TOPIC: Electrical/Panels

Dave

I used to do this when I was using Inspect it report software. I had a document created in word called report narritives. I would copy and paste into the report. I stopped doing this when I switched over to HIP.  I still have the document even though it is dated and needs updating.

This would help for using in the field. Maybe I can add a star or some type of designation to remind me to update in the office.

How long does it take you to complete a typical inspection and report?

My average inspection takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours (I normally do a full-blown inspection to include HVAC, thermal imaging). I can probably do a regular home inspection in about 90 minutes.

I do walk-throughs after the inspection with my client (if present) and that takes up a lot of this time. I feel that bonding with your client is well worth the investment of time.

My inspection reports take about 2 1/2 hours. I generally dictate my reports rather than cut and paste. I could do a general home inspection report in about 45 minutes.

If you want to correct the outline of your existing document check out the following;

<embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src=" i572.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=htt...dersen_02/Video4.flv ">

David,

It is very easy to overload a report program with excessive verbiage that you must wade through when doing your report.

What I do is to keep the big verbiage in a Word (or Excel) document that can be easily categorized and sorted with a "document outline" on a left bar.

It is very easy to just drag and drop these long-winded explanations into HIP by opening two windows side by side.

Keep your inspection reporting software as compact and precise as possible and if you feel that you need additional explanation, drag and drop.

David, why not include these narratives in HIP? You can use comments as separators to speed things up. You can also hover over any comment and see the entire thing.

There are things that a lot of us have developed in the past and don't use it often enough to incorporate in our report program.

The problem David is having seems to be finding the narrative while on-site with smaller computer.

I have a terrible time finding a narrative that fits a particular application 100% of the time, so I sometimes drag-and-drop these long narratives only when the situation requires it. I have compressed general versions in my report program that work just fine most of the time.

I have well over 500 pages of text from 12 years of using Microsoft Word as a reporting document. Microsoft Word allows the faster access and searching than scrolling through HIP. I put the narratives into HIP as I use them if I think it is a common problem with at least an 80% recurrence.

I'm just not a good hunt-and-pick kind of guy.

This copy-n-paste stuff is actually small documents in most cases. I don't use them often. I'm still in the learning curve. I know where my past stuff is, but it's becomes hard to find when I put it in HIP.

I've been toying with a few ideas in HIP to make narratives easier to find in a section. One idea is a search field where you can type in a word and all narratives with that word, in that section would be highlighted a different color. Would that help you guys out? I can't remove all the other narratives as that would mess things up as other narratives may be selected (though it might work fine in Damage Panels now that I think about it). What do you think?

Dominic I think that is an excellent idea. You are getting closer and closer to putting HIP on a PDA.  ;D I say that because I have one sitting on a shelf doing nothing.  :'(