How do you enter data on site?

[rmaday]

Originally Posted by belliott

Glad that works for YOU

Now if you can get the field note mentality off this sub-subject you will have actually read my post.

I did read your post and I understand about using the camera for notes. I have done that in the past. Typing captions then comments took too long for me.

Given the capablilities of the software that exisits, today, I find, for me, this method quickest.

It's not a knock on you (or anyone) just sharing what works for me.

If someone see this and can use it, great. If not, no biggie. We all need to have a system that we are comfortable with and I doubt there are two inspetors who do everything the exact same way.

Ok, now I'm done on my end.

[Bob Elliott]

Originally Posted by rmaday

I did read your post and I understand about using the camera for notes. I have done that in the past. Typing captions then comments took too long for me.

Given the capablilities of the software that exisits, today, I find, for me, this method quickest.

It's not a knock on you (or anyone) just sharing what works for me.

If someone see this and can use it, great. If not, no biggie. We all need to have a system that we are comfortable with and I doubt there are two inspetors who do everything the exact same way.

Ok, now I'm done on my end.

Great ,though the whole point was making the software for guys using the better and less distracting photo method.
You would not need to take all those distracting field notes with pen and paper in hand if software had capabilities described above.

You missed the whole point .

[Steven S. Ramos]

What this discussion really reveals is that software should be developed to allow the inspector to work the way they inspect rather than have the inspector work the way the software will allow them to be most efficient. Software should mold to the inspection process rather than the other way around. So, if you use photos as your digital notepad there should be a wizard that allows for efficient data entry with method. If you do your report onsite then entering comments with photos on the backend should be enabled.

I use both methods in my business depending on the circumstance and the day each one of them has merit and value. It would be nice if the software could go with me in the process rather than be the bottleneck in the process.

[Russell Spriggs]

Originally Posted by sramos

What this discussion really reveals is that software should be developed to allow the inspector to work the way they inspect rather than have the inspector work the way the software will allow them to be most efficient. Software should mold to the inspection process rather than the other way around. So, if you use photos as your digital notepad there should be a wizard that allows for efficient data entry with method. If you do your report onsite then entering comments with photos on the backend should be enabled.

I use both methods in my business depending on the circumstance and the day each one of them has merit and value. It would be nice if the software could go with me in the process rather than be the bottleneck in the process.

Good points!

I've recently revised my methods . .
This will mostly make sense to HIP users . . .
This is for a 2 person inspection crew . . .
Jeanne takes the primary tablet / laptop inside, enters her notes.
I take an ASUS 8.9" that DM recently configured for me, and do exterior, crawl, attic, garage & utilities.
I take pics, & tap the "generic" statement of the pic.
Jeanne, meanwhile, enters detailed statements as she does the interior.
On the way back, she enters & captions her pics.
At the home office, I open my little derringer, check each section where I've entered comments in the HZF (not PDF) mode, enter them into the main PC J's been working on, fine-tune the comments, enter my pics & caption.

Turns out faster than me entering my stuff on site, then J entering hers (from pen notes) later.
So, at insp, I click photos & tap statememts, tweak later.

[Rick K. Kie]

I have tried a new method that saves me an hour in the office. First I get there early and put in the customers information and everything I can visably see from my truck.

I start the inspection by telling the customer there is some data i need to put in my PDA (Q1) and it will take ten minutes or so and they may look around while I am doing that. I proceed in the Kitchen getting Appliance Info. I then shoot to the laundry room for that info and to the furnace and water heater to write down the Make model and serial number. I retreave the customer and do the Electrical panel and only put in the make model and serial number.

I take a photo of every room for reference and only defects in the rest of the home. It cuts down labeling 130+ photos later. And my report is half done.

If I am alone I leave the PDA in the kitchen and after each component I enter information. For example; Attic, Basement, Bathroom, Roof...ect

Hope this helps some of you.

[Jeffrey R. Knight]

Originally Posted by sramos

The other thing I would add to this discussion is that it would be really refreshing to see some software that lets the inspector choose how they want to enter data. As you can see from the poll many inspectors take photos onsite and do the report in the office. Wouldn't it be cool to have a report writing wizard that would pull each photo up in order and then allow you enter the comment and have it placed in the proper location (the report would still read in section by section for the consumer but the data entry would be disconnected from the report format - a lot less clicking to change sections. Currently almost all report writing software gets this part backward.

