomFactory team, I look forward to taking the next course!
Thank you very much James, we are extremely happy to receive such high praise!
We take the quality of our training very seriously and it is wonderful to hear how you found so much benefit from this course.
I went from not knowing the difference between a Dict and a Folio to being able to successfully navigate our SkySpark database and produce useful programs.
I now have the confidence and knowledge to solve real problems on actual data.
It's fantastic when we hear how our training really helps people in the workplace. Thanks for the feedback William!
I loved the course! It was an extremely helpful tool to introduce how to use SkySpark. The teaching of the material was in depth and the examples provided helped me to see what I needed to review over again.
Along with that, the story provided with the course was funny and helped to engage me in the lessons.
I definitely recommend this course to anyone who has never had any SkySpark experience before and would like to strengthen their skills.
Thanks Andrew, it's great to hear how much you enjoyed the training! This is exactly why we've invested so much time to design our courses with gamification and storylines.
Overall, I think the course is GREAT! Specifically the parts on tagging, rules, and the Folio database are well organized - these are topics that can be difficult to understand for many new users.
I also think the "Something to say?" links are a cool idea. Your comics provide a nice storyline (to break up the monotony of reading), and the green alien characters are cute.
Great job!
Thanks for the feedback David, we're really glad you enjoyed it!
Easy to use, interactive, good examples, and goes into detail in all the right places without overloading you with information.
Getting people to learn how to use SkySpark and to program in Axon has always been a tricky proposition. I've been using SkySpark for 7 years now and even I have learned a few things using this service.
That's great to hear, thanks Phil!
Our training may be designed for beginners, but each syllabus is still very comprehensive.
With so many self-taught SkySpark users out there, our courses are perfect for "filling in gaps" and bringing teams up to the same level of knowledge.
Fantom Factory has been a fantastic partner for helping us develop Sonrai IAQ. Steve and his team always delivers top notch work, and are very thorough.
Steve's experience with developing and delivering web solutions has been invaluable when designing new features. He has helped us avoid common pitfalls and his team has been critical on our goal to deliver a best in class Indoor Air Quality Analytics application.
Thanks! It's been great working on a pure Fantom web application that shows the versatility of both Fantom and SkySpark.
And we're really excited at working with you to develop sonrai even further!
Good course to learn the basics of Axon
Thank you Angel, we appreciate the 5 star rating!
Great course on basic programming skills, direct feedback on errors when doing the programming exercises
Thank you for the feedback Willem. Feedback is an important part of the learning cycle, hence a key component of our interactive exercises.
I passed the course, aced the test and gained a better understanding of SkySpark's capabilities. The course also taught how to navigate SkySpark better.
The exercises you provide were really helpful to apply what I was reading.
Overall, I really liked the course and am recommending it to everyone I speak with.
Thanks for recommending us Kevin! We are really pleased you gained so much benefit from SkySpark Analyst.
The Files tab doesn't work at all. We get an sys::UnknownTypeErr uiBuilder::IoBuilder error.
Otherwise it has been pretty helpful, and I especially like the archived feature.
We're happy to report this issue was fixed in our lastest v1.1.8 PodBuilder release, available for download from StackHub.
The error presented itself in newer SkySpark versions due to incompatible updates from SkyFoundry.
But with some clever code, we've been able to keep the Files view working in both new AND old SkySpark versions.
We are very happy with this Extension. It fixed a few problems we had with receiving data from a HTTP API.
The sessions fixes our problems.
The training was very effective and really helped develop my understanding of SkySpark quickly.
Thanks for the feedback Tom, we're glad you found it so helpful.
This was a great exercise to introduce how to use SkySpark to find energy savings opportunities. The online design made it fun and engaging.
We are very glad to hear you enjoyed our free SkySpark Challenge Jake!
To anyone looking to get this course... I absolutely loved this course.
I think the pacing was really well thought out. Before this course, I had to self teach using the documentation online and while that can be very beneficial in the long run, it has a real hard time answering what I think are simple questions. I constantly find myself coming back to the journal of this course, rather than the docs, to re-look at making a dateTime or how to throw errors or a multitude of other things. The journal provides a great amount of information in an easy to navigate format.
In conclusion, if you are looking to get this course and are a beginner in Axon and SkySpark than this is a good course for you. It provides a base knowledge on everything you need to know to get started using axon and will challenge your knowledge in the final test.
For the more advanced users looking to get this course to brush up on axon, this is a good resource and provides a very helpful journal of all the topics gone through in the course.
Thank you Jakob! More good news for you - we've just released a new and improved version 2.0 of the Axon Journal for even more Axon enjoyment!
I really loved the robot. He made me laugh.
Thank you Michael, we feel it helps to break up such serious training content with a bit of fun now and again!
Overall this was a very informative course. I have taken a traditional introduction course to SkySpark and this course, in comparison, far exceeds the utility of that other, more expensive course.
There are still gaps in my understanding of both the data-science subject matter and the tools that SkySpark offers. But, I am hoping to shore up my understanding by taking the Axon course.
Thanks for your comments, we are very pleased you found the course so useful.
Don't forget that SkyFoundry also offers some great demonstration videos for SkySpark which can help too.
We started using the podbuilder a couple of weeks ago, and already it is proving to be a very useful tool to create and deploy our custom extensions in SkySpark.
It saves us time and makes for a more robust process that integrates well with our way of developing code in SkySpark.
If you have written Axon but never deployed via Pod, start with PodBuilder. The small investment will ensure you are doing things right and save you time going forward.
It's seemingly no big deal, but I can cook up a new resource pod, post to Stackhub, and deploy on a remote machine much faster than before.
Yes I love the new Pod Builder Extension, it makes it so much easier to create and maintain custom extension pods.
Prior to Pod Builder I would put off updating my extensions or making new ones because the process seemed so cumbersome.
However, now I don't even have to leave SkySpark to create a new extension and can do it in record time. My code has never been more organized or up to date.
Thank you.
The course is really well done and I've highly recommended it to our Skyspark team.
I appreciate how it starts from the beginning to describe Axon's relationship to Skyspark and Fantom and builds upon each concept throughout additional modules.
The interactive exercises after each topic and module were really helpful to solidify the concepts and put them into practice.
That's really good to hear Sam, thanks!
When I think of Fantom, I think of Steve of Fantom Factory!
It doesn't matter if you have a small questions, you want a full traineeship or you want Steve to create some crazy stuff, you are at the right address.
Steve taught us the basics of Fantom, now and then we stil ask for help if necessary. This was a great start which saved us a lot of time.
My advice... If you like to start programming Fantom, start here!
Fantom Factory has delivered fantastic support, Steve answered our many questions to get us up and running quickly and listened to our suggestions for improvement. We always enjoy working with Fantom Factory and would recommend them to everyone.