How to use OctoKNX Studio

You describe what a villa needs, room by room. OctoKNX Studio works out the KNX design that delivers it — circuits, actuators, bus power, channel allocation, DALI, HVAC, panel space — checks it against four separate rule layers, and produces a bill of quantities, a price and a client proposal from that design. The bill of quantities is the result of an engineered design, never the starting point.

1. 1

   Open the platform and sign in

   Your browser

   • Go to the address your administrator gave you.
   • Type your email address and your password.
   • Click Sign in.

   You should see: You land on Home: your dashboard. It opens on what needs a person rather than on a list of everything that exists.

   Watch out. If you have no account, an administrator must create one for you. There is no self-registration.

2. 2

   Read the dashboard

   Home

   • Look at the four figures along the top: active projects, how many things need attention, the value of everything quoted and awaiting a decision, and the value won.
   • Read "Needs your attention". It is ordered worst first: blocked designs, then expired proposals, then projects that were never calculated, then work waiting on a signature, then proposals about to expire.
   • Click any row to go straight to the page that resolves it.

   You should see: You know where the work is without opening a single project.

   Why it works this way. A project list tells you what exists. On a desk with twenty live proposals that is not the question you need answered first.

You do not have to memorise the order of the work. Every project opens on a card that says what it needs next, with one button that does it, and a row of eight stages showing exactly how far the project has got.

1. 1

   Read the next step

   Projects → open a project → Overview

   • Read the heading under "Next step". That is the stage the project is waiting on.
   • Read the sentence under it. It says what the stage is for, in plain words, and how many items are outstanding.
   • Press the button beside it. Where the software can do the work itself — running the engineering, for instance — it does it on this page. Otherwise it takes you to the page that does.

   You should see: The progress bar and the eight stage tiles move as you work. When every stage is finished the card says "Nothing outstanding".

   Tip. The eight tiles are also links. A tile in blue is being worked on now, a tile with a tick is finished, and a greyed tile cannot be started yet — the sentence on it says what it is waiting for.

   Why it works this way. A stage that cannot be started never offers a button. A button leading to a dead end is worse than no button.

2. 2

   Read the sidebar as a checklist

   Any page inside a project

   • Look down the left-hand sidebar.
   • A green tick means that stage is finished.
   • A blue number is how many items are still outstanding on that stage — eight findings, three design decisions.
   • A blue dot means work in progress with no number attached.
   • Nothing at all means the stage is not ready to start yet.

   You should see: The navigation doubles as a progress report.

3. 3

   Watch for a design that has moved on

   Projects → open a project → Overview

   • If the next step says "Re-run engineering", something that feeds the calculation has changed since it last ran.
   • Press it. The design, the validation register and the bill of quantities are all regenerated together.

   You should see: Every number on screen describes the design you actually have.

   Why it works this way. The software compares a fingerprint of the whole design against the one stored on the last calculation, so it notices a change but not a value that was merely re-typed to what it already was.

   Watch out. On an approved revision this reads differently: it says prices or master data have moved. The approved design itself is unchanged and stays locked. Open a new revision to price it again.

Every screen respects your role. If a button is missing, it is because your role does not carry that permission — it is not a fault.

A project must belong to a customer, so create the customer first.

1. 1

   Create the customer record

   Top menu → Customers

   • Click New customer.
   • The customer code is assigned for you when you save, for example OCTOCUS-9989-KW-2600. It is unique and never changes.
   • Name is filled in for you (for example "Customer 0007"). Replace it with the client's real name, or keep it and rename the customer later.
   • Fill in Contact person, Email, Phone, City and Country if you have them. All optional.
   • Click Save.

   You should see: The customer appears in the list and can now be picked when you create a project.

   Tip. If the customer already exists, skip this step. Do not create a second record for the same client — their project history will be split across the two.

