TREAT Software Help Desk

The improvement wizard screens allow entering physical improvements to the building that are usually installed by professionals, such as replacing heating system, installing programmable thermostats, insulating an attic, etc. However, some of the energy savings may be achieved by simple changes in the lifestyle of building occupants. Turning off lights in the room when leaving, reducing shower times, replacing the furnace filter regularly, cleaning refrigerator coils and other similar actions can often produce significant energy savings with minimal or no investment.

TREAT allows estimating energy savings from occupant behavior by associating variety of lifestyle actions with each improvement entered on the Improvement Wizard screen. The inputs are made on the Lifestyle Savings window, which is accessible from the Improvements or Packages screen by clicking the Lifestyle Savings button.

The screen is divided in two sections. The upper table is non-editable and shows all improvements in the project or in the selected package, depending on the setting of the filter at the top of the screen. The lower table allows editing inputs for the selected improvement.

Only Improvement Name and improvement type are shared between “physical” and “lifestyle” inputs for any given improvement. In the lower table you are able to select your inputs:

Improvement Category:

The drop down box containts the options appropriate for the selected improvement. The category helps to filter the internal TREAT lifestyle action database to display only those actions appropriate for the current improvement. Some improvement types have a single Improvement Category, for example Heat Plant Replacement has only one category – Heating. Appliance Replacement, on the other hand, has multiple categories available for selection, with each category corresponding to a major appliance type.

 

Total Lifestyle Action Cost:

This cost is different from the improvement cost entered on the Improvements screen and represents only lifestyle-related expense. For example, you may model furnace replacement in TREAT and enter the cost of the furnace installation on the Improvement Wizard screen. In addition to that, you may want to educate user regarding importance of regular filter replacement. You may enter filter replacement as a lifestyle action and associate separate cost with it.

The second row of drop down boxes in the lower part of the screen allows specifying the algorithm for calculating lifestyle savings of the selected improvement. The accuracy of lifestyle–related savings is lower than savings from physical improvements to the building because occupant behavior changes with time and there are often no reliable algorithms to predict how certain behaviors affect energy consumption. TREAT uses a simplified approach to lifestyle savings calculations. The user selects the end use to which the savings percent is applied, such as Heating, Cooling, Domestic Hot Water or Usage of fixtures included in the improvement. TREAT then calculates the savings as percent of energy usage for the specified end use in the existing building or in the current improvement. The algorithm options depend on Improvement Category.

For appliance and lighting improvements, the value of heating/cooling interactions is estimated using actual heating and cooling system efficiencies, appliance/lighting location and percent loss to space. An assumption is made regarding heating/cooling season length. If there is cooling in the project, then for the purpose of lifestyle savings each space is assumed to be both heated and cooled. Interaction between improvements in packages is not accounted for.

After Improvement Category is selected, the lower table is filled with default lifestyle actions.

You may edit the name of each Lifestyle Action, change Estimated Savings % and toggle Accepted and Possible fields. The Total Savings percentage in the lower table is updated as you change the inputs. Once improvement data is finalized, save it with the Save button. The Reset to Defaults button cancels all the changes made in the lower table and reverts to default information for the selected Improvement Category. When information in the lower table is saved, the list of accepted lifestyle actions is copied to the upper table.

Accepted and possible savings may be calculated using the two buttons at the bottom of the screen. You must run model calculations for the base building and improvement packages before running lifestyle savings calculations. Inputs on the lifestyle savings screen do not affect improvements and packages cost and savings on any other TREAT screen. The lifestyle savings are summarized on Occupant Lifestyle Savings report.

TREAT Report and Data Access System

Overview 

The ability to quickly create useful documents and data is essential to effective business process. TREAT’s newest reporting feature offers the widest possible variety of methods for rendering customer pleasing reports and exporting of data:

• from the simplest selection of report templates customized with chosen company logo and style,
• to infinitely flexible office document integration linked to multiple external data sources,
• Foolproof company customized documents of any style and complexity, dynamically combining corporate data from enterprise databases.

Report Selection Screen

 

Features 

• Customize Brand and Style Easily – make it yours
• Select Reports Quickly with Intuitive New Interface – see sample preview and descriptions for each selection
• Add New Reports and Styles at any time – new ones available for download
• Modify and Create your own Custom Report Design with Microsoft or Open Report Design Tools – or have us do it on demand
• Integrate Easily with Microsoft or Open Office Suites to Enhance Business Process Flow
• Merge TREAT Results Data with Enterprise Data Systems – include energy analysis, job cost and schedule information in a single report
• Open Data Exchange Standards – integrate with any tool of your choosing

Demo Mode:

Report Output Type is set as Static Image (TIFF) while in Demo mode. Additionally, there is a watermark across the page. The image quality in Demo mode Static Images is less than perfect, though it allows you to see all of the pages of a report.

