Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ about ProptechOS and Real Estate Core
Getting started with ProptechOS
After signing up and signing in, starting to use ProptechOS follows a simple process:
- Onboard Building. If your use case requires just a few rooms, you can probably create them manually by yourself, and if you need an entire building you can use a blueprint to do it at scale. ProptechOS Onboarding will help you with the end-to-end process.
- Data source. Identify suitable existing devices for your use case.
(If needed, procurement and installation of complementary IoT devices are done by an external vendor in coordination with ProptechOS.) - Onboard Devices. A simple use case with just a few IoT devices can be set up manually and an entire legacy system can be onboarded using a taglist. ProptechOS Onboarding engineers can do both quickly. To finally get going, access for ProptechOS to connect to your devices is set up.
- Data from IoT devices, BIM, Building Management Systems and business functionalities are collected in ProptechOS. You are now ready to use ProptechOS.
ProptechOS Trial can be set up in minutes. After you get access to ProptechOS, onboarding a set of certified partner devices can take a couple of hours for a modern IoT system, 72 hours including modelling for a complete Building management system from a certified partner or 2-4 weeks for a system that has not yet been modelled in RealEstateCore or integrated with ProptechOS. The device onboarding takes even longer than that if the use case requires access to an on-site local network and/or installation of on-site hardware. Start setting up your account by choosing a pricing plan.
A building is onboarded to ProptechOS and modelled in RealEstateCore. A building is made up of storeys, rooms and assets in rooms (e.g. a phonebooth, a desk, other furnishing, etc.). Buildings can also have zones which span one or multiple rooms or a specific area within a room. Additionally devices, sensors, actuators and alarms can be placed in a room or at a specific coordinate in a room. Other building components like terrasses, roofs etc. have RealEstateCore representations and can be onboarded to ProptechOS. A building belongs to a real estate which is a legal object consisting of one or several buildings or pieces of land. All building components can have a geometric representation so that they can be found by coordinates and visualized in 2D or 3D. Based on these components the customer can build up their applications. For more details visit https://www.realestatecore.io/
ProptechOS is a SaaS cloud solution. ProptechOS itself does not require any hardware.
However, some legacy systems in buildings cannot connect to the internet. In such cases ProptechOS will install a physical Connector server on site that will serve as an uplink to ProptechOS platform. Many times, it is possible to use a cloud-based Connector, or a Connector on a virtual server on the customer local network.
There is no limit to how many users you can invite to your ProptechOS. Users may be assigned roles with pre-selected access and permission rights.
ProptechOS has a range of support options:
- Email: Just send ProptechOS Onboarding [email protected] a note and our onboarding engineers will get right back to you.
- Webinars: Many of the core use cases are described in a webinar here in the Resources section
- RealEstateCore community – If you wonder about how to best use RealEstateCore, you can also also find your answer at realestatecore.io or the RealEstateCore community.
Yes, definitely!
- Just click the plus-sign in the bottom right corner to create any object in your ProptechOS – Building, Room Sensor etc.
- Choose “Onboard” > “Blueprint” in the top bar to onboard a whole storey or building using a DWG file.
- Choose “Onboard” > “Tag list” in the top bar to onboard a whole system of devices using a CSV file.
Onboarding using Blueprints or Tag lists does require processing the DWG or CSV files so that they have the necessary information and the proper format. ProptechOS Onboarding team will help you get started.
Suitability/ Usage
ProptechOS is suitable for any number of properties. It can even be run on a single building. Scalability of IoT has been a major motivation for developing ProptechOS, but apps and partner apps can deliver value on anything from one to 500 buildings in a portfolio.
ProptechOS is suitable for both commercial, residential and industrial portfolios. The only prerequisite for a successful implementation of ProptechOS is to have enough sensors and data points in your buildings to bear the use cases you are interested in.
Functionality
Yes. All data from buildings is saved continuously on ProptechOS during the time that the building is connected to the platform and will be saved long term. Data can be exported from ProptechOS. Historical data from before the building was onboarded may be added to ProptechOS upon request.
Yes. Telemetry data is instantly available in ProptechOS – either in the UI, the API or via the streaming API. Typically, telemetry that arrives to ProptechOS is available in the stream or API within 80 milliseconds (median latency is less than 10 ms).
Yes. ProptechOS has a state model embedded in the knowledge graph. Via the UI or the API, the state of each connected device is easily and instantly available.
Yes. ProptechOS turns all onboarded buildings with devices into smart buildings that can be controlled by users or certified applications in a safe and scalable way. This can be used to have rooms automatically adjusted before and after meetings, for letting your buildings help the energy grid by participating in demand-response programs or for a Machine Learning application to optimize the energy consumption of the building.
ProptechOS adopts the RealEstateCore API, which is open source. You or your IT partners can write any application on top of the API. To help you, ProptechOS has a suite of documentation, and code open for anyone to use. You are dependent on ProptechOS for your implementation. ProptechOS created and founded RealEstateCore but the community has grown beyond ProptechOS, with additional docs and tooling.
Yes, there are two ways to export data from ProptechOS. Extracting single time series by downloading them directly in the UI sensor view. Contact ProptechOS Onboarding if you are looking to export data for a very long time or for a large set of sensors.
To ensure data integrity, ProptechOS is restrictive about editing or writing historical telemetry data (sensor observations are only written into ProptechOS via the edge interface and with valid device ids and device secrets). Therefore, users cannot yet import historical data for ingestion or update. This feature is coming, but in the meantime, just reach out to [email protected] and they will help you in a safe way.
