Change point of template selection
planned
E
Erby Crofutt
For those of us who use multiple templates.
FYI: I send out inspection agreements days in advance Currently when I start a report to send out an inspection agreement, the template is chosen at that time.
Over the next few days, I make changes to my main template.
Those changes will not be available when I do the inspection report I started (to get the agreement sent out) before I made those changes.
How about allowing customer and inspection information to be filled out without selecting a template. The agreement can then be sent out but when I actually start the inspection, I choose the template at that time.
Viola, all the changes I made since I sent out the inspection agreement are available for that report.
J
Jim Kysar
Interested a bit in history. Looks like this was possible in SW 4.52? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1RCHowdE4E
Were there some lessons-learned that caused the shift away?
Steve Lamb
marked this post as
planned
definitely get this -- thanks Erby!
E
Erby Crofutt
Steve: I'm making changes to both the field lists and associated values and changing the order and structure of the chapters and sections.
I like your idea of managing the list of fields and associated values separately though.
Though the real need is to not select a template until the day of inspection so ALL the changes I've made since sending out the inspection agreement will be in that day's report.
Gary Smith
This template creation process is never ending. I might add a template to a job on Friday and be all ready for Monday with an attitude to kill it - - only to get all firsky and creative and work on the template over the weekend (especially if I’ve talked to Charles Buell) and [as Erby has mentioned] - if I’ve attached the template to my job on Friday, my weekend comments and template updates won’t be recognized - easy way to set this up is to not allow the job to be opened {lock it] until you manually set the template to the job. Well - it might be easy for me - and not so easy for SW.
Steve Lamb
Erby Crofutt and Gary Smith, thanks for the great suggestions!
I'm curious -- are the template changes you're making, that you'd like to have applied, mainly changes to the list of fields, associated values, etc? Or are you changing the order and structure of the chapters & sections?
The reason I ask is, we're considering a change where the list of fields and options are managed separately from the selected
values
that are in a report. This has a number of advantages, but in this case, it would mean you could open a report from last year, and the list of fields and options
(unselected values) available with those fields would be from the latest and greatest version of that template, not from what was there when the report was created.In other words, you could create a report, apply a template, but then later add "black and decker" to your list of furnaces. When you opened that older report at a later date, "black and decker" would appear in that list of furnaces.
Make sense?
Gary Smith
I have seen this scenario work:
1) Inspector sets a default template when the job is set up.
2) After the job set up, no template is actually attached - is just named as the chosen template.
3) Then later, ScribeWare's system searches for a new job on your account and upon recognizing a new job enables the chosen template attachment and initializes the template through the mobile at 3:00 a.m. each night. When you get to your job - the correct template is attached.
3(a) If #3 (above) won't work - create a rule whereby the system won't allow the mobile device to operate without the inspector choosing a template [manually] through the mobile at the time he/she opens the app.
#3(a) (above) would actually allow you to make changes to your template up to the very last min - then open the mobile and "set the template" when at the job site.