When you purchase a license, this constraint is lifted, along with the watermark on the output. The full range of other output types are available and rendered perfectly sharp.

Standard Reports:

Standard Reports are the quickest and easiest way to start producing reports for presenting to your customers, as well as, viewing assorted analyses of package and billing data. These reports are available in a variety of output formats suitable for fixed reports or editable office documents. Selected data can also, if you desire, be exported to a spreadsheet for further analysis or data linking.

Customization: 

Simplified customization of reports is provided by allowing you to insert your own logo and select a style that best fits the image of your company. New Styles and Reports can be added by a user at any time.

See also: How Do I Customize My Reports?

Logo:

Your Company Logo selection is stored along with the Contractor data and accessed through the Contractor data edit dialog. It will be inserted appropriately into Styles that have spaces for company logos.

Styles:

Numerous styles are provided for your selection. These are chosen on the Reports tab of the Options dialog, and are easily accessible via the Report Options button on the bottom of the Reports screen.

Options:

The Report Options also allow selection of the Default Output Type; choose the type that you prefer to print most of the time. You can select a different type each time you produce a report with the selector beside the Run Report button. You will find this set, and unchangeable, as Static Image while in Demo mode.

Report Selection Screen:

The Report Selection screen consists, primarily, of three sections to choose the type of report based on the description, and choose the particular data to display and output type for the report. Convenient access is also provided to change the Company Logo and Style, as well as a link to the web site where new reports will be available.

 

Report Selector:

Here is a categorized list of Reports for selection. Default installation provides a selection of Reports separated into categories that make it easier to find a particular type.

Notice, in the screen shot, that most are listed just as a title; these were created by PSD. If you begin to create or modify your own reports to satisfy your needs, you will enter an Author. It is this name that appears beneath the title of your reports, or ones that you may have downloaded. For example, “Empire State Utilities” and “CheckMate Energy” are additional modified report in the screen shot.

Installing new prepared reports, whether you modified them or you downloaded them from other contributors, is as easy as drag-and-dropping them right on the report selection screen. This may create a folder in your application data folder and merge the titles in with the ones from the installation directory. Easy access to this user report template folder is available through the Report Options dialog. It is through this folder that you can delete or change the name of a report.

Report Description:

This explains what is in the report or what answers it aims to provide. The report graphic is meant only to be representative; it is a, deliberately small, static image generated with sample data and won’t likely exactly match the final report that generated with current data.

Data Selector:

Many of the Reports will be displaying data populated from the TREAT project database. These will require selections of Packages, Billing Periods, and/or additional data tables. The need for data selection will be apparent by the appearance of lists on tab pages below the description area. Each tab will indicate how many items need to be selected from each list. Items in the list are disabled (grey) and unable to be selected when the calculations for the Improvements/Packages or Billing Periods are not complete. If you want to select one of these items, you’ll need to return to the appropriate tab to execute calculations and generate results necessary for the report.

Report Options:

This dialog is for setting up or managing reports; things that you’ll do periodically, but not every time that a report executed.

The Default Report Output Type is for selecting your most common type of output. Each report run is easily changeable on the main report screen for times you wish to use a different type.

Style Selector works rather like the Report Selector. Choose the Style that fits your company image the best, or have one customized exactly to your specifications. A blank Style exists for exporting data reports that don’t benefit from the graphic headers.

Selecting the Add Report button brings you to a place where you can add and remove Report and Style templates. If you simply want to add one that has been prepared, you can drag-and-drop on the selector.

Edit Contractor Data is where you’ll select a company logo, and enter the other business information that will be embedded into Reports.

Formats: 

• Static Image (.TIFF)This image format provides a quick look at the results where reports have the best summary data for a particular aspect of your project. It opens right up in your default image viewer. The image is not, generally, of the quality that one might present to a customer. This is the only option available in Demo mode.
• Portable Document Format (.PDF)PDF format documents provide a high quality rendering of your report in a widely viewable format. These documents are convenient to print, send, and archive. They are not conveniently editable, which is often a desirable trait. Free viewers are available from http://get.adobe.com/reader/
• Microsoft Word (.doc)(This format will be available when Microsoft releases the 2010 version of the library) DOC format documents are conveniently editable with one of Mircrosoft’s Office offerings or OpenOffice.org, freely available at http://www.openoffice.org/ , and are suitable for creating reports that you may want to touch up or personalize after rendering.

