Frequently Asked Questions

Connect Your BACnet Devices

To connect with the BACnet devices on your building network, you can launch a discovery right from the Onboard App. The BACnet Tab on the Deployments Page lets you launch BACnet discoveries on your building network. Use this tab to verify network details, initiate discovery, and check its progress.

Here’s what each column shows:

  • Network: The IP network that the BACnet discovery will run on.
  • Port: The port number used for BACnet communication (typically 47808).
  • Poll Frequency: The rate at which data is collected from BACnet devices (default is 60 seconds).
  • Last Discovery Status: Shows the most recent discovery outcome (e.g., NEW, IN_PROGRESS, SUCCESS, FAILED).
  • Latest Discovery Creator: Displays who initiated the last discovery.
  • Actions: Button for initiating a new discovery.

Running a Discovery

To start a discovery, click the Actions button. This will open a device ID input field where you can specify the range of device IDs to scan. There are two types of discoveries you can perform:

  • Global Discovery: Scans for all devices on the network. Device ID range: [1–4194302]
    • To run a global discovery, simply click Submit without entering any device IDs. The collector will initiate a network-wide scan and return all discoverable devices.‍
  • Targeted Discovery: Scans a specific range of device IDs for faster, more controlled results. Example: [1020–1029]
    • To run a targeted discovery, enter the smallest and largest device IDs in the range. The collector will then scan for all discoverable devices within that range, including the boundary IDs.

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Discovery Status

When a discovery starts, the Status changes to NEW, and within 5–6 minutes it updates to IN_PROGRESS.

Once the scan completes, the status will change to SUCCESS (if the discovery completes without errors) or FAILED (if the process encounters issues).

Depending on the network size and the number of devices being scanned, a discovery can take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour to complete.

To monitor progress of your discovery:

  • Check the Status column periodically to track updates
  • If the status shows SUCCESS, that means the collector finished running the discovery. To view the discovery results, click on Success to open the Staging → Devices Tab, where all discovered devices will appear

Behind the Scenes

During discovery, Onboard’s Edge Software communicates with BACnet devices using broadcast messages. Data collected from discovered devices including equipment, points, and device information is securely transmitted to the Onboard Cloud and displayed in Staging for modeling and publishing.