Product Updates

See what's new and improved in Atrius every month

Updated over a week ago

April 2024

Emissions updates

  • Default emission factors: users may now set default emission factor categories based on global regions

  • Green-e factors may now be assigned regardless of default assignments

  • The Standard Factors page has been re-organized to accommodate annual releases that include multiple years (IEA, NZ (MfE))

Cards updates

  • Building comparisons card: display names have been updated so that point names are used if configured for a single building (reduces unnecessary duplication), and building names are used if configured for a building group

  • Building readout card: updates have been made to prevent the configuration of a dynamic gauge if Hide icon is selected

Points/bill points updates

  • Data exports: users may now choose what currency to export bill data in, and if exporting cost data for points, the currency of the associated pricing scheduled is used

  • Data manager: for calculated points, the data manager will only show resolutions based on the Execution method (ex. If the point is set to calculate hourly roll-ups, then the data manager will only show the hourly resolution and lower resolutions)

  • API: users may now disable unit conversions when creating calculated bills via the API (useful for EUI points)

User management updates

  • Views for users with building-specific access have been updated to provide higher security

    • Users with access to only specific buildings will no longer be able to view dashboards that are scoped to Portfolio, Project, Tenant or Asset, and will only have access to building-scoped dashboards for their own buildings

      • The exception is if a user gives direct dashboard access to the user via Dashboard settings > Specific users

    • Filter lists throughout the product have been updated to remove mention of other buildings or building groups for users with building-specific access

Optimizations

  • The Search field on the Statements page has been optimized

  • Actions on the Bills and Points pages have been sped up

  • Point data upload modal has been optimized

  • Default emission factors sorting feature has been optimized


March 2024

Emissions updates

  • Automatic factor assignment logic has been updated to allow standard factors to be applied automatically the year succeeding a manual edit

  • Updates have been made to eGRID emission year settings when new factors assignments have been made

  • Green-e factors are now allowed to be assigned despite default settings

Cards updates

  • Last 24 months and Last 36 months have been added to the Period options on all cards (except the Year-over-Year Trends and Heat Map cards)

  • "Tenant Cost Table" card consumption values now display a max of 2 decimal places

Points updates

  • Calculated points/bill points are now included in results when filtering by Status = Inactive

  • In the "Export details" modal, Assigned building is now called Building

  • The Vendor Point ID field is now available for editing on the point profile page

  • Values that are less than 0 are now rounded to the 5th decimal place in calculations and in Data Manager views

  • Additional rate units have been added to the following point types to support visualizing emissions in cards:

    • Anaerobic digester/reactor

    • Anaerobic lagoon deep (>2 metres)

    • Anaerobic lagoon shallow (<2 metres)

    • Emissions offsets

    • Helicopter

    • Managed aerobic treatment

    • Rental car

    • Unmanaged aerobic treatment

    • Wastewater treatment (septic)

    • Water (per capita)

    • Water level

User management updates

  • Weekly uptime notifications have been reinstated

    • To receive these emails, go to a user's profile page and set Weekly uptime notifications summary to Enabled

  • Users with building-specific access now have limited views in filter lists throughout the platform

    • This only affects non-Administrators who don't have access to all buildings at an org

Optimizations

  • User management: page load time has been optimized

  • Mobile app: building list load time has been optimized

  • Navigation from a building to a point at a new building has been optimized


February 2024

Emissions updates

  • eGrid 2022 emission factors have been added

  • Emissions app: users may now filter by Tags

Buildings updates

  • Buildings page: users may now filter by "Historical" buildings

  • Edit building details CSV: case sensitivity has been removed for building Type

  • Batch building create / edit CSV: banner text has been updated to clarify that an email will be sent to confirm the status of the upload

    • The email will include a CSV identifying any errors if the upload is unsuccessful

  • Building details export: Dashboard count, Active points count, and Active bill points count have been added to download options

  • Building Profile: users may now view and edit the building Description field

Points updates

  • Add Points > 'Add a reading' modal: consumption and average demand references have been removed for Instantaneous measurement points

  • Data Manager: the date picker for reprocessing actions is now based on current resolution, for better user experience and accuracy

Apps updates

  • Competitions app: Steam has been added as an available Resource type

Integration updates

  • Smart Meter Texas: upgraded to SMT Version 3.0

Optimizations

  • Dashboards: optimized page load time

  • Heat map cards: optimized load time


January 2024

Emissions updates

  • New emissions factors: Global Warming Potential has been added for 2024, and the default has been set to IPCC fifth assessment report (AR5)

  • New emissions factors: Green-e 2023 (Market-based electricity) has been added and assigned as the default for 2021 – 2024 data years

Cards updates

  • Heat Map card: viewed cards now refresh every minute

  • Heat Map card: time period is now limited to one year to improve dashboard performance

Points/Bill points updates

  • Inactive points are now hidden from Apps

  • For Orgs using Metric unit of measure, CDD/HDD will now be calculated using Celsius

Buildings updates

  • Buildings have a new status called "Historical" to designate to buildings that are no longer occupied, but should remain active to capture historical data (ex. for Emissions reporting)

Integrations updates

  • Energy Star: now supports pushing data to ESPM from a Heating point type

Optimizations:

  • Points: optimized the Profile page

  • Bills: optimized the bill point Data Manager tab

  • Dashboards: optimized page load time

  • Cards: optimized Portfolio Comparisons cards


December 2023

Cards improvements

  • Building Trends card: viewed cards now refresh every minute

  • Building Readout card: users may now select a gauge to be displayed that moves dynamically based on the range of the readings

  • Building cards: now able to view total emissions per point type, including all data types

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Points: kilowatts (kW) unit has been added to the "Hot water" point type

  • Flatlines: updated the logic for flagging flatlined points to include None and 0 totalizer values

  • Calculated points: if Inactive points are included in calculated point formulas, then data from the Inactive point will be ignored in the calculation

  • Estimated energy points: users are now able to batch edit estimated energy points when editing or creating buildings

