Building Management System Method and Interface

Abstract

A connected services system manages assets of building management systems of different organizations. An application server collects information from the assets, which is stored in various data stores associated with an account of the client organization, including an asset store, a group hierarchy store, a user account store, an asset ownership store, and a group ownership store. The group hierarchy store organizes the assets into tiered groups such as campuses, buildings, floors and wings. Users view, on graphical interfaces displayed on the displays of user devices, information from the asset store pertaining to assets that are owned by or shared with them according to the group ownership and asset ownership stores. The graphical interfaces include an asset panel for displaying detailed information about assets, a grouping selector, for filtering which assets for which information is displayed, and a status graphic for providing information concerning the status of the assets.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for managing assets of building management systems, the system comprising:
 an application server for storing information concerning the assets of the building management systems, the assets being organized in groups; and   user devices for displaying a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including:
 a group selector for selecting groups; and 
 a status pane for displaying information about assets in the groups. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the group selector enables a user to select the groups, and in response to the selection of a group, one or more child groups are displayed. 
     
     
         3 . The system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the group selector includes a mode selector that enables the display of information for assets in the status pane only for the selected one or more groups. 
     
     
         4 . The system as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the group selector represents groups as a hierarchy of parent and child graphical node icons. 
     
     
         5 . The system as claimed in  claim 4 , wherein the parent graphical node icons represent higher level groups in the group hierarchy. 
     
     
         6 . The system as claimed in  claim 4 , wherein the child graphical node icons represent lower level groups in the group hierarchy. 
     
     
         7 . A method for managing assets of building management systems, the method comprising:
 an application server storing information concerning the assets of the building management systems, the assets being organized in groups; and   user devices displaying a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including:
 a group selector for selecting groups; and 
 a status pane for displaying information about assets in the groups. 
   
     
     
         8 . The method as claimed in  claim 7 , further comprising the group selector enabling a user to select the groups, and displaying information concerning child groups in response to selection of a group. 
     
     
         9 . The method as claimed in  claim 7 , further comprising displaying a mode selector enabling the display of information for assets in the status pane only for the selected groups. 
     
     
         10 . The method as claimed in  claim 7 , further comprising the group selector representing groups as a hierarchy of parent and child graphical node icons. 
     
     
         11 . The method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the parent graphical node icons representing higher level groups in the group hierarchy. 
     
     
         12 . The method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the child graphical node icons representing lower level groups in the group hierarchy. 
     
     
         13 . A system for managing assets of building management systems, the system comprising:
 an application server for storing status information concerning the assets of the building management systems; and   user devices for displaying a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including:
 a status graphic providing information concerning the status of the assets of the associated building management system; and 
 a status pane for displaying textual information for the assets. 
   
     
     
         14 . The system as claimed in  claim 13 , wherein the statuses include normal, offline, fault, and alarm. 
     
     
         15 . The system as claimed in  claim 13 , wherein the status graphic includes segments corresponding to groups of assets with the same status. 
     
     
         16 . The system as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein the segments are arcs arranged along a common circle. 
     
     
         17 . The system as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein selection of a segment in the status graphic causes information about the assets represented by the selected segment to be displayed in the status pane. 
     
     
         18 . The system as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein selection of a segment in the status graphic causes a change in the appearance of the selected segment to indicate its selection. 
     
     
         19 . The system as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein the status graphic further includes textual annotations indicating a number of assets represented by each of the segments. 
     
     
         20 . A method for managing assets of building management systems, the method comprising:
 an application server storing status information concerning the assets of the building management systems; and   user devices displaying a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface including:
 a status graphic providing information concerning the status of the assets of the associated building management system; 
 a status pane for displaying textual information for assets. 
   
     
     
         21 . The method as claimed in  claim 20 , further comprising displaying segments in the status graphic, the segments corresponding to groups of assets with the same status. 
     
     
         22 . The method as claimed in  claim 21 , further comprising displaying information in the status pane about the assets represented by a selected segment in response to selecting the segment. 
     
     
         23 . The method as claimed in  claim 21 , further comprising changing the appearance of a selected segment in response to selecting the segment.