Patent ID: 8577931

Claim:
A method, performed by operation of a processor, for configuring a building management system to provide a graphical interface that represents building resources, the method including the steps of: operating the processor thereby to enable the defining of data indicative of a plurality of points, each point including data indicative of an item name, data indicative of a containment parent, and data indicative of an operational state, wherein the plurality of points include: a plurality of process points, wherein each process point describes a physical building resource having a value that is monitored over a network, wherein the process point is configured to periodically obtain over the network data indicative of the value, wherein each process point is defined by reference to a unique containment parent in the form of a location point; a plurality of location points, wherein each location point describes a location of either one or more process points or one or more location points, wherein each location point is defined by reference to a unique containment parent in the form of a location point or a root parent; operating the processor to generate, for the plurality of points, on the basis of their respective data indicative of containment parents, a construct indicative of a hierarchical structure wherein each point is nested beneath its containment parent; operating the processor to associate, in the case that, for a given one of the plurality of points, the data indicative of an operational state meets predefined characteristics, an alarm condition with that point; and operating the processor to upwardly aggregate alarm conditions in the hierarchical structure to facilitate an alarm condition associated with a given one of the plurality of points to be identified based on one or more points beneath which that point is nested.