Optimizations

  • Dashboards: optimized image cards

  • Dashboards: optimized edit/create card modal

  • JACE integration: optimized files that send accumulated readings

  • Energy Star integration: optimized push tasks


November 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New standard factors: EPA Supply Chain factors have replaced GHGP Purchased goods factors for spend-based Scope 3 category 1 emissions

  • Emissions app: Inactive points / buildings are now hidden

  • Emission scope = Other has been changed to None

    • In cards when Scope = All scopes, Scope = None is excluded

  • Emissions: All buildings and resources are included in the Emissions app table, even if they are not part of the emissions totals

    • This enables points with Add to emissions total = No to be assigned emission factors and then displayed on cards

Cards improvements

  • Comparisons Cards: added the ability to use Tags as Overlays

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Added new currency-related point types (Cost savings, Cash flow, Payments, Revenue)

  • Added Kilowatts (kW) unit of measurement to the Hot water point type

  • Added a new action for batch updating Source resolution on points

  • Added the ability to filter Statements by Building and Building groups

Integration update

  • All mentions of "Urjanet" have been updated to "Arcadia" following their rebrand

Optimizations

  • The Points page has been optimized for faster load time

  • Energy Star historical data pushes have been optimized to reduce system load and prevent potential duplicate pushes


October 2023

Cards improvements

  • Portfolio Comparisons card: Tags are now available for point selection

  • Portfolio-level cards: Data type = Systems & sensors, Other measurements are now available in the card configuration

  • Tags in cards: behavior has been updated to include all tagged points regardless of point scope

  • Cards: goal line logic has been updated to support multi-year time ranges

  • Cards and dashboard caching: improved to support automatic translations when a user changes their language setting

Buildings updates

  • Buildings located in Egypt may now be created without the required postal code field (Egypt does not use postal codes in addresses)

Reference updates

  • Unit conversions: users may now download a CSV of all unit conversions used in the product

Learning & Support Hub updates

  • Our Learning & Support Hub is now hosted by Intercom, allowing it to be seamlessly integrated into the chatbot. The Help button (sidebar), as well as "Learn more" and "Troubleshoot" hyperlinks throughout the product have been migrated.


September 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New emission factors: EPA T&D losses (eGRID scope 3, cat 3)

  • Purchased electricity market-based factors are now auto-assigned based on location-based factors

Card improvements

  • Portfolio Trends card: can now use a tag as an overlay

  • Building Readout card: viewed cards now refresh every minute

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Estimated energy points: users can now auto-generate annual estimates for electricity and natural gas consumption based on an EUI input (CBECS)

  • Unit of measurement: Cubic meters / hour has been added to more point types, including Acetylene, Air flow, Bunker fuel, Butane, Liquid nitrogen, Recycling, and Sanitation

  • Tag Management: can now batch copy tags across orgs, and batch delete tags

User Management

  • Permission sets: Editor users can now view the Jobs processing page

Homepage

  • The total area of all buildings in the org is now listed on the homepage


August 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New annual emission factors: UK DEFRA (2023)

    • Electricity

    • Electricity - T&D losses

    • Water and Sewer

    • Heat and Steam - T&D losses

  • New IEA electricity T&D factors (2010 - 2020)

  • Building emissions: Metric tons of CO2e is now the default unit in the app

  • Standard factors: added the ability to search by country

  • Custom factors: added Metric tons output unit

  • Audit trail: added audit entries for adding or removing 'add to emissions total' on points

  • Standard factors: re-organized the emission factors dropdown

Card improvements

  • Comparisons cards: added the ability to divide comparison groups by a tagged group

  • Comparisons cards: added the ability to divide by consumption

    • When viewing cost or emissions, select divide by consumption to view normalization metrics

  • Portfolio Trends card: can now display a time range of 10 years

User Management

  • Custom permission set: added more 'no access' options to restrict user access

Batch point creation app

  • 'Supported point types' download now includes a list of compatible emissions units

Currency updates

  • Added a new "Display currency" field to bill points (including calculated bill points) in order to set the currency that is displayed on Data Manager pages

Developer API

  • Added "Notes" to the API response for GET /bills/{uuid}/bills/

  • Added "Date created" and "Date processed" to the API response for GET bills/****/bills


July 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New emission factors: New Zealand (Ministry for Education) (2022)

  • Custom factors: batch actions are now available to users with write-access

  • Well-to-tank emission factors have been reorganized (to combine emission factor categories)

Data upload optimizations

  • Point data upload: optimized data processing

  • Batch point data uploads: a maximum date range of 93 days has been set to start/end dates to prevent processing large ranges due to typos

  • Costs: optimized processing to reduce memory and speed up cost computing in cards

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Batch actions from tables: optimized to support filtering and sorting

  • 'Scale data' action has been unlocked for Partner and Super Partner Administrators

Card improvements

  • Building Year-over-Year Trends card: can now divide by tags

  • Building Readout card: can now divide by tags

  • Building Heat Map card: can now select tags

Building updates

  • Weather: updated issues caused by weather stations that are no longer supported by Aeris API

User Management

  • Added support for AzureAD SSO


June 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New emission factors: Australia (National Greenhouse Accounts)

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Batch point/bill point creation apps: 'Download list of supported point types' now includes a 'Standard factors' column, which lists all of the emission factor categories that support any given point type

  • Batch point / building creation CSVs are now case insensitive

  • Points page: 'Point short name' and 'Vendor point ID' are now searchable

  • Units: Standardized on point type specific conversions

  • Tag Management: Able to copy tags to other orgs

UI updates

  • References to "Building Insights" have been updated to "Atrius"

  • Apps page: rearranged to create distinct Energy and Sustainability sections

Card improvements

  • Building Readout card: now able to compare to tagged points (Comparison = Tags)

  • Building Readout card: now able to change the direction of green/red arrow

Performance improvements

  • Many behind-the-scenes improvements have been made to improve job processing performance (ex. data uploads, exports, reprocessing)

