TOPIC: Data Collection Template

Ok Dom, I'm going to try and explain and make sense at the same time. I'm not sure if this has been discussed.

Would it be possible to setup a template that follows the order of our inspection more closely, but put the sections in a pre-selected report format.

So like everything we collect at the exterior could be in on one page to collect the data, but it would populate to the correction section for reporting purposes. Plumbing would go to plumbing, HVAC would go to HVAC etc...

I use pretty much the same routine on every inspection and have to bounce around my report as I go through my routine to enter everything.

Well I hope I made sense, and if I did, is it even possible?

As always, thanks for all you do

Hooray.  Somebody else asked for something I also asked for.  That means it will move off the bottom of the "to do" list.   

I tried it years ago and it doesn't work. The problem is that you end up with lots of duplicate content that looks bad. For example, you inspect by room and note in 4 rooms that smoke detectors are missing. Now you end up with 4 narratives, one right after another all saying " Smoke detector missing in x, recommend y." Where what you really want is a combination of all 4 into 1 narrative. Same logic applies to all sections. No one has been able to explain a way to do this logically.

I am glad you are telling us what we and our clients want.  

A vast majority of clients use the defect list as a check off list for "honey-do's".  While it may seem unimportant to you, many would like to see a list of :  Master Bedroom smoke detector is missing.  2nd Bedroom smoke detector is missing.  3rd Bedroom smoke detector is missing.  Instead of:   Smoke Detectors are missing in all bedrooms.  They get a chance to mark it off their list and move on.  Also, I don't necessarily make the recommendation after each item.  I would like all smokes missing as above and add a comment at the bottom of the list that states a single recommendation.

If YOU don't want to make that change, no problem.  Just don't assume that those using the program and those getting the end result of the program want the same thing.

JMHO.

PS.  I have had 2 offers on the Craigslist ad.  

Hahah, did they offer full price?

The problem is that the comments don't look like what you said. Since you're in the master bedroom the comment would only say Smoke detector missing. There'd be no room unless you went through every single comment and added a reference to the room into the comment. So what you really ended up with would be the exact same comment over and over again once the sections were merged together. Does that make sense? When you multiple this out across the entire report it just ends up with a super long report. Even if you did add a room to each wouldn't you want a comment to say "Smoke detector missing in Master, guest and downstairs west bedroom " rather than the 3 separate comments that you listed above? What I'm saying is that I can't think of a way logically to teach the program that the narratives are the same and should be merged into one comment like that. If someone can think of the login please let me know!

As a side note, a franchise that spent 10k on marketing research found that clients favored room by room templates over system templates as they see the  house as a room that they are standing in visually. Agents were close to 50/50 with a slight favoring of system templates because they could write up their negotiations as a punch list easier.