What hardware, software, books, videos, etc have you found useful? What would you like to see more of? This topic is to discuss various inspection-related products and publications.
I really would like to know which inspection report writing software is the most efficient to use?
Pro’s and Con’s
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Hello Stephen,
I too wondered the same question, and have been looking at, and trying out demos of several SW packages. Ultimately for me it came down to two, Spectora, and Spectacular, with Spectacular winning out for me for personal and business related reasons…
I came from the technology field, so from that perspective alone, I appreciated Spectora as a very robust and feature rich app, with a lot of moving parts, integration options, and add-ons, but that for me in the short-term translated to a much steeper readiness learning curve, and also some glitchy technical behaviors, probably some induced from my side, but not having the time or inclination to review technical parameters at this time, decided to move on. .
No slam on Spectora, I would absolutely consider using it if my business model demanded it.
Mostly however, I wasn’t thrilled with just a few things by comparison;
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The price point, Spectora is not cheap, but then again, it is feature rich and has a dedicated following for a reason. Spectacular seemed like a better value for my situation. Spectora has a very active Facebook support group, but having the ability to interact directly with Aaron at Spectacular was a plus, I find him to be very responsive and helpful in every way.
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the steps needed to migrate “other” pics (i…e. sewer-scope, or drone) into the tablet or phone where you’re actively doing the inspection data entry, Spectora seems to not handle this very well (or I’m missing something), requiring uploading to PC, importing into the app, etc. etc. , because of the multi-device synch capability built-in, Spectacular handles this extremely well, seamlessly actually in the background, permitting me to finish up the report in real-time, without any monkeying around.
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the apparent inability in Spectora for me to dynamically (real-time) synch between devices (iphone, ipad, macbook). For example, my wanting to handle the customer intake (contact info, agreements, contract, invoicing, final report editing etc) on my laptop at home, transition to on-site data collection at the client-site using my ipad, and switching to take pics (with the flash) on my iPhone (or drone etc.), do some pic mark-up and get the pics into the report in a seamless way is easy peasy in Spectacular, not sure Spectora does this…
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set-up and run. Spectora is feature rich, and will definitely require more time for the inspector to learn and be functioning efficiently. Spectacular has a very-very decent narrative library in the standard library package, but more importantly, I was able to produce a clean, high value report for my client quickly with only minor edits and not much fumbling around or face-buried in the app, thanks to the clean Spectacular interface I am able to spend more time speaking and listening to my client vs. learning software…
And before anyone asks, No I wasn’t paid for this review, No I don’t work for Spectacular, and Yes I am an actual inspector, just new on these boards. Good luck Stephen with your hard choice…!
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