Documentation

  • New customer training videos are now available! Created by our Customer Success and Project Onboarding teams


May 2023

Emissions reporting improvements

  • New emissions factors: UK DEFRA

    • Travel and Transport

    • Hotel stays

    • Cars by market segment

    • HGV truck variable laden

  • Emissions in cards:

    • A new workflow for viewing Emissions totals in cards is to select Data type, then select Point type = All point types, Metric = Emissions, and follow through with Scope and Reporting category selections

  • Emissions app: Now able to filter by Utility provider

Points/Bill points improvements

  • Points > Export point details: Now allows a user to export the Source Resolution

  • Batch Point Creation app: Provides a downloadable file of the list of available point types

  • Batch Bill Point Creation app: Provides a downloadable file of point types that includes a column for our supported bill point types

  • Calculated points: Now supports a new function to average input point values

    • example: avg($point1,$point2,$point3)

Card improvements

  • Building Readout card : Now includes ability to display values for All Buildings or Building Groups


April 2023

New dashboards feature

  • Dashboard copying: Save time by copying custom dashboards from building to building

    1. Create a dashboard at a building (Scope = "Building")

    2. Copy it to one or many other buildings with similar attributes (Actions = "Copy to...")

    3. Watch as the new dashboards are created for you

Emissions reporting improvements

  • IEA emissions factors: International emissions factors for electricity and direct combustion now available (license permitting; please reach out to your Account Manager if interested in using these new factors)

  • New emissions factors: EPA 2023

  • Emissions app: new filters for emissions factor categories, including Unassigned and Troubleshoot; helps users verify missing emissions factor assignments or issues


March 2023

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • New emissions factor announcement modal: When a new emission factor year is added to the platform, Admin users will get a notification and opportunity to apply the factors

  • New emissions factors:

    • Spend-based (GHGP) (2018-2022) and Purchased goods (GHGP) (2018-2022) factors calculated according to annual inflation changes

    • UK DEFRA fuels (2020-2022)

  • New fields in cards:

    • 'Emission scope': provides the option for narrowing down the reporting for scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as well as reporting total emissions

    • 'Electricity emissions': helps differentiate between location-based and market-based emissions when reporting on electricity

  • 'Emissions' is added to side menu for a quick link to the Emissions app

  • Improved filters: In the emissions app, Point type, Emission scope, and Reporting category filters have been refined and sorted to display relevant options

Batch point creation and upload improvements:

  • Batch point creation app:

    • 'Manual Points' and 'Manual Upload' integrations are now combined

    • Batch point creation steps and CSV templates are improved for greater ease and clarity

  • Batch bill point creation app: "Manual Bills" integration has been added and CSV templates simplified

  • Batch point data upload app: Monthly/Daily reading types are now available for Point type = Multiple points

  • New workflow for uploading point data:

    • From the Points page (instead of the app), a user may now select specific rows, and use the "Upload data" action to generate templates with pre-filled Building Insights IDs

Cards improvements:

  • Divided by = area / custom divisor unit: Allows users to report EUI in imperial or metric units

  • Divided by = tags / custom divisor unit: Added to Portfolio-level cards so users can specify the unit of the divisor as well as add a custom unit label

Points/Bill points:

  • Export point/bill point details: Users may now export the 'Add to emissions total' field in order to easily see what points/bill points are being included and excluded in the Emissions app

  • Improved Filters: Point type, emission scope, reporting category filters are refined and sorted


February 2023

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Added eGRID 2021 emissions factors

  • Changed the default factor assignment for non-electricity, non-spend based emission factors

    • New logic: At time of building creation, latest available emission factor inventory year will be assigned to all years of data (i.e. EPA (2022) > Data years: 2020-2022)

    • Legacy logic: At time of building creation, emission factors are assigned to historical data years, matching inventory year to data year (i.e. EPA (2020) > Data year: 2020,EPA (2021) > Data year: 2021, ...)

  • Removed eGRID State emission factors and made eGRID subregion factors the default

  • Optimized Emissions app load time

  • Emissions in cards: Added Scope selection for individual point types

Points/Bills
Added filter for 'scope' and 'reporting category'

File Library
Add ability to sort by columns


January 2023

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Updated Green-e default assignments to more accurately match emission factor release year to the data year

  • Custom factors:

    • Use batch actions to edit the point type, unit, emission scope, or reporting category of a custom factor

    • When editing a custom factor, you can now apply scope / reporting category changes to existing assignments

Portfolio Trends / Portfolio Year-over-year Trends: Divided by = Tags
Users can divide by a group of tagged points in the Portfolio Trends and Portfolio Year-over-year Trends cards

Calculated Points: Calculate based on the local time of parent readings.
Previously calculated points with resolution set to live or source used the utc timestamps of the parent readings. Now the local timestamps of the parent readings will be used.

Edit 'point short name' in batch on the edit points table


December 2022

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Updated Emissions totals and factors tables

  • Improved Emissions totals and factors downloads

  • Emissions app now includes an Audit Trail

Increase building occupancy limit
On the building profile, building occupancy can be set up to 2,147,483,647 occupants.

Building Trends: Divided by = Tags
Users can divide by a group of tagged points in the Building Trends card


November 2022

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • UK DEFRA Travel and transport factors added (2019-2022)

  • EPA Heat and steam factors added (2015-2022)

  • Improved batch actions: New add or remove factor actions allow users to add/remove one or more factors to a set of existing factors for multiple buildings/points.

  • Default standard factors setting in Organization settings, allows users to determine which standard factors they want to apply automatically to new points

  • Calculate CO2e automatically for custom factors

Edit building details via CSV upload: Allows users to update building details in batch similar to the way buildings are added to the platform


October 2022

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Portfolio emissions use new point setting, add to emissions total, to aggregate emissions.

  • Biogenic CO2 emissions can be viewed separately from CO2e calculations.

  • UK DEFRA Well-to-tank emission factors for fuels, travel and transport, and steam and heat (2020-2022) added for Scope 3 reporting.

