TOPIC: Addition to Software Suggestions

Thanks, Cameron-

OK let's try it.  I hopefully have posted a residential section I call Exterior -Structure which contains 24 tabs with a range of comments in each one.  The comments listed are for the exterior wall cladding.  I guess if I had to characterize my report, it is mostly room by room because my clients seem to understand and picture this a little better than global categories like Electrical, Plumbing, etc..  To each his own I guess.  But I also have Electrical and Plumbing, etc. Sections to characterize systems and components which don't fit well in a room by room, so it's a little bit of everything.  I get a bunch of "discussion" from my ASHI colleagues that it is too much and overwhelming for the customer, but to me that is a good thing.  They can't get the kind of info I provide them anywhere else and I design my reports to be living documents which hopefully convey knowledge for the duration of their home ownership, not just a real estate transaction. 

The example is based on my HIP 2.8.2 version as I have obviously not yet decided how I can use the new list and Merge features in 2.9.3 to modify the entries, but I think you get the idea.  I only want to change it once if at all possible, and don't want to start until I have taken full advantage of what the new versions have to offer.

To give you an idea of the scope of the comments, take the INSULBRICK- comment for example.  Here is what it says:

INSULBRICK-  The siding on the home appears to be Insulbrick, a popular form of siding in the 1930s and 1940s.  It consists of a fiberboard backing coated with tar and sprinkled with granular material.  It was commonly embossed to give a brick-like appearance.  The insulbrick siding on this home is in fair condition.  While this type of siding is considered low quality by today's standards, it can last a long time if properly maintained.  However, we consider this type of siding to be a safety concern as it is highly combustible.  Most lending institutions will not place mortgages on properties with Insulbrick exteriors.  Insurance companies often take exception to the material.  To minimize the potential fire threat to the home, we suggest removal and replacement of all of the siding as soon as practical.  We do not recommend an aluminum or vinyl siding overlay as this only conceals the underlying combustible material.

OK, so I'm a little over the top but once you have made the investment in substantial comments I think it is win-win for everybody

I design my reports to be living documents which hopefully convey knowledge for the duration of their home ownership, not just a real estate transaction.

I doubt the reality of what happens to home inspection reports after a home purchase is quite so lofty, but the goal is certainly a worthy one. 

I'm not sure there is much you could do aside from what I suggested in my other post about paring down the keywords into several categories and placing them as individual comments which are really acting as a heading. You wouldn't even use the list feature to make the headings, just type them in as a comment. BTW, those are some pretty hefty comments, I'm not sure calling them "comments" is the proper terminology.  That's like saying the sun is “pretty big”.

Here is what I think would be an ideal scenario for me:

Each of my comments in my damage panel list looks like: <<KEYWORD>>Comment
I click on a comment and it is immediately added to the black panel without the <<KEYWORD>> part, just the Comment
If I want the Comment in the Red panel, I highlite the Comment & click a radio button on the side of the black panel and the Comment moves from black to red-Since I usually have a lot more black panel comments than red, it helps eliminate clicks if the comment first auto-adds to the black panel without me having to make a black/red click choice for every Comment.  I would be a very happy camper if you know a way to do that!

I have thought at times it would be nice to have a button which would switch comments between the black and red columns. I usually want this right after finish a big comment in the black column only to realize I want it in the red panel. Then I have to copy, send another one over to the red, select it, paste the comment I want, then delete to black version.  A simple “switch comment” button would be helpful.

But alas, that is not the case and what you describe is a major change in how HIP would work, sooo...  set that dream aside and use what you can do with HIP.  Your comments look like the old ITA computer system which was built from File Maker Pro. They had abbreviated “keywords” too.

You don't sound like you want your comments really changed much, so how wold the merge feature even benefit you?  You could probably use the list feature to shrink the number of comments you are sifting through, but that will require some considerable rewording of your comments.  Lists like “GENERIC DEFECTS”, “ROOM”, “LOCATION” or “MATERIALS” might eliminate a few of your more similar comments by having those lists change those basic parts of your comments.

One other thing you might try, for example, is eliminate your “cladding material” selection panel and other material panels like it.  Replace them with a comment and a list at the top of your damage panel which looks like:

Exterior Wall Cladding Material – <<cladding material>>

Then the entire page could have your comments, which may make it easier for you to sift through them.


Oh, and at some point you should copyright your comments and start selling them!

Cameron-
Thanks for all the thoughts-I really appreciate the effort.  I'll keep plugging away at it--Like they say, Even a blind squirrel gets an acorn every once in a while .  I particularly like your comment-selling suggestion--How about "Dr Bob's Big Book of Sure-Fire Home Inspection Comments and Other Remedies".  Maybe if I threw in a free Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar with each purchase I might actually sell a couple!
Karma to you and thanks again,
DrBob

Hey Cameron-

I thought about your last suggestion about eliminating the tabs and including the tabs<<comments>> in the damage panel.  It's an interesting idea, and might help, but I wanted to philosophize with you for a minute...

