VentScan vs BI analytics
A BI dashboard visualises numbers you feed it — charts, KPIs, trends — and trusts those numbers to be correct. VentScan is not a dashboard. It reconciles HVAC sources across revisions, recalculates the engineering consequences from written specifications, and seals each decision in a Proof Pack. BI shows you a number; VentScan establishes whether the number is right and proves how it was reached.
| Dimension | BI dashboard | VentScan |
|---|---|---|
| Question answered | How do my numbers look over time? | Do the sources agree, and does the capacity still hold? |
| Relationship to the data | Displays the values it is given. | Recalculates the values from sources and written specs. |
| Engineering logic | None — aggregation and charting only. | Deterministic HVAC calculations, unit-safe and tested. |
| Source disagreement | Not detected; bad inputs produce confident charts. | Flagged as an inconsistency for the engineer to resolve. |
| Uncertainty | Usually hidden behind a single figure. | Carried on every number as units and maturity. |
| Decision record | A snapshot or exported chart. | An append-only Proof Pack: source, consequence, approval. |
01What a BI dashboard does
Business intelligence tools aggregate and visualise data. You connect a source, define measures, and get charts, filters and KPIs that summarise what is already in the data. They are excellent at making large datasets legible and at tracking metrics over time.
A dashboard assumes its inputs are correct. If two sources disagree, or a figure is an unreviewed estimate, the chart looks just as confident. The presentation layer does not recompute or question the numbers — that is by design.
02What VentScan does
VentScan works one layer below the chart. It reconciles the HVAC sources for a project, matches entities across revisions, and recalculates the consequences — cooling load, capacity margin — from written specifications, carrying units and maturity on every result. Where sources disagree, it raises an inconsistency rather than averaging the difference away.
Each decision is recorded in a Proof Pack that links the source values, the recalculation and the engineer's approval, append-only. The current cooling-load calculation is a v1 estimate pending engineer review, and it is labelled accordingly rather than presented as validated.
03They can sit side by side
The two are not rivals. A BI dashboard is a fine way to report across many projects once the numbers are established. VentScan is what establishes them: it produces reconciled, recalculated, proven figures that a dashboard can then summarise with confidence.
When to use a BI dashboard
If you already trust your numbers and need to monitor or report them — track KPIs across a portfolio, watch a trend, share a summary view — a BI dashboard is the right tool, and VentScan does not replace it.
Reach for VentScan when the question is whether the underlying HVAC numbers are correct, whether the sources agree, and how each result was reached — and when that needs to be provable later.