To enter a mechanical system** to the database, select a facility from the Facility Tree and press the appropriate button in the Tasks Area. A blank entry form will appear, with any related systems and equipment shown in a tree view on the left. Enter the system ID code first, and then the remaining fields. When you are done defining the new record, press Add Record.
You can modify existing records in the related tree by clicking on any of the icons. To make changes to an existing record, edit any of the fields and press Update Record To delete an existing record, press Remove Record.
When you add a new record in a mechanical data form, a plus icon will appear beside it in the tree. When you delete a record a minus icon will appear. When you edit an existing record you will see a gear icon. These icons indicate that there is an update pending. The database changes will take place only when you leave the form by pressing Done.
If you navigate away from the form in any other way, including the browser back button, your changes will be lost.
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The mechanical data for a facility is grouped into logical units called Plants. A plant is roughly defined as a collection of components, or perhaps a single component, designed to serve a particular function. As an example, a Heat Pump Water Loop is a plant, designed to deliver heating and cooling to conditioned areas of a building. A complex plant will have many components, and each component will be defined on a separate form. In this example, individual heat pumps would be components of the Heat Pump Water Loop plant. Water circulating pumps and heating boilers would also be components of the same plant. A list of components for each parent plant appears in the tree on the left. Click on a component icon in the tree to begin a new component record.
There are a number of general principles that data entry staff should be aware of:
• | ManagingEnergy uses a hierarchical identification system to associate plant records with facilities, and component records with plants. Every plant record includes a hidden field containing the facility code. Every component record includes hidden fields containing the facility code and the plant record. |
• | The identification system keeps related information together for later analysis and reporting. This structuring of data is important to understanding how a building uses energy, so the field collection forms and the entry process must reflect the structure of the actual plants. |
• | The hierarchical system purposely restricts the menu navigation you must take to enter mechanical information. To enter or edit information on a component, you must navigate to the record through the forms for the appropriate facility and plant. For example, to enter information on the third pump (P3) on the second hot water heating plant (HWP2) in facility B034, you would follow these steps: |
1. | Select facility B034 from the Facility Tree. |
2. | Press the A- Hot Water or Steam Heating Plant button to open Form A for facility B034. A tree showing the heating plants and components will appear. |
3. | Click on the icon for P3 under HWP2 if it is visible. If the tree section for HWP2 is collapsed, expand it by clicking on the small plus sign icon. |
• | Aside from identification codes, almost none of the requested mechanical data is absolutely required for the ManagingEnergy software to work. At times, site staff will find it impossible to collect some information, so some things will have to be left out. The user can enter as little or as much information as available from the site. Information gaps are generally replaced by estimates or best guesses at the analysis stage. Large gaps in the site data will impact the quality of the overall findings, so it is worth making a reasonable effort to get missing information. |
• | Contact the site surveyor where there is obvious information missing. |
• | Contact the site surveyor if you have difficulty reading or understanding his/her writing on the forms. |
• | Contact the energy audit project manager if there are consistently large gaps in the information coming back from the field. It is much better to identify training requirements early than to have to repeat a large amount of work. |
• | Most data entry fields make use of pull-down pick lists to make the most common entries available without typing. |
• | ### in a pull-down list selection indicates that a number or code is to be provided in that spot. |
• | ºC/ºF in a pull-down list selection indicates a temperature value with the choice of either the Celsius or Fahrenheit temperature scale. Delete the unit symbol that does not apply. |
• | The basic Microsoft Windows keyboard standards apply. For example, use the Tab and Shift+Tab keys to move quickly through fields on a form. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, and Ctrl+V work as usual for copy, cut, and paste. |
** In this manual the term Mechanical System is used broadly to include a wide range of equipment.
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