How do you supply/store reports?

For the Report Writing Basics course:

How do you supply and store reports while still making them available to past clients?

You forgot the best option: Stored on ISN with a hard drive back up.

Yes! Also backed up on personal HD storage.

I supply reports in a very detailed, thorough, and professional manner. I store reports with great care so as to keep the client’s information confidential. Reports are always available to past clients the same as technical advisement whenever they need it. My client’s know that support does not stop at the issuance of the report!

That’s what I do.

I often get requests to make old reports available to my clients, sometimes years after the inspection. I always oblige these requests, so it’s important to keep the reports and client information organized and accessible.

I use Homegauge to store and deliver reports.

I was looking for this as well.

Reports are saved on my drives.
Access to the report is provided through ISN for 1 year.

Good question! I’m glad you did this poll, Thanks Kenton. I originally send the report via Fetch Report to the client, then I save the report and all the pictures on an external hard drive.

Reports are delivered to the client via email and are also hosted on my own website (password protected) for 6 months.

They are kept / stored 1.) within the software program, 2.) in a separate folder on my hard drive, 3.) on an external hard drive, and 4.)
in a cloud back up. I can retrieve from any computer and email the report at anytime to a past client if needed.

Once a year I go through past inspections that are 3 years old or older and check ownership of the property. If my clients no longer own the property, I destroy the contracts, delete the photos and archive the report in an “inactive” file.

I store the reports and Customer Data on a external hard drive which is mirrored to another local hard drive with real time backup running to the cloud.

None of the above listed. I use CD’s. Old school, but more secure. last forever, and no worry about failures. Using separate hard drives, cloud services, separate computers are very susceptible to failures, and are not secure.

You are incorrect there.
I have had many that went bad.

"Many industry experts, however, think that the unrecorded shelf life of a CD-R disc is more conservatively estimated to be between five and 10 years. One expert from IBM estimates longevity at two to five years. "

I have had many go bad too.

I store and deliver reports via ISN. In addition, I take advantage of the ISN feature that does a backup to my dropbox account as an additional layer. The link to the report is available to the client for one year. After that it has to be requested via my office.