1. 1

   Open the new project form

   Top menu → Projects → New project

   • Click New project at the top right of the Projects list.
2. 2

   Fill in the form

   • Customer — pick the customer you just created.
   • Project code — nothing to fill in. It is assigned when you save, for example OCTOPRJ-4417-KW-2601, and never changes.
   • Project name — filled in for you from the customer, project type and city, for example "Al-Sabah Residences Villa - Mishref". Type over it if you want a different name.
   • Project type — Villa for a house. Apartment, Commercial and Office are also available.
   • Design profile — the Octonics standard that sets reserve percentages and design policy. Leave the default unless you have been told otherwise.
   • Engineering ruleset — the KNX and electrical rule version to design against. Leave the default.
   • Currency — KWD unless you are quoting in another currency.
3. 3

   Fill in the useful optional fields

   • Price list — pick the Octonics standard list so the BOQ comes out priced. Without it you get quantities but no money.
   • Customer reference — the client or consultant’s own reference for the job.
   • Address, City, Region, Country — for the proposal and the documents.
   • Required submission date — when the proposal is due.
   • Prepared by and Project notes — free text.
4. 4

   Save

   • Click Create project and continue.

   You should see: The project is created and you land straight on Floors & rooms.

   Why it works this way. The design profile and the ruleset are recorded on the project because every calculation is reproducible. A design run today can be explained a year from now against the rules that produced it.

This is the shape of the building. Everything after it hangs off these rooms, so it is worth getting right. Use Quick build unless you have a reason not to — it is the same result in a fraction of the time.

1. 1

   Choose the package

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms → Quick build → 1 Package

   • Pick Basic, Medium, High or Luxury. Each card says what it includes and how many lighting circuits a living room gets.
   • Basic: one circuit per lighting layer, switched lighting, AC and a keypad per room. No curtains, no advanced sensors, no water-heater control.
   • Medium: two circuits on main lighting, dimmed feature lights, motorised curtains, presence sensing in wet areas and circulation.
   • High: more circuits, sheer and blackout curtains on every window, touch panels, temperature and leak sensing, heater control.
   • Luxury: four circuits per main layer in a living room — four spots, four cove, two chandelier — full dimming, and complete sensing and load control.

   You should see: The Systems step below is reset to what that package normally includes. You can still change any of it.

   Tip. The package is saved on the project. Open Quick build again later — to add two more bedrooms, say — and it starts on the same package, so the new rooms match the rest of the villa.

2. 2

   Choose the systems the client is buying

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms → Quick build → 2 Systems

   • Under Lighting control, choose On / Off only, Mixed (feature lights dimmed, the rest switched) or Full dimming.
   • Tick or untick each system: Lighting, AC control, Curtains & blinds, Keypads, Touch panels, Presence sensors, Advanced sensors, Heaters & exhausts, Outdoor systems, AV sockets.

   You should see: Anything unticked is left out of every room, so the engineering never selects a device for it and it never appears on the BOQ or the proposal.

   Why it works this way. This is what makes the BOQ match the proposal. With On / Off only, no dimming actuators are selected at all; with curtains unticked, no curtain actuators; with AC unticked, no AC gateway. You do not have to delete anything afterwards.

3. 3

   Enter the rooms on each floor

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms → Quick build → 3 Rooms

   • Click Start from a typical villa to begin from a two-storey layout, then adjust. Or start from zero.
   • Each floor has its own colour — Ground is blue, First is violet, External Areas green — shown down the side of the floor and on its code.
   • Click a floor to open it. Enter the Floor area in m² if you know it.
   • Room types are grouped and coloured: Living amber, Bedrooms indigo, Wet areas cyan, Circulation grey, Service teal, Outdoor green. Type in Find a room type to jump straight to one.
   • Set the number of each room with + and −. Washroom is under Wet areas, for a guest WC and basin without a shower.
   • If a room is bigger or smaller than usual — a large dining room, a small bedroom — pick Large or Small under it. A large room gets more lighting circuits, an extra AC zone and an extra curtain; the chandelier is not doubled.
   • A closed floor shows what is on it as coloured chips, such as BD×3 BTH×4, so you can check every floor without opening each one.
4. 4

   Check the preview and create

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms → Quick build → 4 Preview

   • Will create lists every room code, floor by floor, coloured by room group. A ⁺ after a code means the room is marked Large.
   • The totals underneath — lighting circuits and how many are dimmed, light fittings, curtain motors, AC zones, keypads, sensors, controlled loads and outdoor systems — update as you change the package, systems or rooms.
   • Leave "Plan each room’s requirements from the package" ticked unless you want empty rooms.
   • Click Create N rooms.

   You should see: Every room is created with a generated code and name, and its requirements are planned for the chosen package, size and systems.