Let's say I'm in the field and I am in my favorite master bathroom.  The way I envision having my ideal program set up is that I can click on Interior, Bathrooms, a bathroom <<list>> for which one, and have a whole bunch of subtabs for plumbing, electrical, etc. As you know I have some seriously detailed comments for my bathrooms and other systems and components --maybe 50 or more of them arranged as to condition, implication, recommendation(the number increases the older I get)which don't necesaarily show up well on my 10" screen. As you know, I am hoping to find a way not to have to include a front-end <<list>> to eliminate my keyword.
Consider what happens when I am in that space--It has taken me 3 clicks to get there on my C2Go in the field-Once I am in the right section (Interior/Bathroom/<<Master Bathroom>>, now I simply want to click on an observation which executes the comment I need to add to my report, (not necessarily my final report but one that represents my on-site observations). I have so many substantial comments that I need a keyword to identify which one to add--When I am on an inspection my mind can only think in those couple of key words--not the comment details. Back at the office I would look at my field comments in the black panel and decide which ones needed a move from black to red or a front end convention comment supplied by a Macy Merge (Repair/Replace, Monitor, Health/Safety, etc.).

I think this is where the philosophical break might occur with Pro users--I guess it depends on whether or not you want to spend your time expediting your report in the field or editing your comments back at the office--I don't know which is better, but I have always had a vision that less post-inspection time in the office is better from a business (and sanity) standpoint. I don't know which one optimizes a business, but as usual I have an opinion.
I call it my leaky faucet observation--The question I guess I would have in order to put my point across is: How many ways are there of reporting the observation, implications, and recommendations regarding a leaky faucet??
Having thought about it over the years, I guess there might be maybe no more than a couple of dozen comments, if that many, to intelligently describe the conditions and recommendations regarding a leaky faucet.  Sure, individual circumstances may require editing, but in my opinion whatever leads to a leaky faucet should be addressed and taken care of in at least a few dozen constructive comments, if at all that many, without a whole lot of editing. Building them into your templates should theoretically start to eliminate your office time in my opinion.  The problem is that all of those comments ends up being a cumbersome library which needs searching to come up with the right one.

So, I am a firm believer in what I call front-end-work, i.e., developing as many comprehensive comments as I can regarding conditions that might be found in the field, regardless of how unique they might seem at the time. Once you have invested the time to have them, your work is over for all subsequent reports, provided you can find the appropriate comment.

If I have all of these in my Interior/Bathroom/<<List>>/<<KEYWORD>>Comments I have theoretically only executed four clicks to get it into my report.  My problem with the current setup is that I think I need one more indented category--maybe something like "bathroom/electrical" to get me to a clean screen that has all of my bathroom electrical comments.  Because I don't have that option I have had to create kind of an "artificial category" which consists of the keyword at the beginning of a comment which gets me to the actual comment--Unfortunately I can't currently decouple the keyword from the comment which potentially adds three more clicks--two on the <<list>> and one on OK to get rid of the keyword category.  It would be so much easier in my mind if what I clicked in the field would be my default comments in the report. If I needed to move them to the summary, think about it--the ratio of black/red comments might be several hundred to one--I add far fewer red comments than black and functionally I think the program should reflect this in less clicks--just an opinion
As you had noodled with me in previous posts, what if a click on a comment would auto-add it to the the black comments--especially if we had formatting options for these comments in the panel, and then a choice as to whether or not to move it to a red panel for inclusion in the summary.

I'm dreaming again but would appreciate your thoughts--If we believe the beta site is for dreamers, the future program might include all the stuff we haven't found anywhere else--OK Dom-Time for philosophical developer comments as well

Okay, you got me thinking outside the box here, but see if this idea is feasible or at least sparks a work-around using the current HIP system.

You want to be able to click on a comment and have it automatically be added to the report. It dawned on me that you actually could do that right now using the selection panels for your damage comments.  Currently all you have to do to for an item from the selection panel to appear in the report is to click on it. That's exactly what you are asking for. The Selection Panel also now allows the insertion of lists which opens the door to several ways of configuring the <<KEYWORD>>comment ideas we have batted around over the past week.

Granted, you are going to lose some "ease of use" when it comes to adding comments to a Red section, but it would certainly not be impossible.  Your conventions could be in the damage panel and you could move the appropriate one to the Red and then paste whatever comment right after it. Frankly, the damage panels could all be formatted red and you could have the "Description Text" say "Important:" or "Summary Items:".  I don't know how often you add comments to the red or if you even currently use a summary page or the merge feature, but those are the biggest losses I see from using HIP this way.

You would have to be aware that when you change a comment in the selection panel and then save your template, it would permanently change that comment, unlike changes which occur in the red/black sections which are only changed in the individual report. But this may not be a big problem considering your self described style of writing comments. You don't seem to delete comments often so I would assume if you came across a seemingly "unique" issue, the corresponding comment would find a permanent home in your template.

This approach would certainly be unconventional in comparison to how HIP is typically used, but hey, why not?  HIP is very flexible and if it fits your style of reporting then it's not really unconventional at all.

Bob,

I lost you on the requirement of needing a bathroom/electrical comment section. Why can you not have that.

Also, one thing I've seen guys doing within a section like Bathroom->Faucet is to add a single narrative with the word "Leaking" then put all your leaking faucet comments under that. That can help you narrow things down.  How different are your comments? The preview comment feature by putting your cursor over an item should cover what you need too.