My son and I usually work together. This works out fine except we want to be able to do the reports simultaneously and sync up the inspection. Right now we have to pass the computer off to the next guy to finish.
I’m wondering if there is a software maker that provides this.
We can do 100% of the inspection on a phone…then just upload to main computer. All of the pictures in, use voice to text and can even edit the pictures, draw arrows, circles or anything we want…
With InspectMate…you can even share it at a Category level…meaning more then one inspector can be gathering data in the “Kitchen” Category (one doing electrical and structural issues and maybe the other doing appliances for an example) and merge the 2 datafiles together.
Interestingly it does turn out to be one of the most complicated features. There’s a lot of thought logic that has to go into it! But it’s just another puzzle for me, I love it.
There are several ways to accomplish what you want to do. You can have any number of inspectors working on a report simultaneously or you can have multiple inspectors merge their portions upon completion. For live, simultaneous report writing, the easiest approach would be to set up each person with data acquisition forms and have them feed into your report software. The report can be setup to update in real-time or all in one shot when the all individual inspectors have completed their parts.
Another option would be to combine the sections after the sections have all been completed independent of one another.
While I recommend having all inspectors working on the same platform, it is also possible to have multiple inspectors working from multiple platforms simultaneously. I have one customer, for example that allows each inspector to use whatever data acquisition device he prefers. One may be using an Android phone, another may be using an iPad another using a Mac and so on. There is one person in charge of coordinating all report writing activities. She assembles and delivers all the reports to the clients.
The important thing is that you need software that is equally capable of data acquisition and report writing. Most of the software about there does well enough with basic report writing but falls short with data acquisition and other more advanced features.
We have been combining data acquisition with report writing for more than 20 years. You’ll probably be surprised at how easy it is to do.
This week we’ll be releasing a new version of ReportHost for tablets that will let inspectors upload their reports into a single report with a “merge” feature.
Multiple inspectors using our printed field notes and web forms have always been able to combine report findings.