Introduction/Fees

Process

Outlined below is a typical process. Not all steps apply to all integrations, but this should give a good sense of what to expect.

Action

• Review integration guide | Partner
• Checkpoint call to answer any questions | Partner and Arc
• Sign business agreement | Partner
• Sign up at developer.usgbc.org and subscribe to Arc data dev products | Partner
• Create test user account | Arc
• Review documentation | Partner
• Checkpoint call to answer any questions | Partner and Arc
• Announce partnership (PR)* | Partner and Arc
• Develop integration against Arc API (QAS) | Partner
• Perform QA on partner integration | Partner and Arc
• Enable Production access and switch connection to Production | Partner and Arc
• Set up partner info in Apps section* | Arc
• Announce partnership (PR)* | Partner and Arc
• Ongoing updates and partner communication | Arc

* Items marked with an asterisk are optional for customers directly using the API. A partner is an entity that will serve multiple customers.

Getting Started

This section provides a high-level summary of actions needed to work with performance data, and the sections that follow go into each concept in more detail. More detailed documentation can also be found at developer.usgbc.org, which can be access using below access.

Please create an account at developer.usgbc.org and subscribe to Arc data dev APIs. Once you have a subscription, you can get a subscription key. This subscription key is required to use any API and is used to differentiate you from any other partner. You will also be able to go through details of each and every API using your developer account. You would also need a test user account to create a few test projects at qas.arconline.io in our development environment, and then use these projects through API for your development. If you don’t have a user account or are not able to subscribe to Arc data development APIs, please reach out to the Arc team.

You start by authenticating the user and retrieving the list of projects that the user has access to. From this list, you can choose the specific project you wish to work with. If this is a project you will be interacting with regularly, we recommend that you map the LEED ID of this project in your application to minimize the calls required to identify the project.

Once you have the ID, you can retrieve a list of available meters for a building project. For each meter ID, you can retrieve data (as interval readings), or submit data. Data submission can include multiple readings in one POST, packaged as a JSON array.

Once data is submitted, you can invoke a score recomputation manually. If this is not done, the system will recompute scores through its batch processed jobs, which can take up to a few hours depending on the queue size. Manual invocation will recompute the score within 5 minutes. This is recommended if you send data in batches. However, if your system sends a continuous stream of data, then manual invocation is not necessary, and you can let the background jobs perform the recompute action.

Authentication

All requests are authenticated using a combination of an OAuth 2.0 style bearer token and an API subscription key. The API subscription key is generated and managed through the Azure platform. The token is retrieved using the login service.

All operations are performed on behalf of a user, and not as an authorized app. If a user does not exist, they must first create a user account on the USGBC.org website. 

The API will check the basic credentials to determine which projects they may access. The user information also determines which resources you can modify using PUT and POST requests.

Cities and Communities

The API treats each individual entity as a place. For the purposes of the API, the term ‘project’ is interchangeable with both ‘city’ and ‘community’ if you have the unique ID associated with the place. This ID is usually in the form of "LEED:" in the URL or responses.

Performance Scores

Arc presents scores via the API for all project types. The request can include a parameter to specify a historical time for which you need the score. The score includes the scores for each individual category (or “racetrack”) - Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation, and Human Experience – and the maxima for each racetrack.

Key Concepts

Treatment of Time

Internally, all data are represented using a full date + time representation with a resolution of seconds. Much of the data is interval data; that is, it applies to a time region rather than a point of time; examples include a meter reading for a month, or a carbon dioxide measurement sampled over a 15-minute interval.

To represent this data, all measurements are associated with both a start_date and end_date value. These are both nominally full date + time values. If the intention is for it to apply to a date, the time portion should be set to zero (e.g., 2013-02-01T00:00:00+5); this is inferred if only a date string is provided. These values are represented using ISO8601 formats in all cases.

The range of time referenced by a start_date, end_date pair include the time point encoded by start_date, but do not include the point encoded by end_date (the range is [start, end).) We often write these as a tuple (start_date, end_date).

To represent an entire day in January, you would use, for instance, (2013-01-01, 2013-01-02). Because the end range excludes the point itself, the last point in that range would be 2013-01-01T23:59:59 as desired.

A similar strategy works for months; for instance, the month of January 2013 would be represented by (2013-01-01, 2013-02-01).

Full datetimes are supported; for instance, the first fifteen minutes of a day would be (2013-01-01T00:00:00, 2013-02-01T00:15:00).

As a best practice, all timestamps should include time zone specification. This is not a requirement for data to be acceptable, but exclusion of time zone information introduces the risk of misinterpreting time zone as it'll be assumed to be the same as building's physical location.

Fuel Types

Each meter is associated with a fuel type indicating the underlying quantity the meter is tracking. The ‘Resource’ section in the developer portal contains a list of valid fuel types. In the case of electricity, the fuel type also includes the grid or renewable source of the electricity. Since each fuel type is associated with a set of emissions coefficients specific to that grid or renewable source, you should attempt to provide the correct eGrid region and not just the national average.

If you do not know the eGrid region, or your region is not listed in the available sources, please contact us to identify or add yours.

Pricing

Arc

It is free to track your project's performance and to apply for certification. Includes:

• Project creation
• Add data
• Connect to partners
• Score performance
• Communicate by email
• Analyze LEED Readiness

For professionals - Arc Essentials

Improve your project's performance with custom reports and tools.

$70.83 user/month when billed annually

$85 user/month when billed monthly

Includes:

• Analyze markets across US 
• Model and compare design goals and strategies for new construction projects
• Model the impact of metric changes for Arc Performance Scores
• Create and customize project reports
• Download charts, metrics, and reports
• Download portfolio level results

For projects - Arc Performance Certificates

Share performance information in any Arc category with third parties.

$100/month when billed annually

$120/month when billed monthly

Includes:

• Validate, Arc Performance Score and Arc Improvement Score
• Incremental recognition for one or more categories
• Display-quality certificate with scores and Key Performance Indicators
• Create an unlimited number of certificates
• Share or display certificates as PDFs
• Access certificates anytime
• Earn GRESB points for Energy Ratings and Operational Building Certification

© 2020 Arc All rights reserved | Legal | GBCI Trademark & Policy Guidelines