Last Updated on July 26, 2021 by Rakesh Gupta
Inspection technologies can streamline manual processes, allow for the gathering of more accurate data, and generate reports faster – so that management can make quicker actionable decisions. Furthermore, inspection solutions increase safety, minimize downtime, and increase asset ROI.
One of the ways to conduct timely and productive inspections is via mobile apps. Utilizing mobile devices to perform inspection-related field operations is not just “a cool alternative to pen, paper and clipboard “though. There’s a lot more to inspections and inspectors than just someone with a notepad filling out checkboxes. The team in the field needs a reliable ‘all-in-one’ tool to run inspections from start to finish.
Before we list down the advanced mobility features to boost your inspection processes, let’s go through the basic ‘must-haves’ for more productive fieldwork & happier inspector.
- Get a list of inspection visits for the day assigned via the app – so there is no need to call the office or go there personally to pick up the schedule.
- Use the built-in calendar and interactive map that shows the appointment for the day to plan it – always know where and when to go next.
- Call up people directly via the app anytime needed
- Check-in when each task starts and checks out at the end
- Start the inspection by filling out a questionnaire, snap a picture, annotate it, and collect a signature in the end.
- Have all related documents, manuals, and images available at your fingertips.
- Work offline – even when the connection is weak or when there is no Internet for
Mobility brings other hidden perks to the inspection software. Especially to those who use Salesforce for any inspection scenario, from Quality Assurance, Safety Inspections to Non-profit initiatives. If you already utilize Salesforce, consider equipping your field inspectors with a next-gen app that offers more than just simple check-lists and surveys. What else can you get?
- Voice control
Did you know that dictating is approximately 3-times faster than typing?
Voice recognition and voice-controlled software is a sought-after benefit across the enterprise sector. All you need to fill out forms or dictate your notes is your voice. Therefore, you gain more time to visit clients, process orders, or complete repairs. Do all on the go, with your hands-free to take on other activities at the same time. You can also take advantage of using wearables with voice control. Let the smartwatch read the questions from the questionnaire/check-list out loud, and your phone will select the answers using voice.
See how it works: Inspection on wearables
- Custom Editable check-lists & Snippets
No matter the industry or a use case, if you perform inspections in any way, you should be able to design dynamic mobile forms, surveys, and questionnaires from scratch or choose from predefined templates. Imagine, you could develop even highly structured check-lists with ease, having its look and feel entirely in your hands. The advantage of dynamic questionnaires is the support for custom business logic – so you would only see the questions based on previous answers, you could add validation, apply conditional styling, and more.
Snippets make for an effortless way of reusing various questionnaire parts. A snippet may consist of individual questions or entire groups of questions. It can be built from scratch or by copying a selected part of an existing questionnaire. All snippets are stored in the Snippet library. From there they can be easily pasted into any questionnaire template.
For example, many questionnaires start with the same questions – the respondent’s name, address, contact information, etc. These questions can be saved as snippets. Each time a user creates or modifies a questionnaire template, snippets can be pasted in without the need to recreate frequently used questions one-by-one. Which rapidly speeds up the questionnaire building process.
In Resco Inspections that connect directly to your Salesforce data, you can design questionnaires directly in your Salesforce organization.
- Questionnaire designer right within Salesforce
To boost the productivity of field teams, they need check-lists or questionnaires designed at its best – easy to use and intuitive.
Any inspection team in the back-office should be able to create highly structured forms and check-lists – even without a technical background. With Inspection functionality incorporated within Salesforce questionnaire designer lightning component, admins in the back-office can create new questionnaires from scratch or accelerate development by starting from samples.
Check out, how you can freely browse answers to questionnaires directly from the Salesforce UI using the Results viewer lightning component too.
- Result viewer
Result viewer can be added to Salesforce lighting record page.
It enables users to list, filter, view, and read completed questionnaires. It allows focusing on any selected answers and effectively explores possible correlations. On top of that, the results can be effortlessly exported in a CSV format for further analysis in third-party tools and systems.
- Mobile reports
Very often, the last step of a successful inspection in the field is to provide a customer with a nicely formatted report. A visual Mobile report editor tool to create report templates that let users generate the reports directly within the app most certainly deserves its spot in this list.
Fast and user-friendly editing tool boosts your reporting processes, while you can add, edit and remove reports with few clicks, manage report styles, sources, add attachments, and more. When in the field, the user is then able to create e.g.an invoice or service report and save it to the app as an attachment-related to a particular account, contact, product, or any other record. Such documents can be generated in Word, Excel, or HTML formats. To customize your reports event further, you can also incorporate images or signatures.
- Inspections integrated into your Sales or Service field-based project
With Resco Inspections, you can add Inspections functionality to your existing mobile project with Salesforce data – be it Sales, Field Service, or your custom solution. Click here for more details.
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Field inspection technologies are here to enhance operational efficiency. Move forward and adopt these technologies sooner than your competition.
For more information on how field inspectors utilize Resco’s mobility with Salesforce or about mobile inspections in general, drop us a line at salesforce@resco.net
About the author
Barbora Piatrova is a Content Strategist at Resco.net. She enjoys the fast-paced nature of working with (or for) SaaS companies.