   Tip. Codes follow a fixed scheme: MAJ01 for the majlis, BD01 and BD02 for bedrooms, BTH01 for a bathroom, WSH01 for a washroom. The floor code is added automatically when a circuit reference is built, so a bedroom light on the first floor reads FF-BD01-L01 on the schedule.

   Tip. You can run Quick build again at any time. Numbering continues from what is already there — ask for two more bedrooms and you get BD04 and BD05, never a duplicate.

   Why it works this way. Floor area saves you measuring cable routes at proposal stage. From the area the platform estimates the traverse across the floor, adds containment detours and the rise and drop, and checks the result against the supply-to-device limit — so a floor that is plainly too big for one supply is caught now rather than on site. It is an estimate and it says so: the result stays preliminary until you enter a measured route on the Add one at a time tab.

   Watch out. The package decides how many circuits, curtains, AC zones, keypads and sensors each room gets — not the fitting wattages, load types or motor ratings, which are specific to this villa. Fill them in on Design values, or every circuit comes back preliminary.

5. 5

   Adjust anything by hand

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms → Add one at a time

   • Switch to the Add one at a time tab to rename a room, change a code or delete one.
   • This is also where you set a floor’s Cable (m) and PSU dist. (m).

   Tip. Supplying the cable and PSU distances enables the KNX distance check. Leaving them blank keeps that check preliminary rather than guessing.

6. 6

   Add a floor by hand (only if Quick build does not cover it)

   Inside a project → Floors & rooms

   • In the Add floor card, fill in Code — short, for example GF, FF, BS.
   • Name — Ground Floor, First Floor, Basement.
   • Kind — what sort of level it is.
   • Order — 0 for the lowest floor, then 1, 2 and so on. This is the order they appear in.
   • Cable (m) — estimated bus cable length on this floor, if you know it. Optional.
   • PSU dist. (m) — distance from the panel to the furthest device on the floor. Optional.
   • Click Add floor. Repeat for every floor.

   Tip. Leave Cable and PSU distance blank if you do not know them. The platform will tell you it could not check cable distances rather than guess — which is what you want.

7. 7

   Add each room

   • In the Add room card, pick the Floor.
   • Code — short and unique on that floor, for example MAJ, KIT, BD1.
   • Name — Majlis, Kitchen, Master Bedroom.
   • Kind — the room type.
   • Template — optional. Picking one here prefills that room’s requirements with the usual lighting, sockets and controls for that kind of room.
   • Click Add room. Repeat for every room.

   You should see: Every room in the villa is listed under its floor.

   Tip. Templates available: Bedroom, Bathroom, Kitchen, Living / Majlis, Outdoor / Landscape, Corridor / Staircase, Office / Study, Garage. Using one is much faster than typing every requirement, and you can edit anything it produced.

   Watch out. Add every room, including corridors, stairs, store rooms and outdoor areas. A room you leave out gets no lighting control, no devices and no cost — and nobody will notice until site.

This is the heart of the job and where your time goes. You work room by room, and for each room you record what the client actually wants.

1. 1

   Pick a room

   Inside a project → Requirements

   • Click a room in the list on the left.
2. 2

   Apply a template if it suits

   • Use the Apply template… dropdown at the top.
   • It fills in the usual entries for that kind of room.
   • Edit or delete anything that does not apply.
3. 3

   Add entries section by section

   • The sections are: Lighting, Curtains blinds and shading, HVAC, Keypads and user interfaces, Sensors, Controlled sockets and loads, and Other integration.
   • Open a section and click Add entry.
   • Fill in the fields and click Add to room.
   • Repeat for everything the room needs.

   Watch out. The single most important field in Lighting is Control groups, not Fittings. Fittings is how many light fittings there are. Control groups is how many of them switch independently. Eight downlights on one switch is 8 fittings and 1 circuit. Eight downlights in two groups is 8 fittings and 2 circuits — and 2 actuator channels to pay for.

   Tip. Load type matters more than wattage. An LED driver behaves nothing like a filament lamp on a relay, and the platform sizes against the published LED limit, not the headline current rating. Pick the real load type.

   Tip. If you do not know a value, leave it blank. The platform will mark the result PRELIMINARY and tell you exactly what is missing. That is far safer than typing a number you guessed, which it cannot tell apart from a real one.

4. 4

   Move to the next room

   • Pick the next room on the left and repeat until every room is done.

