Configuration of devices for business management systems
A building management system, such as a small or medium business, having one or more control devices. Assigning codes to devices, and reading and listing them may aid in configuring the devices. Templates may be used for dynamic configuration of devices and equipment. Representing terminal assignments and wiring diagrams of control devices may be intuitive in that they resemble real hardware for ease of complete installation. The present system and approach may provide an intuitive way of securely registering devices with cloud usage, for example, involving a mobile phone with no manual entry of data so that a user can complete this process with ease. An intuitive, automatic and asynchronous device configuration downloading may be seen, such as to multiple control devices in a single shot. There may be seamless configuration data synchronization, for example, in view of replacement devices, or so the latest data is readily available.
1. A system for secure registration and provisioning of control devices of building management systems, comprising:
a gateway;
one or more control devices of the building management systems, the one or more control devices are configured to control building management system equipment;
a mobile app;
an onboarding portal;
a cloud;
wherein:
the gateway is configured to register with the cloud, and once registered the registered gateway is configured to send telemetry data from the control devices to the cloud;
the mobile app is configured to configure and registers the gateway and the control devices;
the onboarding portal onboards new customers, customer sites and entities associated with the customers and customer sites;
the mobile app is registered in the onboarding portal as a client that can use the customers, customer sites and user data;
a user can log into the mobile app with a name and password;
the mobile app uses onboarding application programming interfaces (APIs) to validate credentials of the name and password of the user with open authorization;
after validation, the mobile app gets details of the user and a list of customer sites that the user has access, including an access token for access to use onboarding APIs and displays in the mobile app;
the user creates a logical gateway in the mobile app and scans a code printed on the gateway;
the mobile app retrieves an identifier (ID) of the gateway based on the code and maps the gateway with the logical gateway in the mobile app;
the user selects a customer site in the list of customer sites via the mobile app to configure one or more control devices at the selected customer site;
the user configures the gateway at the selected customer site with required parameters in the mobile app;
the mobile app pushes a configuration to the gateway at the selected customer site along with customer site details of the selected customer site, including a customer site ID of the selected customer site to which the gateway belongs; and
the gateway participates in a gateway registration request with the cloud, and is configured to validate if a customer site identifier (ID) received from the cloud as part of the gateway registration request matches the customer site ID that the gateway belongs to ensure that the gateway is being registered to the correct or intended customer site, or the gateway rejects the request if the customer site ID does not match.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein
after the mobile app pushes the configuration to the gateway at the selected customer site, the mobile app connects to an access point of the gateway via Wi-Fi.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
after the mobile app pushes the configuration to the gateway at the selected customer site, the gateway is bound to the customer site; and
the gateway persists information of the customer site.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the gateway informs a status of connectivity of the gateway to the internet; and
when the gateway is connected to the internet, the mobile app gets to know a status and automatically initiates the gateway registration request with the cloud.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein a cloud registration API authenticates if the access token of the user is valid for a given customer site or rejects the request if the access token is invalid or the user is not authorized for the given customer site.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the cloud does a challenge-response authentication with the gateway to enable a secure communication with the gateway;
upon successful registration, a cloud API returns a system Global Unique Identifier (GUID) to the gateway by mapping it against the customer site ID of the selected customer site and system ownership code in the cloud; and
the gateway calls one or more provisioning end points using the system GUID so that the resources get assigned in the cloud for the gateway.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein, if a user identifier (ID) and/or access token expires, the mobile app will prompt the user to re-login to refresh the user ID or access token.