The Smart Buildings Academy Podcast | Teaching You Building Automation, Systems Integration, and Information Technology

Most BAS training at the end of the project is terrible. I know you've been there. You bring in 2 dozen donuts and a jug of coffee and hope and pray that you can keep the customer's attention for more than 2 hours before they wander off (either physically or mentally). What if you could create awesome training that helped your customers learn your BAS?

What if this training was so awesome that your customers told everyone they knew about how awesome your company is?

Well, that is what I'm going to teach you in this episode!

By the time you finish this episode you will know:

• Why most BAS training sucks and how to make sure your's doesn't
• The amazing secret to knowing exactly what your customers want and need to know
• My 4-step process to creating amazing training that your customers will rave about!

Alarms, they can make or break your BAS. Yet so many building owners seem to just accept that having a crappy alarm design is just par for the course.

Why is this?

Is it possible to have a structured alarm design that prioritizes the issues that need your attention the most?

I believe it is and by the time you finish this episode you will know:

• Why most BAS alarming designs are terrible and how to avoid your's becoming terrible as well!
• My step-by-step process for creating amazing alarm designs (hint, this takes less than one hour!)
• How you can implement an alarm design, even if you have already built your building!

When I say redlines and as builts what do you think of?

Do you think of how much redlines and as builts can impact the success of your project?

Do you think about how much redlines and as builts can impact the effectiveness of any future service calls?

Do you think of how redlines and as builts can massively increase or decrease the time you spend on a project?

You should!

By the time you finish this episode you will know:

• Why you MUST make sure you are dealing with the latest drawings on any project
• The #1 method for making sure your redlines get turned into accurate as builts
• How proper as builts will determine the success or failure of your service career

CSI MasterFormat is the defacto standard for specification formatting. But how does it work?

What are the gotchas you need to be aware of?

By the time you finish this episode you will know:

• What MasterFormat is and how it is organized21
• What you can and cannot change in a specification
• Key changes you can make to massively increase the effectiveness of your specification!

Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) plans. So many BAS professionals think they know what these documents are.

But do you really know what these documents are? Do you know which part of the plans contains what information?

By the time you finish this episode you will:

• Know what the three parts of the MEP Plans are that you must know!
• Be clear on how to avoid scope creep by reading the plan details!
• Ensure you are are looking at the right floorplan for the information you need

One of the greatest challenges faced by BAS professionals is getting remote access to their BAS.

In this episode, I teach you my four-step process to get IT to give you remote access to your BAS.

I also explore analytics. I unpack what analytics are, how they work and why they are important.

By the time you finish this episode you will:

• Have a four-step process for gaining remote access for your BAS
• Understand what analytics are and how they work
• Be able to describe the two types of analytics and the methods for collecting data

Lately, there have been a ton of questions about data tagging and data normalization. But what does that actually mean?

This is a super important topic especially when you consider that having common data formats is required to implement analytics, fault diagnostics, and other advanced services!

In this episode, I'm going to dive deep into data. You're going to learn:

►What data is and how it relates to a BAS

►Why data normalization is important and how you can plan for it

►What a data tag is and how it is used

►How data is related to API's

There's a lot of noise and miscommunication out there about IT technologies lately so when BAM Nation member Jim e-mailed me asking about Zigbee I was excited to answer his questions and help clear up some of the things he'd been told about Zigbee.

In this podcast episode you will learn:

• What Zigbee is and how it works
• The two main types of wireless communication
• The differences between physical standards and data protocols
• How integration is independent (mostly) of the physical media

There's been a lot of chatter across the Facebook group recently about Comm trunks and Mixing and matching different vendors controllers.

There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there and I thought I'd do a podcast episode where I discussed both topics.

These two topics are very much interrelated when you start to mix and match third-party controllers you can effect your comm trunk so it's important to have a process.

In this episode I will be teaching you:

• My 5-step process for adding third-party controllers to an existing network
• My 7-step process for troubleshooting communication trunk issues

You just finished your first integration project! Your all excited you finally stepped into the world of systems integration.

But then it happens!

You get that call telling you something's not working.

Maybe it's a value from one of the points you integrated?

Or perhaps it's that a command to control one of the integrated systems is going through.

It doesn't matter really why. You just need to solve the problem.

But how do you do that?

How can you resolve issues with integrations?

In this podcast I'm going to teach you:

• The danger of double dipping on integrations
• Why data models matter
• How to step through an integration to find the root cause of your troubles