Tags for point selection: Added to Stacked Breakdown card allows you to stack all tagged points within a building.

Batch Point Data Upload: Allows uploads for multiple point types in a single file.

Batch actions across pages - Points and Bills
The select all button now selects all items across all pages.


September 2022

Emissions: Change logic for carrying over emission factor properties year-over-year

  • If a user updates an emission factor in the current year, they have the option to keep or overwrite emission factors that have carried over from the year prior.

  • When updating an emission factor's properties (scope, reporting category) in the current year, users have the option to apply to all years prior.

Batch actions across pages - Buildings
The select all button now selects all items across all pages.

Building Trends card: overlay tagged points
Select tags as overlays to facilitate easier dashboard copying across buildings.

Standard (overview) dashboard is hidden from home screen if the user has narrowed permissions prevents limited access users from seeing Portfolio-level data they don't have access to


August 2022

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Assign multiple emission factors to a single building/point enables location and market-based assignments, and Scope 3, Category 3: Fuel and Energy-related services assignments, among others.

  • Expanded EPA emission factors added (2018-2022)

  • eGrid US Average emission factors added (2010-2020)

  • UK DEFRA Well-to-tank emission factors for electricity (2020-2022) added for Scope 3 reporting

  • Standard factors are now searchable, with the addition of a search bar

  • Display emissions from reporting categories in cards

Building Readout card: Show custom decimal places
Select from 0-10 decimal places to customize the number displayed on the card.


June - July 2022

Emissions reporting improvements:

  • Emissions app: Combine bill and point data for total emissions roll-ups (As in cards, whole building points take priority over whole building bill points). Any calendarization settings selected will apply to bill data only, and point data will be aggregated for the entire annual time period selected.

  • Emissions app: Stacked bar chart and unit selector allows you to display aggregate emissions in any unit or emission type. The unit and emission combination selected apply to the graph, and the unit will also be reflected in the table data below.

  • Assign emission factors at the point-level
    Expanding on emission factor assignments at the building level, users can now overwrite building level assignments to assign specific factors to individual points or bill points.

  • Emissions scope categories
    Standard reporting categories are assigned by default to many of our emission factor/scope combinations, and those that are not assigned by default can be assigned in the Emissions app. Reporting categories can be filtered in the Emissions app, to aggregate total emissions values that can be translated directly to your emissions reports.

  • Download CSV from the Emissions app, Factors table to see a list of all of your emission factor assignments, including the default scope, IPCC report, and scope category.

  • Toggle between various Global Warming Potentials (GWP) - Advanced users can set their annual GWP's in Organization settings in order to tailor their emissions values to their reporting standards.

Visualize Total Energy or Emissions data for 'All data types' in cards
Combine data from bills, interval meters, and other measurements to display total energy or emissions metrics in any of the following cards: Building Trends, Portfolio Trends, Portfolio YOY, Portfolio comparison, Building YOY, Building Comparison, and Building Readout.

Tags for point selection: Available to display in cards
Create tags in Tag Management and assign them to your points and bill points. Select tags in cards to aggregate and display data in the following cards: Building Trends, Building Year-over-year, Portfolio trends, Building comparisons, Building readout

New units for all Refrigeration point types
grams (g), ounces (oz)

Bill points: Delete readings from the backend
When deleting a reading from a bill point, users can now choose to unselect the checkbox for 'prevent readings from being submitted' in order to re-push readings to the same point.


April - May 2022

500+ new point types for emissions accounting and automated emission scope assignments
New point types and default scope assignments

500+ new standard emissions factors
Standard emissions factors from EPA, UK DEFRA, GHGP, and IPCC associated with the 500+ point types listed above are now available on the platform. Emission factors are assigned by default when points are created using the specified point type, but can be overwritten by custom emissions factors in the Emissions app.

Automated roll-ups for Scope 1, 2, 3, and total emissions
View your total emissions by scope in the Emissions app and in the following cards: Building Trends, Portfolio Trends, Portfolio YOY, Portfolio comparison, Building YOY, Building Comparison, and Building Readout cards. Stack emissions by scope or point type in the Building Trends and Portfolio Trends cards.

Point / Bill point profile: New "short name" field
Enter a short name for your point in the point profile or via API to replace the display name that is shown on cards.


March 2022

Dashboard batch actions
Users can now export up to 50 dashboards as image, PDF, or CSV.

Assign building groups via the API

Portfolio Trends card: Custom period now supports flexible start/end dates


January 2022

Analytics Apps support international currencies
For non-US organizations, the Trend Analysis, Comparisons, Projects, and Alerts apps will use the default currency selected in Organization Settings.

Utility Prices support custom unit and international currency selection
Users can now select a custom unit (for electricity / natural gas / water) and international currency when adding a new utility provider.

Building Summary card updates
The Building Summary card now automatically selects the unit based on most common display unit for each point type (ex. supports metric units for non-US organizations).

Insights app available to all users
Navigate to Apps > Insights to start adding and tracking manual insights and savings opportunities.

New waste & recycling point types
The following waste point types are now available: batteries, diverted, hazardous, landfill, metal, plastic, single use plastic.
The following recycling point types are now available: cardboard, glass, plastic.


September - December 2021

New language options for non-US organizations
French (France), French (Canada), and Norwegian translations are now available at the organization or user level.

New transportation point types for emissions accounting
The following transportation point types are now available: ferry, local bus, local city bus, average local bus, coach bus, national rail, international rail, light rail and tram, underground.


April - July 2021

BuildingOS rebranded to Atrius Building Insights
As of June 30th 2021, BuildingOS is now called Atrius Building Insights as part of Acuity's Intelligent Spaces Group. There will be no changes to existing functionality or URL's.

Eclypse IoT integration: beta launch
This is now available as a beta integration for any organization with a Distech Eclypse controller who wishes to view realtime point data in Atrius Building Insights. Please contact the Atrius team if you are interested.