   You should see: Every room has its lighting, shading, climate, controls and sockets recorded.

Room templates give every room the usual entries but not this villa’s numbers. A sixteen-room villa lands with around three hundred blank technical values — and almost all of them are the same answer repeated, because every downlight in the house is the same fitting. This page asks each question once.

1. 1

   Answer each question once

   Inside a project → Design values

   • Each row is one question: "Downlight — power per fitting", "Electronic constant voltage — driver inrush current".
   • The count beside it tells you how many entries the answer covers.
   • A suggestion is offered with the reasoning behind it. Change it if you know better.
   • Click Apply to fill every matching entry that is still blank.
   • Or click Accept all suggestions at the top to answer everything at once.

   You should see: Three hundred blanks become about thirty decisions, and the counters at the top show how much is left.

   Why it works this way. Questions are grouped by the thing that actually decides the answer. Wattage belongs to the fitting, so it is asked per fitting type. Power factor and inrush belong to the driver, so they are asked per driver type. Asking power factor separately for downlights and cove lighting would be asking one physical question twice and inviting two different answers to it.

   Watch out. A value you accept from a suggestion is recorded as an estimate, not as a datasheet figure. The engineering result keeps saying the design is preliminary until the real product is confirmed. That is deliberate: the platform will not let a convenient default masquerade as a measurement.

   Tip. Answering the driver type first is worth doing, because it reclassifies every fitting behind it and changes which inrush and power-factor questions remain.

   Tip. A value already supplied is never overwritten. An answered question shows "Set anyway" instead of an apply button, so replacing a figure someone entered from a datasheet is always a deliberate act.

1. 1

   Run it

   Inside a project → Review dashboard

   • Click Run engineering.

   You should see: Within a few seconds you get counts of circuits, devices, bus current and panel space, and an overall status.

   Why it works this way. Nothing is calculated until you ask. The result is a frozen snapshot: the same inputs always produce the same design and the same hash, so a figure in a document can always be traced back to the run that produced it.

   Tip. Re-run it whenever you change requirements. The old run is kept, so nothing is lost.

2. 2

   Read the overall status

   • PASS — the design is sound against every rule layer.
   • WARNING — it works, but something is close to a limit or against Octonics preference.
   • PRELIMINARY — a value was missing, so part of the result is not yet defensible.
   • FAIL — something is over a hard limit. It cannot be approved until you deal with it.

The dashboard gives you the headline. These pages show the working, so you can check it rather than trust it. Each one is read-only — it shows what the calculation did.

Validation is everything the platform thinks is wrong or worth knowing. It opens grouped by cause, because the register lists consequences rather than problems: one unsupplied wattage produces a finding on every circuit that fitting feeds, so six hundred rows can be conveying ten problems. Each cause names the rule layer it came from — KNX, Electrical, Octonics policy or Manufacturer — and what to do about it.

1. 1

   Read each finding

   Inside a project → Validation

   • Click Show detail on a finding to see the full explanation and the required action.
   • Fix what you can by going back to Requirements and correcting the input.
   • Re-run the engineering after a change.
2. 2

   Record a decision on what you cannot fix

   • On a cause, click "Record for all N" to make one decision covering every finding behind it.
   • For a single finding, switch Grouping to "Every finding" and click Record an outcome.
   • Choose an Outcome: Acknowledge, Resolved or Waive.
   • Write a Reason of at least ten characters. It goes in the audit trail with your name against it.
   • Save.

   Why it works this way. Acknowledge means "I have seen it and accept it". Resolved means "I changed something and it is gone". Waive means "this rule does not apply here, and here is why". A waiver is a professional judgement recorded permanently against your name — use it deliberately.

   Watch out. Blocking failures must be resolved or formally waived before the design can be approved. The Approve engineering button stays disabled until then.

Approval is what unlocks the commercial side. Only a Senior Engineer or an Administrator can do it.

1. 1

   Approve

   Inside a project → Validation

   • Check the banner says "Ready for engineering approval".
   • Click Approve engineering.

   You should see: The revision is approved and its technical inputs are frozen. You can now generate a quotation.

   Watch out. Approving freezes the requirements on this revision. To change anything afterwards you create a new revision — see section 16.

1. 1

   Open it

   Inside a project → BOQ

   • You have two tabs: Engineering BOQ and Customer BOQ.
   • The engineering bill of quantities is already there. Running the calculation produces it; you do not have to ask for it.
   • Click Regenerate only if you want a fresh version of an existing one, or Generate for the customer version.

