Understanding Real-Time Data Collection

This guide explains how Onboard collects real-time building data, where it goes, and when it becomes available for you to use.

📡 When Does Real-Time Data Collection Begin?

Real-time data collection begins automatically once:

• The Onboard Collector is successfully installed and online at your building, &
• An initial BACnet discovery has completed successfully, or a Modbus device has been configured and connected.

From this point, the Collector begins polling your building's devices at the configured frequency (default: 60 seconds) and securely transmitting the data to Onboard's cloud. This happens continuously in the background, even before you have modeled or published any data through Staging.

☁️ What Is Data Ingestion?

Once the Collector transmits data to Onboard's cloud, it is stored but not yet ingested. Data ingestion is the process of making that collected data available for trending, analysis, and export within the Onboard platform.

Ingestion is triggered when you publish equipment and points through Onboard's Staging Interface. Until a point is published, the data is collected and held in the background, ready to be ingested when you are ready.

When Can I View the Real-Time Data?

To view live and historical data in Onboard, you first need to model and publish your building's metadata using the Staging Interface, Onboard's AI-powered data modeling tool. For more information on modeling and publishing your data, visit the Getting Started with Staging guide.

You can work through Staging at your own pace. Once a point is published:

• The Collector begins ingesting live data for that point.
• Up to 60 days of previously collected data is automatically backfilled, so you immediately have historical context to work with.

Published data is then available in the Buildings Explorer for real-time monitoring and trend analysis, as well as through Data Export and the API tools.

Why Only 60 Days of Historical Data?

Onboard keeps the most recent 60 days of collected data in ready-to-stream storage, meaning it is immediately available for ingestion the moment a point is published. Please contact Onboard support if you wish to recover data beyond 60 days.