API improvements
Users can now perform the following actions using the API:

  • Post CSV / JSON files to their respective gateway

  • Request data for multiple points at one time

  • Request weather / air quality data for a particular building

  • Request peak demand and itemized costs for bills

Partner Administrator updates
Partner Administrators can now view and edit the gateway profile page.
Super Partner Administrators can now create new organizations and edit the organization license page.


March 2021

Building Readout: Comparison = Goal
We now support Comparison = Goal on the Building Readout card. This allows users to easily see if a value is higher or lower than a goal and quickly evaluate how a building is performing.

Emissions: Ability to specify units when adding custom rates
When adding custom rates for emissions reporting, users can now specify their own units instead of having to convert into BuildingOS default units. This offers ultimate flexibility for users who are building out emissions reports, especially for international building locations. Go to Apps > Emissions > Custom Rates and select 'Add a rate structure'.

Points: Source resolution = Change of state
We can now track points that only receive data when a value changes, such as area, occupancy, temperature setpoints, or damper settings, with a new Source resolution option called ‘Change of state’. Note: This is only available for Reading type = Instantaneous measurement.

Projects: Additional point types now supported
You can now add any point to a project if it has a utility price defined, including point types of heating, cooling, steam, hot water, and irrigation.

Utility Prices: Spring season now supported
In Settings > Utility Prices, we now support an optional Spring season (along with Winter and Summer) for utility providers with pricing schedules based on 3 seasons.


February 2021

Baselines: Ability to select any point as a baseline
For any given point, you can now select another point in the same building to serve as a baseline. This is useful for users who wish to upload their own baseline data. This baseline can be displayed as an overlay in the Building Trends card. On the Baselines tab, select Add a baseline, then select Baseline type = Point.

Building Trends: Ability to remove background color for line charts
Users who create a Building Trends card and select Chart type = Line along with Overlays will now have the option to remove the main point’s background color. While the background color is shown by default, this option makes it easier to see any overlays.

Calculated Points: Ability to apply time-based calculations in formula
To perform more advanced calculations, you can now reference a specific time period based on a date, or a specific time of day, in a formula. Calculated points now support the following functions:

  • timestamp(): the building local timestamp of the reading being calculated

  • date(year, month, day): a timestamp representing a specific date

  • time(hour, minute): a timestamp representing a time of day

  • datetime(year, month, day, hour, minute): a timestamp representing a specific date and time

Assets: Ability to add custom attributes to Asset Profile
For any asset type, users now have the ability to expand their organization’s asset data model by adding custom attributes—or fields—that display on the Asset Profile form. Go to Settings > Asset Management > Asset Types. For any asset type, select “Edit custom attributes” in the dropdown menu on the right side of the table. You can reorder existing fields, add a new field to an existing section, or add a new section altogether. Note: Certain standard BuildingOS fields, like Name or Photo, are uneditable and/or unmoveable.


January 2021

Meters renamed to Points
We’ve renamed “meters” to “points” across BuildingOS for greater clarity. In the side navigation on the left, meters (now called points) can be found under Points, and bill meters (now called bill points) can be found under Bills. All functionality and URLs remain unchanged.

Points: Batch action for creating alert
For quicker and easier alert creation, you can now create an alert directly from the Points page and Bills page. Select one or more points or bill points using the checkboxes on the left side of the table. Then, go to Actions > Create alert.

Export data at week resolution
You can now export point data at weekly resolution. On the Points page, select one or more points using the checkboxes on the left side of the table. Then, go to Actions > Export data and select Resolution = Week.

Point Discovery: Ability to batch connect and archive points
For quicker and easier onboarding of new integrations, Administrator users can now batch connect new points as well as archive unwanted points.


December 2020

Heat Map card: Custom legend ranges
You can now define custom legend ranges in the Heat Map card, which gives you a new level of flexibility for visualizing data patterns and highlighting or removing outliers. Select Legend scale = Custom ranges and add a range, which includes a low value, high value, and color.


November 2020

Building Trends card: New 'Custom period' options
You can now select custom periods with a flexible start and end date in Building Trends card. Choose to start 'at first available data', and to end 'at last available data' or 'at now'. Example use case: Track usage associated with ongoing construction projects with a fixed start date, or usage since the COVID shutdown date up to today.

Building Trends card: ‘Chart resolution’ field
You can now view and select the chart resolution that will be used on the card. Available chart resolutions are based on the length of the selected period. You can also select Chart resolution = Week to visualize weekly trends for any data type. Administrator users can update the first day of the week in Organization Settings.

Building Heat Map card: ‘Legend colors’ field
Fourteen standard legend color schemes are now supported, enabling users to customize their heat maps to match the type of data being visualized.

Building Profile card: ‘Details’ selections
Building Profile card is a quick and easy way to feature relevant information about a building. We’ve added new options for customizing what information is displayed on the card.

Alerts: New forecast conditions, updated condition names
We now support new alert conditions for when values are a certain percentage less than expected thresholds based on historical data.

Dashboards: Last updated by
You can now view who last updated a dashboard (in addition to the Author and when it was last updated) by hovering over the column in the Dashboards table, just as you can in the tooltip next to a dashboard's title.


October 2020

Multi-Point Trends card: Trend points across buildings
The new Multi-Point Trends card allows you to trend any number of points (of any data type, point type, or metric) across buildings as any of the following chart types: cluster bar, line, dot, or table.

Text card: Automatic height based on content
The Text card now defaults to Height = Automatic, which scales dynamically based on the height of the text. You can also choose to specify a custom height.

Weather & air quality data available on cards
You can now visualize weather and air quality data on dashboards for any building. This includes air quality pollutants, barometric pressure, irradiance, temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed from our weather database. On a Building Trends or Readout card, select Data type = Weather & air quality; or you can choose an overlay on the Building Trends card.

Push historical data to Energy Star Portfolio Manager
For customers who set up automated reporting to Energy Star Portfolio Manager, we now provide the ability to push historical data prior to when the automated report was created. This makes it easy to get all your available BuildingOS data into ESPM without having to upload historical data directly to ESPM.