 

• Microsoft Excel (.xls) 

XLS format documents are conveniently editable with one of Microsoft’s offerings, or OpenOffice.org, which is freely available at http://www.openoffice.org/ , and are suitable for creating reports where raw data is exported in tabular format. Each new Table selected for data exports is created on its own sheet in the Excel workbook; convenient for you to do your own data manipulations and charting.

Charts, along with legend and title, are rendered as a single object that you can cut and paste into your own documents. Tables of data are easy to select and copy.

• Raw Data (.xml)Data from TREAT is exported in one large xml file with data grouped as administrative, package, and billing information, according to the selections chosen prior to export. This is a convenient way to access that data through programmatic means. Exports, in this format, are best chosen from the Data grouping of the report selector, as the data in the xml is ‘flattened’ for easy import into database tables.see also: Raw XML in the Data Exchange Reference section
• Filtered Data (.xml)Many reports do additional processing of the Raw Data before presenting it to you. If you see values in a particular Report that you wish to export, you would select that particular report and run it as Filtered Data. While this output is, technically, human readable, it is not in a presentable form that you would get in other non-xml formats.see also: Filtered XML in the Data Exchange Reference section

Download Additional Reports and Styles: 

New Styles and Reports will be made as feedback is collected from users. You may view all available Reports and Styles as they become available. Registered users can download and install new ones at any time. The Reports and Styles will be updated on the website as they become available, not, necessarily, coincident with the next release of TREAT.

Suggest Alterations to Existing Reports:

If there are minor changes to Reports that you feel would make them more valuable to you, you are encouraged to provide feedback via the link provided on the Reports screen. This feedback will be considered along with all other, and may result in a changed Report, or a completely new version.

Suggest New Report Types:

When you feel that no current Report provides the results that you are looking for, we encourage you to suggest a new report via the link provided on the Reports screen. The most useful suggestions would include a sample mock-up and a description of when this new report would be used; who is the recipient? what answers will the find in this new report?

Insert A Company Logo: 

• Select Contractor from the Libraries main menu.
• Click Choose Logo to select your logo image file.
• Ensure other Contractor Information is correct.
• Click OK. This information will now appear appropriately in reports.

Acceptable image file types for the logo are BMP and JPG. The space available to the logo in the report is 0.7″ tall by 3″ wide. Any logo image loaded in the space on the report will be scaled to fit this available space. Therefore, it is wise to have your logo image as near this height and width as possible to avoid distortion. This aspect ratio was chosen as it is common among letterhead logos.

Select a Style:

• Select Options from the Project Group main menu.
• Select the Reports tab on the Options dialog.
• Click trough the available Styles listed, and view the sample images.
• Leave your chosen Style selected and visible in the preview pane, and close the dialog.

Select, View, and Print a Report: 

• Select a report from those available.
• Select data below the Description, tabs indicate selection requirements.
• Confirm the output type is as you wish.
• Click Run Report. The report opens in your system default viewer for a chosen output type, i.e. Acrobat opens PDF files.
• Make any desired changes, as possible in the chosen format, i.e. spreadsheet applications can modify XLS format files.
• Print as described in the help for the report format viewer that is open. This will print to standard Windows printers as you normally would.

Export Data Tables to Spreadsheet:

• Choose the “Blank” Style. Though not necessary, results in a cleaner output.
• Choose “Spreadsheet” Output Type. Though not necessary, results in an Excel document that is easily linked to from other office documents or databases.
• Click “Export Data”. The data opens in your system default editor for spreadsheets.

Get New Styles and Reports: 

• Select the More Reports link (http://www.psdconsulting.com/software/treat/reports ) on the Select Reports pane.
• Browse the available Report and Style templates.
• Download a new template, saving in any convenient location. You must login and have a current support contract to download, but everyone can browse.
• Choose Add Report on the Options dialog, or Drag-and-drop the saved file onto the Report Selector.

Office Suite Integration 

Office Suites of integrated tools are powerful solutions for businesses to produce their own ad-hoc reports and data exchanges with their current business systems. TREAT software doesn’t attempt to recreate all of these tools for you to create your own custom reports, but leverages the skills of many office suite proficient people to generate and integrate with the well documented data export formats of TREAT.

Tools:

There are many document tools that can link easily to spreadsheet and xml data source. We recommend the following tools for their common capabilities and strong support. Many people choose to purchase Microsoft Office tools; but, for those who don’t wish to, OpenOffice.org is a fantastic office suite with tremendous capabilities – and it is available, fully featured, for free.