My question would be is how does the software determine what set of boiler plate comments to have available to you when stepping through the pictures ? I do not think there is software yet out there that could analyze the photos and know that it is a picture of the water heater or roof etc.

I guess you could let the inspector choose which Category and Step of the boiler plates the picture is for and show just those comments to choose from....then select if the picture is be included in the report and then advance to the next picture. I have a feeling it would take quite a while to step through 150 pictures or so that would normally be needed to make sure you get everything documented...also what happens if there was no picture taken of a specific area where there were no issues ? Just thinking out loud.

In essence you would need to assign the Category and Step to each picture so that it would show the appropriate comments to pick from and so that it could also know where to map the comments and picture to in the Major Systems Report format if wanted.

[Steven S. Ramos]

If I was smart enough to figure out how to get this done I probably wouldn't post it here.....

Sense I am not smart enough - I will through the idea around and see if someone can take it and run with it.... I do believe there will be some action required by the user to get the ball rolling on the menus and such. I think a wizard style with pop up is the best visual I can come up with right now. So you would start the wizard which would locate the photos in a folder and display the first one. To the right or below you would select a category and drill down from their with options to mark up the photo or annotate it and move on to the next one. Of course you will need a bookmark feature so you can leave and come back to where you left off (otherwise I would spend another 15 min trying to figure that out) . When you are done with the wizard it would format the report in whatever style you choose and have option to display the data to the customer in a variety of formats depending on the needs of the client.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Steve,

Take a look at how HIP handles photos as that's basically exactly what we do as far as placing the photos. You bring the section to the photo not the other way around. It even returns back to the spot you left off. You could use different templates depending on the needs of the client as well, though I know what you mean about a wizard and changing it completely based on the input. That part Jeff does a good job with as he maps the data directly to different styles. Something we have planned for the future, but there's too many other things that guys want more to implement first.

We are finishing up an integration with the ISN which I'm sure you'd like though.

[Steven S. Ramos]

That is kinda of the idea but you still can't input the comment which would make it closer to what I ultimately would like. The other end of it that the report output (the version the customer reads). It would be nice to have multiple layouts. As as base, I really like the Einspections layout for ease of reading for longer home inspection reports (most of what I do). There are times when the more linear report is best (more of what HG and HIP do) and there are times when I want an almost photo centric approach (no styles materials descriptions) this works well for consulting and there are times when I want a MS Word like doc format.

The ultimate would allow me to enter data most efficiently and then output the data into multiple formats/layouts to make reading the information most efficient for the client.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Hey Steve, thanks for checking it out.

You can enter the comment in the caption field below the photo. If you enter the comments first within the report, then there's a drop down box under each photo for the caption field that you can select from a comment that you've already chosen. The next version will remove the comment (optionally) from the main part of the report so you can have a totally photo centric approach like you stated.

What does an MS Word format look like? I've seen so many variations created from Word. Are you talking about just typing out a long document?

[Steven S. Ramos]

The word doc is just that - paragraph style - very wordy.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Got it, just checking!

[Steven S. Ramos]

The other requirement that is essential in my opinion if you are using your camera as a data collection tool is automatic annotation of the photos with the comment. There are packages out there that when you drop the photo it will automatically insert a note (see figure #1) in the comment referencing the photo. This makes the report layout easier on the eyes because your text comments stay in the that portion of the report and the client can quickly scan all comments and choose which photos that want to see at the back of that section. A good example of this has been implemented in the Einspections package. HG allow you to manually insert a "pic 1" "pic 2" comment into the paragraph but that requires clicks to get it done.

[Dominic J. Maricic]

Hi Steve, here's an report shared on our forum (his template is shared too) by one of our users: http://www.homeinspectorpro.com/inde...sh&topic=847.0 . Since the photo is directly within the item being referenced, and not at the end of the section (meaning it's within the dishwasher section and not at the end of the kitchen), I wouldn't see why you would need a note. I think it's pretty clear, especially with captions. Notes could be added, but from what others have told us, they don't feel it necessary. What do you think?

[Bob Elliott]

Dominic
With your software there is no need to have a see figure #2 type annotation.
One can just place the picture straight into the component tab according to whatever template you set up.

The more sections one sets up, the more specific is the photo placement.