Groups overview

Groups help you compare like buildings or meters and are available as a filter in dashboards, reports, and bill lists. You also can create your own groups based on attributes that are important to you.

Types of groups

  • Automatic: Membership is determined through filters which can include custom fields.
  • Manual: Members are added or removed manually.

types of groups

Automatic groups are preferred because you don't need to remember to keep them updated.

Benefits of groups 

Most filters support building and meter groups, You don't need to rely on the hierarchy for reporting.

Create a group steps

  1. In the Groups and Benchmarks module select the Building Groups folder or Meter Groups folder and click the plus sign.
    manage groups
     
  2. Enter a unique name for the new group.
  3. Choose an existing category for your new group or create a new one. Categories help you organize your groups.
    group listing
     
  4. Decide if all users should see all buildings or meters including those outside their topmost place access. By default, all users cannot see benchmarks for buildings and meters outside their topmost place.
  5. Choose the group type.
    1. Automatic: Set the appropriate filters.
    2. Manual: Choose the members.
      In this example, a custom field is used in the filter and the group type is automatic. edit building group
       
    3. The new group LEED Certified is created under the Building Construction Type category. For this example, notice there are groups for Application in Process, Gold, Platinum, Registered, and Silver.
Get a head start on creating a manual group.

— Create and save an automatic group.
— Edit the group and change the Group membership maintenance to manual.
— The original members are still listed, just add or delete to the list.

Edit a group

  1. Select the group you want to update.
  2. Click the pencil.
  3. Update the name, type, members, etc.
  4. Save.

Automatic group - Actions menu

Create an automatic group while in the Vendors and Rates module.

  1. Select a commodity or rate, use the Actions menu to automatically create a group.
    Auto Create Button
     
  2. Enter a name and select a category for the group.
    create meter group form
     
  3. Save and view your new group. Group names must be unique per category.
    building group

Create your own custom group 

  1. Create a custom field for buildings or meters.
    This example shows a custom field for a building. (In the Buildings and Meters module menu, choose Custom Fields for Buildings.) 
     
  2. Populate the custom field individually on each object or with a setup spreadsheet. (On the Building Properties page, click Edit Custom Fields.)

     
  3. Create a new group and use filters to automatically populate your new group. By keeping your custom fields updated your groups will always be up to date.

     
  4. Create a new category Special Buildings, with a group titled Review Quarterly. (In this example, the group name is the same as the custom field.)

     
  5. Add Building Group equals as one of your dashboard filters. From the drop-down select Review Quarterly. Now the only buildings that appear in this report are from the group you created - Review Quarterly.