Calculated bills now support interval meters in formula
You can now include interval meters as inputs when creating a calculated bill meter. This enables you to combine interval meter and bill meter usage into a calculated bill meter. Other use cases include allocating utility bill costs to tenants or creating custom utility rates based on interval meter data.

Export data for specific days of the week
For interval meter data, you can now choose to export data for specific days of the week, which can be useful for energy analysis. This allows you to eliminate weekends to narrow in weekdays or a specific day of the week.


September 2020

Alerts: New condition: ‘Total daily / monthly consumption less than’
We now support additional alert options for interval meters, notifying users when daily or monthly consumption falls below an expected threshold.

Building Comparisons card: Compare points across buildings
Users can now select specific points to be compared across buildings when choosing 'All buildings' or a building group, using the new 'Select points' checkbox. This was previously limited to points within a single building. Example use case: Compare electricity sub-meter use for a particular floor across stores


August 2020

Alerts: Main table updated
Alerts has been updated for a better user experience. The 'My Alerts' vs. 'All Alerts' tabs have been consolidated into a single view, with the ability to filter by Point type, Building, Author, Recipient, and Delivery Frequency. A new 'Last Sent' column shows the timestamp of the last alert that was triggered. Expand each row to see associated meters, recipients, and the last 10 alert occurrences.

Alerts: Create alerts for multiple points
Users can now set up a single alert for multiple points across buildings, of a specific data type and point type. Example use case: Be alerted when any electricity meter across your portfolio exceeds a forecast by 50%

Alerts: New message field
You can now enter a custom message to be sent with an alert. Example use case: Provide actionable steps for resolving a detected issue.

Bills: Batch archive readings in Data Manager
For easier management of utility bill data quality, you can now archive multiple bill readings at once in Data Manager. Archiving bill readings is useful for removing duplicates or other incorrect readings.

Data Quality > Meter Replacements: Archive unconnected bill meters
In the Data Quality app, you can now remove irrelevant unconnected bill meters in order to easily identify and connect available Urjanet bill meters, and to replace outdated bill meters.


July 2020

Alerts: ‘Total monthly consumption/spend less than’ condition
Additional alert options are now supported for bill meters, notifying you when utility bill consumption or cost is below an expected value. Example use case: detect incorrect/zero values sent from Urjanet.

Alerts: Specify delivery frequency
You can now choose whether you wish to receive an alert immediately or in a daily, weekly, or monthly summary email. This is useful if you are subscribed to frequently-triggered alerts but would like to be notified on a less frequent basis.

Building Trends card: Better support for multiple trended point overlays
Multiple overlays of the same point type will now be depicted in different colors, instead of the same color. This makes it easier to differentiate between trended points in the graph.


June 2020

Total energy: Customize point types in Organization Settings
Administrator users can now customize which point types will be used in ‘Total energy’ calculations in cards. ‘Total energy’ provides a complete assessment of energy-related consumption, costs, and emissions. Go to Settings > Organization Settings > Set total energy point types.

Alerts: ‘Total monthly spend exceeds forecast’ condition
We now support cost forecasts for bill meters. This will help users who want to be alerted when utility bill costs exceed expected values based on the last 4 years of historical data for the same month.

Trends cards: Line graph supports percent difference
Now, percent difference also displays for line graphs in Building Trends and Portfolio Trends cards. Just select Chart type = Line and Overlay = Previous period or Same period previous year.

Unit Conversions allows for easier conversions
We’ve updated the unit conversions reference table (Settings > Unit Conversions) so that users can input a value and select the desired units to see all available conversion rates in BuildingOS. Partner Administrators can also specify a custom unit conversion for an organization; this feature is only available for specific energy-to-volume conversions for which there are different industry standards.


May 2020

Cards: Energy Star score and EUI
You can now create visualizations of Energy Star data on dashboards. In the Building Trends card, select Data type = Energy Star to view trended Energy Star scores and EUI values for a single building. In the Building Comparisons card, select Data type = Energy Star to display a comparison of Energy Star scores and EUI across multiple buildings. This is available for buildings and organizations that have the Energy Star Portfolio Manager integration enabled.

Batch Meter Data Upload: Unlocked to all users
Administrator and Editor users can now upload their own meter data as a CSV file directly to BuildingOS, without going through Customer Support. Go to Apps > Batch Meter Data Upload, and select 'Upload meter data'. A self-guided workflow allows you to customize and download a CSV template to match your data format.

Meters & Bills: Export meter and bill meter details
All users can now export metadata for their meters and bill meters in BuildingOS, which includes meter scope, point type, reading type, unit, and more. Go to Meters or Bills. Select 1+ meters or bill meters using the checkboxes on the left side of the table, then select Actions > Export meter details/Export bill meter details. In the modal window, you can customize the CSV output based on your desired fields.

Baselines: Export data as CSV
You can now export baseline data as a CSV file. This allows advanced users to perform their own calculations or even re-upload data as a new meter. For any baseline on the Baselines tab for a meter, select 'View baseline data', then select Actions > Export data.

Calculated meters: View input readings directly from Data Manager
For calculated meters and bill meters, you now have the option to directly view input readings from Data Manager, using the Actions dropdown menu. This is a useful tool for troubleshooting calculated meters by viewing all input meters in a single table.


April 2020

Building Trends card: Peak demand callouts, stacked bar for bill itemizations, new goal line overlay types
For interval meter data, you can now display peak demand in callouts. This allows you to quickly identify when peak demand was reached during the selected time period for bill verification.

For utility bill data, you can now display a stacked breakdown of bill itemizations (e.g., consumption costs, demand costs, service costs, supply costs, taxes, adjustments) associated with a particular bill meter . Select Metric = Cost _and _Chart type = Stacked bar.

For goal line overlays, you can now choose between a fixed percent increase/reduction, which shows the same goal value across all months, or a flexible percent increase/reduction, which shows a different value for each month.

