Effective Energy Management from Home—Part Four

Welcome to my blog series, #4 of 5, on Effective Energy Management from Home. If you haven’t read Blogs #1, #2, and #3, I recommend you give them a quick read first.

I bet that another task on your “do later” list is to dig into those cool EnergyCAP Version 7 dashboards and set some up for your audience. Well, later is now. You have the time, and you have the need. In the “new normal” of impending slashed budgets and highly scrutinized expenditures, you want energy cost reduction to be an organizational priority and a “can’t do without” budget imperative. 

We all well know the saying “out of sight, out of mind.” Now’s a great opportunity to keep energy in sight and top of mind. One energy reduction strategy that’s been proven through multiple industry studies is that greater visibility leads to greater awareness leads to greater action. That’s why more and more jurisdictions across the U.S. are mandating energy benchmarking and reporting and why many utility vendors provide benchmarking and comparison reports.

EnergyCAP populates Version 7 with some sample dashboards. My favorite is the SAMPLE:  Building Energy Summary that you’ll see in your My Dashboards section. Take a look. Unfiltered, this sample gives you a snapshot of all buildings included in your Topmost permission setting, which is probably all buildings. You can quickly filter it down to one building or one Building Group via the convenient filter cell at upper right.

Viewing the Sample is a good starting point. Now, click the Copy icon at far upper right. That gives you your own copy of the Dashboard using a name of your choosing. Now you’re rolling! Using your copy, click the upper right Unlock icon. You’re in control. You can click + to add new content panels or use the icons in the upper right corner of each existing content panel to edit filters or re-position and re-size.

The sample panel named Energy Conservation Resources gives you the ultimate power to post your own text, photos, links…even GIF video clips. Tell your story and engage your audience! And when you have a prize-winning dashboard that is worthy of publication, click the Share and Link icons in upper right. The Share icon adds this dashboard to the “Dashboards Shared with Me” list on other EnergyCAP users’ screens. The Link icon is even more powerful. It creates a public URL link that you can embed in external websites, emails, text messages, social media posts…you name it. Anyone who clicks on the link will see your dashboard and your energy story. What had been out of sight now becomes energy-saving insight.

Stay well! When you have created a killer public dashboard, please email us your link. And best wishes that you can use your work-from-home time to become a more effective Energy Manager.