Workflows is like If-This-Then-That for large-scale proptech, consisting of a Trigger (the source), routing, and a Dispatcher (the outcome).
You can re-use a trigger for multiple Workflows or have a single Workflow Dispatch to multiple destinations (multiple Dispatchers).
Some examples of workflow scenarios are:
- If the elevator malfunctions, send a Critical severity alarm to the local technician and create a work order in the facility management system.
- If the temperature in any conference room falls below 16°C or above 25°C send a Major alarm to the technical manager responsible for the building.
- If a noise meter registers a peak during office hours, send an SMS to the account managers of the affected tenants, so that they can anticipate and prevent a bad tenant experience
- If a percentage or number of devices flatline or go offline, send an alarm to the responsible technician to troubleshoot
- If the utilization of a tenant unit has been 50% higher than normal over the last 2 days, create a work order to perform cleaning earlier than normal.
- If the utilization of a site is 25% lower than usual send a request to adjust conference room prices
Technical functionality
ProptechOS uses a graph database for the RealEstateCore knowledge graph, a scalable blob-like storage for historical data and an actor-based model for hot and real-time data.
In the situation that the PLC/DUC would lose contact with the network, vital functions will continue to work, for instance, using the last read value (eg. outside temperature) or if needed they will go back to default values.
If the system directly above ProptechOS loses contact with ProptechOS, any possible overrides will return to default mode.
Data and security
ProptechOS data can only be accessed via controlled interfaces. Hence, the security of the data at rest is only subject to the general internal security practices of the ProptechOS organization and the overall security of Microsoft Azure. ProptechOS’ Microsoft Azure resources are compartmentalized for different customers.
ProptechOS does not have any claim over customers’ building data or telemetry, neither onboarded data nor data generated while using ProptechOS. The customer agreement states that the customer and not ProptechOS is the data owner. The Customers may export data at any point.
General questions
With RealEstateCore and your sovereign data ownership, you can rest assured to not be locked in. ProptechOS adopts RealEstateCore which is an open source standard describing how data from different systems should be classified and structured. ProptechOS follows RealEstateCore in the edge interface, the knowledge graph and the API.
- Your Edge integrations into ProptechOS will work on any other system adopting the RealEstateCore edge interface.
- Your App integrations on ProptechOS will work on any platform adopting the RealEstateCore API.
- The data that is onboarded to ProptechOS can be exported and be imported with reasonable effort into any platform adopting the RealEstateCore ontology.
That is to say, ProtpechOS is built to be replaceable. Furthermore, RealEstateCore is developed to automatically be converted to other established standards at a very low cost, as it is based on standardized RDF semantic web technology. Consequently, using RealEstateCore and ProptechOS prevents vendor lock-in.
RealEstateCore is a leading global standard for Real Estate-related data. It is a description of how data from different systems should be classified and structured using semantic data technologies. It is the common “language” for smart buildings that provides increased control and accessibility of data.
ProptechOS created the first version of RealEstateCore, was among the founding members of the RealEstateCore Consortium and continues to work on the board and technical committees of RealEstateCore. RealEstateCore is published as open source, free for anyone to download and use.
RealEstateCore has collaborations with other important standards in the real estate related areas like BIM, control and monitoring, IoT and business data. Such joint work has resulted in official alignments with BRICK Schema, W3C BOT and ASHRAE, to bridge them together.
ProptechOS is built to be the best implementation of RealEstateCore and to realize the potential of the RealEastateCore ecosystem.
RealEstateCore is the designated domain-specific ontology for smart buildings in Azure Digital Twins.
Azure’s Digital Twins Definition Language (DTDL) is used by developers to define entities used in the knowledge graph of Azure Digital Twins. However, because the DTDL can model any entity, there is a need for domain specific ontologies which are tailored to, for instance, real estate management. This is where RealEstateCore comes in. RealEstateCore is preloaded in Azure Digital Twins. More information: Azure/opendigitaltwins-building: Open Digital Twins Definition Language (DTDL) RealEstateCore Ontology and Microsoft unlocks the full potential of the smart building ecosystem
ProptechOS is built on top of Microsoft Azure’s platform in close cooperation with the Azure product development team and takes full advantage of Azure’s high capacity and availability.
Since all buildings, systems, and apps are encoded in RealEstateCore, an alternative to ProptechOS can be used.
- Investments in integrations to buildings and systems are still valid
- Investments in applications are still valid
- All data is owned by the client
- All data is accessible via the API (without consent or cooperation from ProptechOS) and can be regressed in bulk with the cooperation from ProptechOS Onboarding.
If you want to cease using ProptechOS, you can get your data to use independently of ProptechOS. Your edge and application integrations can continue to be used if you switch to another platform that adopts RealEstateCore. If you switch to a non-RealEstateCore platform you can translate the ontology (it is already aligned to BRICK, Ashrae and W3C:BOT) and migrate the integrations efficiently.
Partner Support
For support with mapping sensors in RealEstateCore contact [email protected]. The Onboarding Team will need a list of your sensors to provide sensor mapping support.
Book your free customized demo of ProptechOS today
This will give you a good understanding of how ProptechOS can deliver real business value and how you can use ProptechOS and start your journey towards a data driven real estate business.
Per Grosskopf
Chief of Distribution Officer
