FTT Projects

FTT Projects

Hello there đź‘‹ 


If you’re reading this then you’re well on your way to functionally testing your building. To get started, enter the main FTT page from the left sidebar on KODE OS. In the 3 dots, you will see projects.


The idea is to create a Functional Testing Project that spans the entire building, multiple floors, and usually takes place over several days, weeks or months. In the past, you had to individually schedule floors or batches of devices, FTT Projects now automates this.

Creating a Project

Step 1: Select your Building

Note this is automatically complete if you are scheduling FTT from within the building.


Step 2: Select Workflow and Parameters

Workflows

The next step in creating your FTT Project is to choose your desired testing workflow. The most common workflows are listed below and test your equipment for their heating, cooling, and damper operation.




See below the different workflows: 


VAV

  • Stuck Damper Test

  • Airflow Setpoint Tracking (NEW!)

  • Induced Heating 

  • Heating Operation (NEW!)

  • Min/Max Damper (NEW!)


FCU

  • Cooling Operation (NEW!)

  • Heating Operation (NEW!)


AHU

  • Mixed / Outdoor Air Damper

  • Heating Operation

  • Cooling Operation


Parameters 

Each workflow comes with parameters that can be adjusted by YOU to modify the success criteria and max time limits for the test. Check our workflow and parameter tuning guide here.


For this guide, we will use the VAV Stuck Damper Test as our example and we will demonstrate enabling an ongoing commissioning use case across the entire building.


Step 3: Select Devices

Select the devices you wish to test during the project. In our example, we will select all devices as this is the most common use case.



Step 4: Set Schedule

This step is all about setting the schedule for your FTT project. The below image highlights a configuration for our most common example - Weekly Testing, Friday’s at 3pm.



We will provide a brief explanation of all the selections in this section: Set Project, Group By, Date, Time, Commission Frequency, and Schedule Preview. 

Set Project

Now

Use this if you want to finalize the schedule now.

Decide Later

Use this to select the workflow, set parameters, but finalize the schedule later. This option will be common during the deployment phase and will come back after talking to the end user / client about the preferred schedule.

Group By -  There are 3 options to group the tasks in your FTT Project.

By Floor

This option will test one floor per commissioning day and work from bottom to top throughout the building.

By Count of Devices

This option allows you to say, I want 5, 10, 50 devices a day. They will be picked from floors starting from bottom to top. This can be helpful if you know you want to commission the building in a 3 month period and calculate the number of devices you need to run per day / week to achieve your target.

By None

This option will include all the devices you selected into a single group. There will be one testing period. This option is useful if you are testing a very specific floor or set of devices.


Date

The start date of the project. Tests will occur on or after this date according to your other configurations on this page and as presented in the table below.

Time

This is the time you want Functional Testing to start. The most common options for commercial real estate are when equipment is running at steady state such as daily at 3pm or on lower occupancy times such as Monday, Friday late afternoon.

Commission Frequency: Commission Every & Commission on Day

This allows you to determine the testing cadence for your project. Once all the fields are specified, you will see an exact preview of your options presented below.

Schedule Preview

Definition

This is a preview of your FTT Project Schedule after you have selected scheduling options.  

Task Names

Tasks are automatically named as the floor or group and if you assigned a date.


Task Reordering

You can re-order the tasks by grabbing the dots on the left hand side.

Task Editing

You can edit the task to change parameters, device selection, or users.



Step 5: Details & Notify Users


Final Steps of Project Creation

Project Name

Common Names for FTT projects describe the entire scope such as Spring FCU Heat, Summer Damper Operation, Annual AHU Damper Operation, Weekly VAV Damper Testing.

Description

The description has an auto-generate button which will use details from your project schedule to create a descriptive summary of the test. Feel free to write your own!


Reason & Specific Reason

Reason & Specific Reason is an opportunity to log why you have created this project. The most common reason is scheduled testing.

Notify Users and Roles

  1. Pick Specific Users to be notified after each round of testing with a link to the results.

  2. Pick a role to be notified. Most Commonly the Engineering Role is being notified.

Save

Click Save! You will see a preview of your project and all the schedule dates.


Edit an Existing Project

Since projects often extend over weeks or months, it's natural to periodically check on their progress. As time progresses, you'll observe statuses turning green, track average scores for each task, and easily identify milestones like testing 100 devices or scheduling specific floors.


Let’s cover the options available to edit an existing project.


Editing Options from Selecting Tasks

Run

This will run a task immediately and change the schedule date and time to the moment you click run.


Run & Keep

This will run a task immediately, but keep the scheduled date. The equipment in this task will be tested twice if you use this option.

Deactivate

This can be used to cancel a specific task. You might want to use this if you have construction work planned on a floor and it’s no longer relevant to test.

Activate

No worries if you deactivate a task, you can always reactivate it.

Stop

If a task is in progress and you want to stop it for any reason this will allow you to do so.


There are 4 more buttons on this page.


  • Edit - This will give you access to all the configuration options you had when creating the project. The only difference now is that you can’t remove devices that have already had tasks executed.

  • Schedule - This is faster than editing the whole project and allows you to quickly adjust the schedule.

  • Open Task - Open task will open a dedicated page to viewing results of that task. This is a great way to review the tests and failures on a specific floor or group.



  • Devices - The devices tab allows you to see all the results across the entire project. The charts up top act as cross filters allowing you to quickly identify all devices that had a success, failure, or archive in that project.


FTT Best Practices

Now that you have an end to end walkthrough on how to use the software, you’re ready to start scheduling FTT to commission your building. Below are our best practices and strategies for testing. Feel free to give them a try or to create your own! 


1. Create Projects that span cooling and heating season

  • Start of Spring - End of Summer

  • VAV Damper Operation

  • FCU Cooling

  • Start of Fall - End of Winter

  • VAV - Induced Heating

  • FCU Heating

2. Run these tests weekly, in the late afternoon, on low occupancy days.

This is the ideal testing window because:

  • Weekly creates a reasonable workload and cadence for operators to review results.

  • Running in the late afternoon ensures equipment is at steady state compared to running during startup.

  • Late afternoon and low occupancy days minimize impact on tenants.

  • Running during hours when equipment is already scheduled is more energy efficient than starting equipment in the middle of night for testing.

3. Test 10 devices a day in the late afternoon

Another popular option is to test a certain number of devices every day / multiple times a week.  Testing 10 devices a day typically takes less than 30 minutes. This can be scheduled for late afternoon like 4 or 5pm and quickly test all equipment in the building.



    • Related Articles

    • Running a Functional Test

      Functional Testing is a digital commissioning tool to validate equipment operation. KODE Labs supports a variety of tests on a variety of equipment, but it is most commonly used on zone controllers such as Fan Coils, VAVs, and Heat Pumps. Running a ...

    • Functional Testing Tool (FTT) Dashboard

      Functional Testing serves as a digital commissioning tool designed to validate the operational functionality of the equipment. KODE Labs accommodates a diverse range of tests applicable to various types of equipment, with its primary usage centered ...

    • Testing Blocks

      FTT

    • Functional Testing Tool Creators Guide

      Introduction This guide serves as an end to end walkthrough for users looking to create their own Functional Testing Workflows inside of KODE OS. We will introduce the concept of functional testing, showcase goals and examples, provide a scalable ...

    • What is FTT?

      Understanding Functional Testing Why functional testing is important Traditionally, functional testing is a process that occurs during the commissioning phase of a building new construction or retrofit. When a building is commissioned, every piece of ...