June 2025

Why most building analytics fail, and what to do about it

Why Most Building Analytics Fail, and What To Do About It

Walk into any building operations meeting and you’ll hear the same refrain: “We’ve got the data. But we still don’t know what’s really going on.”

That’s the paradox of building analytics. You invest in tools, sensors, and dashboards hoping to gain visibility into how the building is running. But most of what you get back is raw, disjointed, and hard to act on. Graphs that don’t tell a story. Reports that dump data without insight. Interfaces that can’t adapt to your priorities, forcing your team to hunt for needles in a stack of numbers.

Here’s the thing: analytics should make the invisible visible. They should surface the things you can’t catch with your own eyes, like the slowly creeping inefficiencies, the anomalies hiding in patterns, the misalignments between system performance and building needs. But when analytics are rigid, hard to read, or separated from operational realities, they fail at that exact job.

So instead of getting closer to action, your team gets buried in noise. And that defeats the whole point.

What’s the cost of poor analytics?

Operational inefficiencies compound when anomalies go unnoticed. A chiller runs harder than it should. A floor consistently uses more energy than the rest. Without smart alerts or performance baselines, these slip through and quietly drive up utility costs.

Team time gets wasted pulling data manually and formatting reports no one wants to read. Instead of solving problems, teams end up making presentations.

Decision-making slows down. Without confidence in the data or clarity on its meaning, leadership hesitates. Action gets delayed and thus, performance stalls.

And then there’s the intangible cost: missed opportunities, missed savings, and the loss of momentum. A team stuck reacting instead of optimizing is a team running in place.

That’s where DeJoule steps in

DeJoule, our full-stack intelligent BMS, rethinks what building analytics should feel like. It’s not just a reporting engine, but a decision engine. The platform takes in real-time operational data and translates it into clear, actionable guidance your team can use on the ground.

Here’s how it flips the script:

From data to direction

DeJoule doesn’t just track metrics, it makes sense of them. It highlights what’s inefficient, flags risks early, and benchmarks performance against targets or industry standards. You’re not staring at a wall of numbers, but looking at a curated map of what to fix, what to optimize, and where you’re already winning.

Dashboards that make sense

The dashboard gives you a real-time, 360° view of how your building’s performing. Energy, efficiency, uptime. All benchmarked. All customizable. So, you’re not guessing what ‘good’ looks like. You see it. You measure against it.

Built-in intelligence, not just display

Forget the static PDF reports. DeJoule delivers auto-generated, personalized reports backed by AWS QuickSight and AI-driven recommendations. It doesn’t just show you data. It tells you what that data means, and what to do next.

Data visualization that actually works

Want to dive deep into how your chilled water plant performed last week? Or compare energy intensity floor by floor? With DeJoule’s visualization tools like interactive charts, heatmaps, and dynamic floor plans, you get complete control over how metrics are sliced, viewed, and understood.

You can use one of 100+ presets or build your own view from scratch. Everything is powered by time-series databases that let you explore trends as they emerge, not after the fact.

Reports that fit your workflow

Every building team works differently. So DeJoule gives you custom reporting that fits your rhythm. Choose your own data points, time frames, report frequencies, and templates. Whether you want daily anomaly flags or a monthly performance wrap-up, you set the terms.

And because it’s all automated, you cut out the manual effort and get back time.

We take data seriously

DeJoule doesn’t just collect data. It validates it, acts on it, and tracks how effectively it drives performance. That’s where two key metrics come in: Data Quality Index (DQI) and Intelligence Uptime.

Data Quality Index (DQI)

In the world of IoT, having lots of data isn’t enough. It has to be trustworthy. That’s what DQI measures.

DQI is a combined score that reflects both the completeness and correctness of the data DeJoule collects from your building. It tracks how much data is flowing in and how clean that data is. Behind the scenes, algorithms constantly scan for gaps, noise, or anomalies.

The result is a single percentage that tells you how reliable your building’s data stream really is. And that matters. When data quality drops, so does the accuracy of every insight, automation, and recommendation built on top of it.

Intelligence Uptime

This is where data turns into action. Intelligence Uptime measures how consistently DeJoule’s machine learning engine stays in Auto mode and how often it successfully executes optimization commands on your equipment.

It’s not just about having AI in the system. It’s about knowing that AI is active, responsive, and delivering results. The higher the Intelligence Uptime, the more of your building’s performance is being guided by smart, self-operating systems instead of manual oversight.

Together, DQI and Intelligence Uptime give you a clear signal. They show how prepared your building is to make intelligent decisions and how well DeJoule is converting raw data into real operational impact.

Why it matters

Good analytics don’t just help you react, they help you learn. That’s the real power of what DeJoule offers.

When your team has a clear read on what’s happening beneath the surface, you stop firefighting and start fine-tuning. You move from short-term patches to long-term performance. You start seeing savings, uptime, and system efficiency climb. Not because of luck, but because you’re actually learning how your building behaves.

And once that happens, the insights stop being something you review at the end of the month. They become the operating system for how your team runs the building every day.

Want to know how DeJoule can transform your building's data into decisions? Talk to an Expert