Emissions: Display CH4, N2O, NOx, SO2 in cards
For better emissions tracking, dashboards now support the display of more greenhouse gases beyond CO2 and CO2e. In all cards, you can display CH4, N2O, NOx, and SO2.

Dashboards: Batch actions, copy cards between dashboards
From the Dashboards page, you can select multiple dashboards and complete the following actions: Set scope, Set view/edit access, Set public dashboard visibility, Duplicate dashboards, Copy to another org, and Delete dashboards. You can also copy a card from one dashboard to another.

Alerts: Batch actions
From the Alerts page, you can now select multiple alerts and complete the following actions: Set condition, Set recipients, Subscribe, Unsubscribe, and Delete alerts. This allows you to update alerts more rapidly and efficiently.

Buildings: Export building details
All users can now export metadata for their buildings in BuildingOS, which includes the building’s address, area, occupancy, type, and more. Go to Buildings and switch over to list view. Select one or more buildings using the checkboxes on the left side of the table, then select Actions > Export building details. In the modal window, you can customize the CSV output based on your desired fields.

Calculated bills: Advanced formulas for cost and consumption
Calculated bills now support an ‘Advanced’ formula option, which provides separate formula fields for cost and consumption. Example use case: Compute waste consumption based on the cost.

Mobile Data Entry: Ability to enter daily consumption readings
In addition to daily totalizer readings, you can now enter daily consumption readings into the Mobile Data Entry app for quick and easy data entry on-the-go. Go to m.buildingos.com and select your desired building and meter to enter a value.


March 2020

Projects: New features, better workflow
The ‘Projects’ app (formerly Project M&V) has been modernized and given new features. Now, it auto-generates a project dashboard based on your project's meter(s), plus you can add as many custom dashboards for a project as you’d like. It generates a custom baseline for multiple meters in the same building. And it allows you to store files associated with a project.

Cards: New ‘Table’ chart type
Dashboards now support tables! The ‘Table’ chart type is available in the following cards: Building Trends, Building YoY Trends, Portfolio Trends, Portfolio YoY Trends, Building Comparisons.

Dashboards: New ‘Fixed rows’ layout option
This much sought-after layout option is finally here. Switch between a "freeform" layout to stack your cards from top to bottom or a "fixed rows" layout to align your cards from left to right.

Card periods: Include or exclude current hour, day, or month
For “rolling” card periods such as 'Last 12 months' and 'Last 30 days', you now have the ability to include or exclude the current hour, day, or month from the selected period. This is valuable to users who would like to display a complete dataset, if the most recent readings are missing or incomplete. This is now available in all cards.

Bills: Manually attach bill PDFs
We now enable users to upload their own bill PDFs, if they are not already automatically provided by Urjanet. This empowers customers to use BuildingOS as the ultimate utility bill data centralization platform. Manual PDFs are supported for all bill data integrations: Manual Bills, BuildingOS Bills, Urjanet Bills.

Utility Prices: New 'Multiplier' field
For customers who wish to track the cost associated with their interval meters, you may now input a custom 'Multiplier' value on utility pricing schedules in order to represent any miscellaneous charges from the utility provider and achieve more accurate bill verification.


February 2020

Emissions: Set emission rates
Administrator users can specify how standard emission rate structures from U.S. EPA correspond to each inventory year for their organization’s annual emissions reporting. In the Emissions app’s ‘Standard Rates’ tab, or in Organization Settings, select 'Set emission rates'. In the modal window, select the appropriate eGRID edition for each year displayed.

Emissions: eGRID2018 standard rates
U.S. EPA’s latest emission rates, eGRID2018, are now available. By default, 2019 and later inventory years use the eGRID2018 edition. To use eGRID2018 for prior year reporting, go to the 'Standard Rates' tab, then select ‘Set emission rates’.

Building Comparisons card: Display comparisons between meters
You may now create a comparison between meters in a building. Compare sub-metered electricity loads across different floors, for instance, or natural gas costs across various sub-bills. Go to Dashboards > Building Comparisons, then select a single building. For your chosen point type, a 'Points' field displays, allowing you to select points from a list of available points in the building.


January 2020

Buildings: User notifications for easier Whole building point creation
BuildingOS now makes it easier to track and manage your whole building meters, to maintain data accuracy across your portfolio and ease the onboarding process. For both meters and bill meters, each building to which they belong will display a notification for a specific point type if 1) there is no Whole building meter, or 2) there is a sub-meter that is not included in the Whole building calculation.

Alerts: Set overnight rate alerts
You may now create an alert to detect if usage goes above (or below) a certain threshold during overnight hours in a building.


December 2019

Year-over-Year Trends cards: Show year-over-year range
You may now create a multi-year comparison of all the years between two non-consecutive year selections. A cluster bar graph containing many years of data gives you greater visibility into changing cost and consumption patterns over long periods of time. Go to Dashboards > Building Year-over-Year Trends or Portfolio Year-over-Year Trends, then select the “Show year-over-year range” checkbox.

Trends & Year-over-Year Trends cards: Graph adjustments for prorated bill data
When displaying the last 12 months of bill data, BuildingOS provides the option to "Adjust graph to end at last month of complete data". This is now available for “Calendarize by = Prorated months”, in addition to all other calendarization methods. Go to Dashboards > Building Year-over-Year Trends, Portfolio Year-over-Year Trends, Building Trends, or Portfolio Trends.


November 2019

Dashboards: Improved PDF exports
We've greatly improved the appearance of dashboard PDF exports, with attractive graphs and no unnecessary page breaks. Go to Dashboards > Actions > Download PDF, or go to Dashboards > Actions > Email dashboard to send a dashboard PDF as a scheduled email.

Dashboards: Limit view/edit access to specific users
You may now configure which users in your organization are able to view or edit a specific dashboard, such as when a dashboard contains private information. Go to Dashboards > Actions > Dashboard settings.

Scheduled Emails: Use public link
You may now set up scheduled emails with a public link to a dashboard. This is useful if you would like to share a link that does not require logging into BuildingOS. Go to Dashboards > Actions > Email dashboard.