Open Office:

Open Office an extra ordinarily capable suite of tools that runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and many more platforms for free. Open Office is available at http://www.openoffice.org .

Microsoft Office:

Microsoft Office software and information is available at http://office.microsoft.com

Data Export:

While any Report can be written out to an Excel spreadsheet, there are a number of ‘data’ specific reports that are intended for export to Excel and/or XML. These formats are convenient for linking into Office suites to dynamically update the data in fields of a, for example, Word document.

The process to generate a report, therefore, means exporting the data with a standard name to a standard location, then opening linked document which will pick up its new values from the latest export. Adjust the document, if you like, before giving to the customer.

Data Linking:

Other Office Suite components can link into the data from XML or Excel export files.

Support:

The TREAT Reporting system enables a myriad of solutions for business process integration, simply because it exports standard formats. Every situation is different and will require a different method of integration that can best be determined by the TREAT user’s in-house technical staff, or in conjunction with Performance Systems Development. Therefore, PSD can provide examples but, will be unable to detail the implementation of every solution; for these, you are referred to Office solution documentation.

Resources:

Microsoft Office information is available at http://office.microsoft.com.

Open Office information is available at http://www.openoffice.org .

Integration Contracts with PSD: 

Contract TREAT sales at http://www.psdconsulting.com/software/treat/contact to discuss how PSD can help you integrate TREAT data into your business process.

Custom Integrated Reports 

Tools:

There are two freely available tools for editing Report Definition Language (RDL) files. Both are quite capable, but have a slightly different feature set which can cause difficulties when editing the same RDL file between two different tools.

The PSD RDL Template Integrator is a tool that embeds additional information, and confirms that various elements exist with the correct parameters to work seamlessly in TREAT.

Open Report Definition Language (RDL) Designer:

http://www.fyireporting.com/downloads/SetupRdlProject.msi

This tool is capable and easy to install and use, but has some limitations when used, as TREAT does, with the Microsoft RDL rendering tool.

• It supports gradients as backgrounds to objects, but Microsoft does not; so, you should be aware not to use that feature in this tool.
• It doesn’t set bookmarks on tables that are useful in the spreadsheet export of data. Most useful fields are already bookmarked for you in the reports shipped with TREAT. You will need to use the Microsoft tool to add these, if you need them.

Microsoft SSRS – Business Intelligence Tools and Visual Studio Express:

First Microsoft Visual Studio Express is required:

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/

Then, install on top of that, SSRS packages :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966542.aspx#EIAA

Follow Microsoft instructions for configuring your environment to create and edit SSRS solutions.

PSD RDL Template Integrator:

Performance Systems Development provides the tool to take a Report Definition Language Template and prepare it to be integrated it into the TREAT Reports screen. This involves taking an RDL file with the essential elements of either a TREAT Report Template or TREAT Style Template, and generating a Preview Image, adding a Description, and setting various data requirements, categories and type. This tool will also check some requirements of the RDL file for compatibility with the TREAT Report System. Contact PSD to get the latest version of this tool.

Resources:

RDL Designer:

http://www.fyireporting.com/

Microsoft SSRS:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ then use the search entry at the top of the page. There is so much applicable information here in different files.

Customization Contracts with PSD:

Contract TREAT sales at http://www.psdconsulting.com/software/treat/contact to discuss how PSD can help you integrate TREAT data into your business process.

Data Exchange:

There is a huge amount of data available for you to integrate with your business systems. Here is the reference for what data is available, and where to reference it.

HPXML:

TREAT v 3.4 supports an all new data export feature. TREAT can now export data in the HPXML format. This growing national standard consists of hundreds of specific data fields that different state and national programs can select from, the end result being that your data can be used for cross boundary compliance in an expanding number of programs.

Raw XML:

Raw XML is the data dumped from TREAT grouped as:

• project data
• packages data
• billing data
• building data

Export an XML file with all items selected, then use your favorite editor to view the XML files to determine the available data.

Filtered XML:

Filtered XML is the result of repackaging and reprocessing the Raw XML data into tables and summary results that are used in the reports themselves. Specifically, the “Data” grouping of reports are of little use for human presentable documents, but do process/filter/sort summary data into useful tables, results, and most importantly, numerous bookmarked (named ranges) data result cells that are perfectly suited for Office Suite integration. There is often more data available than is in any one report. Use an editor to view the available data from the XML.

Spreadsheet Cell Bookmarks:

These are the key to Office Suite integration. They provide named locations the retrieve the same known information from a spreadsheet data source. Though the data may change location in the spreadsheet, the bookmarks remain a positive link to the data for linking into other Office Documents in a consistent way.