Document Management

The platform is starting to become a little better for document management. However, as we grow in use cases and number of inspections, it is becoming a bit of a “paperwork” nightmare perhaps worse than we had when everything was on paper.  We have sites struggle with not updating the inspection report title (so they get the default date and name), not using the document number field, not  reviewing or archiving inspections, struggling with how to capture revision and review dates (mostly still doing in an offline spreadsheet), extra duplicate or unused templates, and more. I have several ideas together that I think would vastly improve document management.

1. Document Number
   1. Current: When duplicating templates, the document number field [number] value continues from the number of the originating template.
   2. Suggested:  Provide an option to either continue the numbering or reset the number while duplicating.
   3. Explanation: In case you may use the duplicate as a replacement for the original template, but in other cases, you are duplicating to give someone a copy of the template or use it as a start for creating something completely new.
2. Template List
   1. Current:  The template list and archive template list cannot be downloaded. We must obtain this from the data exporter tool or Power BI data tables.
   2. Suggested:  On the template and archive list pages, add to the menu to download as a “csv” file. This export should include template name, last modified (name and date), last published (name and date), if it’s scheduled, groups with access, users with access, owner, number of inspections (complete, incomplete, archived complete, archived incomplete), average duration, and last inspection date.
   3. Explanation:  This would help in identifying if you have duplicate and obsolete templates. It would also be possible to use this as a form document registry and troubleshoot completion or access issues.
3. Template Revision History
   1. Current: The template last modified and publish dates are captured. A history of changes is not. Some sites duplicate templates each time they make a revision and archive the duplicate after adding a revision date in the title.
   2. Suggested:  Similar to Inspections, track a revision history of what changes were made to the template, when and by whom. 
   3. Explanation:  This would allow us to see what changes were made and by whom in case we need to talk to someone about it or figure out what is was previously. Sometimes you need to understand when looking at an inspection report why there is a difference to another report and when that change was made.
4. Inspection Report Title
   1. Current:  The default is conducted date and conducted person.  Often, people forget to change this once building out their title page.  When changing the title for one report format, it changes it on the other.
   2. Suggested:  Make it clear that report titles follow all report formats. Make updating the title a required step when publishing a template the first time. Make the location of editing the report title more obvious (such as putting it at the top of the Report page rather than the pencil to edit on the preview).
   3. Explanation:  Report titles provide relevant context when looking at linked Actions and is a common complaint when just date and person. They also allow for sorting inspections.  As-is, many people do not make custom report formats, so they forget to edit the title.
5. Template Folders
   1. Current:  The folders feature was recently changed to show in the template list only inspections not in folders.  If you search, it gives results in and not in folders.
   2. Suggested:  (both to the live and archive pages)  
      1. Add a folder called “uncategorized” which is system-made to include templates not in a folder. 
      2. Show more folders on the screen as multiple columns of thumbnails rather than spread across the page width.
      3. Show all folders and rid of the “view all” link.
      4. Add a toggle at the top of the page to display all templates in a list versus the folders.  
   3. Explanation:  The current new behavior is confusing. Now, when we want to see things across folders, searching is the only way, but limits capabilities. If we want to see all templates in order of name or last modified date, we can’t.  If we forget what templates we have, we’re now forced to open each folder.
6. Inspection Listing Filters
   1. Current:  There is no easy ability to find completed or incomplete inspections aside from sorting by Completed Date.
   2. Suggested:  (both to the live and archive pages) 
      1. Add a filter for “Completed Date”
      2. Add a filter for “Incomplete/Complete”
   3. Explanation:  This would allow us to easily find inspections we need to review and archive versus those which are still in progress or perhaps were mistake entries to be deleted.
7. Inspection Listing
   1. Current:  Inspections are listed in the order they are conducted.  We can sort by title (which are often left as the default) and is really slow.  Otherwise, we must filter by template name or folder. 
   2. Suggested:  Add a toggle at the top of the page to display all inspections in the folders the template is currently assigned to. The layout should mirror that of the suggested layout for templates.
   3. Explanation: If you are looking for specific reports or review a batch of records, being able to jump a folder would be much faster. At times, you just want to see the latest records regardless of folder or template, hence the toggle.
8. Inspection Archive
   1. Current:  When archiving inspections, the person who archived it and the date/time of the archive are not captured. Additionally, you have to archive one by one from the list, and if you had sorting, you have to re-do those each time you leave a report.
   2. Suggested: 
      1. Capture the archive date/time and person, showing this on the columns of the “archive” page.
      2. Within the “Web Report” page of an inspection, if you have permission to delete, add an “archive” and “archive mark to delete” button in the top menu. The “archive mark to delete” would put a “yes” in a delete column so you know those are the ones you don’t want to keep. You can then look in the archive list and find those to permanently delete them (as a final review step).
      3. Add a “next/previous” inspection which would navigate to the next report based on what was next in the listing with your current sorting/filters. If you clicked Archive, it would automatically go to the next.
   3. Explanation: Reviewing a large list of inspection reports is very tedious.  If you want to blindly checkmark several and archive, you can do that. However, if you need to open the reports to find those which are mistake entries and make sure that records are completed properly, it is very challenging to open a report, go back to the list, archive it, then open the next report; if you open each then archive all at once, it’s hard to remember which was the last one you opened.  By capturing the archive date/time and person, we have control over who performed that action.
9. Inspection Template Revision
   1. Current:  Inspection reports do not show when the template was last revised. The only way to capture this is manually adding it to the template title or as an “instruction” field within the template. 
   2. Suggested:  Within the inspection data, automatically record the template publish date at the time the inspection was started. Display this on Inspection Reports (by default, with an option in report format to turn this off).
   3. Explanation:  For document control, it is critical to know what revision a “form” was when it was used. If there was a change, we can then prove that the form was a different version at the time the inspection was conducted. When capturing revision dates/letters in the template title, it muddies up other data due to having different template names. When capturing it in an instruction field, sites often forget to add the field and rarely update it when they do. Publish/Modified dates are now captured in SC so it should be automated.