TOPIC: Speeding up inspection and reporting

Hi all,

Hoping someone can give me some ideas. I am a pretty new inspector and even newer to HIP. I really like the software and am pretty happy with it, just some things that I am struggling with. I like the idea of taking photos directly into the report on the iPad, it just seems to take too much time at the inspection. So recently I have been using the iPad as a camera and uploading all photos to the desktop version when back at the office. I love the batch add feature, but when I have 150 or more to do it seems to take just as long or longer to go through and slot them all. Is there an easier way? I think it would be good if you could batch add photos into a particular section of the report instead of going through each photo individually and selecting a section. Any help is appreciated.

I agree, I would like to see a drop and drag feature

Hi Guys,

We've timed this all MANY times over the past 10 years with many other inspectors on every other software. Batch add is almost 5x faster than individually slotting photos within sections. It might seem like more as you're doing all the photos at once but compared to adding as you add narratives it saves a ton of time. Dragging and dropping is much slower too as it involves a lot more movements of the hand vs the 3 clicks required to slot a picture.

Taking with the iPad is a bit slower because it's an operating system vs a straight camera. The time savings comes from doing it on site vs at home with all the distractions. 150 pictures is a ton to take on site. You might want to rethink what you're taking pictures of an why if you want to get everything done quickly on site.

Make sure you're using the CAPTION feature and NOTE feature to speed things up a lot too.

Thanks Dom,

I'm sure it is faster batch adding, and I have started to rethink the amount of photos that I am taking. Since I posted this, I also realized that if you don't assign a photo a section, it doesn't go in the report. Is that correct? I like to take as many photos as I can, just for reference and what not. I'm not sure about a drag and drop, but what about assigning a section and them doing a batch add into that section? So you could select electrical for example, and then add ten photos to that section only, which then the photos would be slotted? I do love the software, so I don't want you to think I'm complaining or anything, just trying to figure ways of speeding my process up. Also, I've had a problem where at least 3/4 of my photos import upside down or sideways. Have you seen this before?

Yup, that's correct! They just get saved for reference.

Make sure you're always taking your photos with the camera in landscape mode and always in the same direction. The only reason your pics should be rotated is if you were holding the camera or mobile device the wrong direction.

We are always trying to improve HIP so I definitely do appreciate the feedback!! We are working on a few new features in HIP 4 to make things even faster.

Thanks Dom,

I'll give that a try. When do you guys plan on having version 4 out? Excited to see what you have for us!