   You should see: Every device the design needs, with quantities taken from the calculation.

   Watch out. If a line has no price, the validation register says so and approval is blocked. An unpriced line contributes nothing to the total, which would make the proposal cheaper than the job. Add the price to the price list the project is costed against, or point the project at one that covers the whole catalogue.

   Tip. Service lines — engineering, ETS programming, testing, documentation, training — take their rates from the design profile, not the price list. If one has no rate the register warns rather than blocks, because a company may deliberately include that work in the material price.

   Why it works this way. Engineering BOQ is internal: exact product, quantities and the reason each line exists. Customer BOQ is commercial: the same design aggregated into system descriptions with no product codes. Send the customer one, keep the other.

   Tip. Click any line to trace it back through the devices, channels and circuits to the requirement that caused it. If you cannot justify a line to a client, that trace is how you find out why it is there.

1. 1

   Set the prices

   Inside a project → Pricing

   • The lines come from the BOQ, priced from the project’s price list.
   • Edit a Unit price or a Discount on any line.
   • Watch Total cost, Total price, Gross margin and Margin % at the top as you go.

   Watch out. If you cannot see cost or margin, your role does not carry that permission. Estimators and above can; engineers cannot. This is deliberate.

   Tip. No BOQ, no pricing. If this page tells you there is nothing to price, go back and generate the BOQ first.

1. 1

   Create the quotation

   Inside a project → Quotation

   • Click New quotation.
   • Validity (days) — how long the price holds. 30 is usual.
   • Discount %, Contingency %, Tax % — as agreed.
   • Scope of work, Exclusions, Payment terms, Delivery, Warranty — the commercial wording that appears in the proposal.
   • Click Create quotation.

   Watch out. The engineering must be approved first. If it is not, this page tells you so and the button is unavailable.

2. 2

   Produce the document

   Inside a project → Reports

   • Find the proposal in the document list and click Generate.
   • Download the PDF and send it to the client.
3. 3

   Issue it

   Inside a project → Quotation

   • Click Issue on the quotation once it has gone to the client.

   You should see: The proposal moves to "With client" and appears in the Proposals pipeline across all projects.

   Why it works this way. Issuing is what puts it on the pipeline. A quotation you never issue stays a draft and nobody is reminded to chase it.

1. 1

   Watch the pipeline

   Top menu → Proposals

   • Out with clients shows everything issued, soonest to lapse first.
   • Expiring in 7 days is your chase list.
   • Lapsed means the validity date has passed with no answer.
   • Won, Lost and Win rate show how you are actually doing.
2. 2

   Record what the client said

   • Find the proposal and click Record answer.
   • Choose Won or Lost.
   • Pick a reason. It is required on a loss and optional on a win.
   • Set the date the client actually answered — it defaults to today but is usually earlier.
   • Add a note if it is useful.
   • Click Record as won or Record as lost.

   You should see: The project moves to Won or Lost, and the outcome joins the win/loss history the pipeline reports on.

   Watch out. You can only record an outcome once. It is history, not a field you edit. If the client changes their mind, issue a new version of the proposal.

   Why it works this way. The reason on a loss is required because a loss you cannot explain teaches you nothing. After a dozen proposals the pipeline can tell you whether you lose on price or on scope.

An approved revision is frozen so the design stays reproducible. To change anything, you create the next revision.

1. 1

   Create a new revision

   Inside a project → Revisions

   • Click New revision.
   • Give it a Title, for example "Rev 1 — client added basement gym".
   • Write a Description of what is changing and why.
   • Leave the copy option on so the new revision starts from the approved design.
   • Click Create revision.

   You should see: A new open revision with all the technical inputs carried forward. The approved one is preserved and marked superseded.

   Tip. Work through the same steps again: edit requirements, re-run, clear findings, approve, re-quote. Nothing from the old revision is lost.

The catalogue is keyed by specification, not by brand, so every item carries an Octonics code instead of a manufacturer model number. Codes look like OKX-QN7K-TRUM-6.

You never need to decode one by hand. Everywhere in the platform the plain name is shown above the code — "Switching Actuator, 4-fold, 16 A". The code exists so the manufacturer and the purchase price never appear on anything a client sees.