October 2019

New ways to export data
You now have two additional ways of exporting data in CSV format, which can save you time from the existing Data Downloader app. Export data for multiple meters and bill meters at once from the Meters and Bills sections, or export data for a single meter or bill meter directly from its 'Data Manager' tab. Go to Meters or Bills, then Actions > Export data, or Data Manager > Actions > Export data.

Building Trends card: Multiple overlays
You may now select multiple overlays on a single card. This enables you to track both HDD and CDD alongside consumption in the same graph, or to measure project impact and potential savings by comparing baseline, forecasted, and actual performance. Go to Dashboards > Building Trends.

Urjanet integration improvements
We've increased the reliability and visibility of Urjanet interval data. Go to Integrations > Urjanet.


August 2019

Permission sets: App- and setting-level granularity
You may now create custom permission sets that take full advantage of your organization's license, with the ability to enable or disable individual apps and settings for each permission set. This makes it possible to grant access only to specific areas of BuildingOS for certain users. Go to User Management > Permission Sets.

Assets: CSV upload supports custom fields
The assets CSV upload format now supports additional column headers, allowing you to specify custom fields in the CSV file to provide additional asset profile metadata. Go to Assets > Add an asset > Add multiple assets.


July 2019

Data Quality: Meter Replacements
Utility providers often swap out meters without informing their customers of the change. When this happens, it appears as though the bill meter has gone offline in BuildingOS with no explanation. In the past, discovering and connecting the new bill meters has been a time-intensive process. You may now more quickly and easily discover, match, and connect new bill meters to the outdated bill meters. Go to Data Quality > Meter Replacements.

Building Profile: Occupancy Schedule
Accurate detection of savings opportunities requires a better understanding of how buildings and spaces are used—including hours of operation and occupancy. Now you can specify each building’s occupancy schedule in the building Profile tab. They can also specify occupancy schedule for each space in the building in the Spaces tab. Go to Building Profile > Occupancy Schedule.

New translations
New translations are available for Spanish, German, and Chinese. Go to Organization Settings > Profile > Language.


June 2019

Data Manager: Archive readings
You may now archive bill meter readings in Data Manager in order to hide unwanted bills from reports. This is useful if you wish to hide a duplicate reading from being used in dashboards or Data Manager roll-ups. Archived readings will still be shown in grey in the 'Source' tab of Data Manager, and can be restored at any time. Go to a bill meter's Data Manager.


May 2019

Building Trends card: 'Trended point' overlay
You may now compare trended data to another data point that belongs to the same building. This enables energy managers to compare interval meter data with utility bill data from the same building in order to validate bill data, or to compare trended data to a custom baseline. Go to Dashboards > Building Trends.

Building Trends card: 'Dot' chart type
You may now select from 3 chart types for systems & sensors: Bar, Line, and Dot. Dot charts are useful for plotting high-resolution sensor data that may not have continuous values, such as temperature. Go to Dashboards > Building Trends.

Building Trends card: 'Goal line' overlay
You may now compare trended data to a goal, which can be configured as a percent reduction, percent increase, or fixed value. This enables energy managers to see if equipment data is exceeding a set threshold or to see if monthly building performance is on track to achieve an annual target. Go to Dashboards > Building Trends.


April 2019

Notes for meters, bill meters, and gaps
You may now add custom notes to readings or gaps in Data Manager to help explain data anomalies or flag readings for investigation. Notes will appear as blue bubble icons showing the number of notes for a given reading or gap. You may also add notes in the 'Gaps' tab of the Data Quality app, as well as via CSV upload in the Batch Bill Data Upload app. Go to a meter or bill meter's Data Manager, or Apps > Data Quality.

Emissions: New meter types
Emissions app now supports additional meter types for transportation (fleet vehicles, commercial airlines, jets), waste (electronics, food, medical), recycling (light bulbs, metal, paper), and a variety of refrigerants. You may also define your own custom emissions rates for these new meter types. Go to Apps > Emissions.

Visibility into data processing jobs
A new, green data processing jobs banner is now available for every meter and bill meter. If a data processing job is running in the background for that meter, you will see percent completeness and links to the data processing job progress page. Go to a meter or bill meter's Data Manager.


March 2019

Data Quality: Visibility and gap filling
High-level visibility into the quality of all meters and bill meters previously has been challenging. Now, you can see platform-wide percent online, average completeness, gaps, spikes, flatlines, and more. With the new 'Gaps' tab, easily fill bill gaps with a CSV upload, or toggle between meter gap summations or a data manager of all gaps across the platform. Go to Apps > Data Quality > Gaps.

Calculated Bill Meters improvements
To streamline the troubleshooting of calculated meters and bill meters, brand new views have been introduced to the input meter readings diagnostics page. Also, you may now disable unit conversions for bill meters for unlimited formula possibilities. Go to a meter or bill meter's Data Manager.


February 2019

Emissions app
The new Emissions app provides filterable tables of your buildings' emissions and default eGRID emission rates, and allows you to create custom rate structures. Users can assign a rate structure to a building, or download building emissions data in CSV format. This app replaces—and greatly enhances—emission rates previously found in the Utility Rate & Tariff Engine. Go to Apps > Emissions.

Portfolio-level reporting improvements
You may now track long-term trends and improve the accuracy of bill meter data reporting. Check out the following new features: In Building Trends card, select unlimited custom time periods, with year-resolution support. In Portfolio Trends card, select a 'Previous period' overlay. In Building/Portfolio Year-over-Year Trends cards, select 'Adjust graph to end at last month of complete data' for bill meter data. Go to Dashboards.

Data type: Systems & sensors
High-resolution sensors require different ways of displaying data. You may now display all the various aspects of performance for systems (like PV systems) and equipment (like air handlers). Building Readout and Building Trends cards support sensor readings for temperature, humidity, irradiance, fan speed, occupancy, and more. Go to Dashboards.

Dashboards: New filter options
The dashboards filter has been enhanced to include Building, Use, and Author. Go to Dashboards.

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