TOPIC: Thoughts on HIP mobile

Cameron, I feel your pain brother!

"I think ill focus on taking notes with the mobile for now and see how i fare. I'm going to take an inventory of my reports and see what comments I am using the most which could be written with no lists. That will benefit reporting on both the mobile version and at the office. "

I have been going through the same process; I revised my comments to be very general so they apply to all inspections and have moved them to the top of the pile so they are the first thing you see in the field. Removed all comments with lists etc.

I have a very difficult time completing the entire report on site with the mobile application, So seeing I have to finish the report in the office, I do not try to modify or complete all the narratives in the field. I use the mobile version to collect all the pertinent data that the state requires me to collect(description comments). I use damage comments which are extremely brief (sometimes just a single word if the condition is unique or narrative will become extensive) just as a reminder of what needs to be included in that section when I get back to the office.
I.e. just list the components in that section or room (stove, oven, dishwasher/window, ceiling, door, lights) which I make "red" to get my attention for editing in the office.

In spite of the fact that the report is not completed the time I leave the inspection, I think HIP  mobile does speed up the process by collecting information one time, and on-site, without having to deal with it again back at the office.

As for the pictures, I have abandoned trying to take them on-site with phone/tablet. I like to take a lot of photographs of the property to document my notes so I don't have to write them and I have the ability to visually go back and visit the site from my office. I use a file naming operation from the bulk photographs that I take. I select the pictures I want to go in the report and copy them to another folder. I then go to that folder and select all the pictures that go into one section of the report at a time and name all of the selected pictures with a single numerical filename (1, 2, 3...) The computer will automatically rename and will place all of the photographs, regardless of when they were taken during the inspection in sequential order (1A, 1B, 1C; 2A, 2B, 2C?). make sure your computer "sorts by name" in the folder.  This will move them out of the way from the pictures you have yet to process. When they are bulk uploaded in HIP, they can be easily and quickly assigned to the appropriate report sections because they are next to each other.

I do use my phone/tablet camera at the end of my inspection if the house is in excellent shape and there are only a very few issues to discuss, or upon the clients request for a cheaper "punchlist" type report.

I find that the fastest way to complete an on-site inspection is to do things in groups. This also pertains to grouping your report tasks.
I do one thing at a time and use one tool at a time.
Swapping back and forth between inspecting and reporting creates a delay which adds up considerably by the end of the inspection.
Inspect one component of your report (plumbing, electric etc.) on one floor of the building, stop and record the deficiencies on that floor before proceeding to another floor or another report component. 
I use painters tape to identify the room and the component that needs reporting.
I complete one floor, one room or one section of the house and then go back and take photographs/complete the inspection report.

This also helps group photographs together for the particular report section (less office work later).
If I do all of the electrical at one time, all the pictures are about electrical. This in of itself will save time.


"- Being able to swipe a finger from left to right across the screen to go backwards in the menus would be faster than the top left buttons if using hip on an Iphone. Both being available would be a nice additional feature."

I think this is an excellent idea.

I find myself backing out of a report section to a point where I shut down and exit the report program, a lot!
Being able to swipe backwards to the main inspection screen without exiting would be a considerable time saver for me!

I agree on the swipe feature.  When I was using Palm Tech, you could swipe from category to category, or if you were in a specific item you could swipe to the next or previous item.  That was and would be a big time saver.

On photos, it would be better to me if when you take a picture and then click use, you could automatically take another pic to use or choose to back out.  Having to click use and then click save seems a little redundant.  That's probably because I was used to something different.  It starts to seem like it takes to long to take and save a picture that I just give up and take them with the camera.....but then that defeats the purpose.

I was having a problem with pictures disappearing after taking them, hopefully that is taken care of now with yesterday's update.

Jim, yes the picture issue was resolved in the update yesterday. We fixed it weeks ago but Apple's update center was closed over the holidays.

I'm come up with something better than swipe and will be working on implementing it, though I will probably still add it to go back.

The Save part after taking a pic is really because of the caption being added. So we gave another option to back out. One thing we are adding is a 2nd camera button so there will be one for gallery pics and one for camera pics. This will skip the step of you having to choose which you want.

I wasn't thinking about the caption, that would make sense why the extra step is there!!  Learn something new every day.

In case you didn't notice, not only can you type the caption but if you press the bottom middle button on the caption screen a list of your currently selected comments will appear as possible captions (can you can edit them after too).

I find it faster to just use swift keys than use the drop downs for captions.(N) means north,etc as it predicts the rest
Most of the captions in my case are all directional and location related to separate them from other pictures which may be in the same section.