I wanted to share my experiences with the SafetyCulture/iAuditor App on different devices/operating systems. I noticed not all devices handle the app very well or have different quirks/issues I have run into.
Please feel free to discuss the device/devices you use!
- What are the good parts of the app in the device?
- What works well?
- Interface work well/easy to use?
- What are the not so great parts of the app in the device you use?
- odd quirks?
- some features work better or worse than others?
- Any other differences-oddities-or good stuff you’ve noticed on devices you use to access SC/iAuditor?
Context; I usually use templates that inspect product quality/record if there are any non-conforming products, practices, work area cleanliness, or facility upkeep in a manufacturing environment that follows cGMPs & Food Safety rules.
💛: Items I would love to see/my wish list
✅: Items I think are good/Pros
❌: Items I think could be improved/Cons
Dell Laptop: use primarily for building templates for inspections.
- ✅ The Template builder is fairly straightforward & the User interface is easy-ish to figure out.
- Analytics is a mixed bag;
- ❌the “Legacy” version has its uses, but sometimes seems to leave out data/inspections even when I specifically filter for it.
- ❌“Legacy” pretty limited on data you can get from it.
- “New” Analytics (Early Access version in Nov. 2023)
- ✅Definitely an improvement! More uses for looking at all the data gathered by different templates!
- ✅Dashboard feature is nice for separating/Pre filtering data
- ✅ Multiple ways to display data from inspections!
- ❌ Limited on how many “attributes” or “questions” you can list and the data collected from them.
- 💛It would be super useful to be able to have a Table I can show how many Actions & the status of them, and what question(s) the action is linked to from the inspection. I could use this to keep an eye on what areas are needing attention, and not forget to follow up on actions so they get resolved quickly!
- ❌ Limited on how many “attributes” or “questions” you can list and the data collected from them.
Galaxy Tab S6 Lite: use primarily for conducting inspections & making Actions
- ✅ App usually runs well
- ✅ Taking photos in each section/question is easy
- ✅ Editing photos in the app editor is fairly smooth/easy
- ✅I like the edit options & ability to adjust text size & pen stroke width on a scale.
- ✅I like the option to layer text on top of other text - i usually use this to make words visually pop in the thumbnails so it’s easy to identify what i was trying to capture in that photo.
- ✅I like that I can easily Zoom in on a photo while I am editing and still add in hand written or typed notes on the photo.
- ✅ This might be due to the Galaxy Tablet software itself - but i like how accurate the Stylus is in the photo editor!! Minimal lag when writing or drawing.
- 💛would be useful to have a text option where it has an inner color with an outline so i don’t have to type out/copy text twice to layer with contrasting colors.
- ❌not sure if it’s been fixed, but usually need to wait until a photo is done uploading (indicated by the green circle & check mark) before going to type out notes, otherwise it tends to not finish uploading the photo or edits.
- ❌sometimes photos will show they uploaded, then after selecting them to look through (i do this to reference lot information for verification) and backing out it will show it did not upload, causing you to need to screenshot and re-upload or re-take a photo and re-do your edit.
- ✅Typing in notes/Note taking is easy
- ❌need to remember to click the Checkmark in the upper corner instead of clicking above the note taking area, otherwise it WILL NOT SAVE any of your new notes or edits. (I’ve lost a lot of long notes by accidentally selecting above the area)
- ✅ the “Text Scan” tool tends to work fairly well as long as no other text is next to what you want to scan.
- 💛would be nice to have a specified area in the “viewfinder” so i can line it up with the specific text I want to scan in.
- ✅“Actions” are easy to initiate
- ❌when making an action it can be difficult to tell what “buttons” to select after I’m done writing the description & want to go back to the inspection I was conducting. This has resulted in me accidentally deleting an action a few times.
- 💛this might be an option already - but would be nice to have the option to save contacts/emails of “outside” people that you may not have listed that don’t have an SC/iAuditor account.
Galaxy S22 Ultra: use primarily for conducting inspections & making Actions
- a lot of the items in the Galaxy Tablet above are the same while using the S22 Ultra.
- ✅ App usually runs well
- 💛 would be nice to have the option to zoom in or out to make the checklist/inspection list smaller so it fits the “smaller” phone screen and can list more questions on the screen at once.
- ✅when “locking” my phone screen between writing notes/taking photos/answering the questions the app doesn’t delete my progress, and allows me to pick back up where I left.
- ✅Also when i go to another app on the phone, usually to look at a photo to verify julian dates, and then re-open the app “window” it keeps my progress, even when i’m in the middle of editing a photo!
- Quirk? This phone can take really decent photos, in app and in it’s own photo app. sometimes upload time can take a bit longer than it does with the Galaxy Tablet, but really that’s just due to the file size.
- ✅ Photo uploading & editing is even better on the S22 Ultra than the Galaxy Tablet
- ✅usually the phone will detect if you have it oriented landscape/portrait and will upload the photo upright
- ✅ If you take a photo and it is oriented sideways or upside-down, you have the option in the SC/iAuditor app to rotate it!!! (this is not an option in any other device i’ve used!!!)
- ✅Using the stylus that comes with this phone to edit/draw on photos in the SC/iAuditor app works fairly well, if you’re looking for basically something like a tablet, but want something smaller and can fit into a pocket this is a decent option.
- ✅usually the phone will detect if you have it oriented landscape/portrait and will upload the photo upright
Galaxy S8: used minimally for conducting inspections & making Actions
I had used this phone a handful of times to conduct inspections prior to getting my hands on the Galaxy Tablet, from what I remember it had a lot of similarities with the tablet, but with such a small screen and no stylus (unlike the S22 Ultra) it was a bit more difficlut to use with just finger & touchscreen. I no longer use this device, and can’t say if it’s version of the SC/iAuditor app is up to par to the Galaxy Tablet.
Apple iPad 9th Generation: use primarily for conducting inspections & making Actions
- ✅ App usually runs well
- A few similarities with the Android version of the app, below i’ll get into what really jumped out at me as the differences.
- ❌ User interface is clunkier/has a different layout than the android devices i’ve used.
- yes-I know there’s going to be differences between the app in ios vs android, but on this iPad it seems less polished than the SC/iAuditor app in the Android devices.
- ❌Photo editing interface is less intuitive and not as easy to use as the Android versions.
- there is not a sliding scale for text size, or pen stroke width
- hand writing or drawing on a photo is delayed/lags sometimes and does not seem to be nearly as “fine” or “accurate” as Galaxy Tablet or the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
- I can zoom in on a photo while editing it, but it will occasionally “jump” to a different part of the photo or zoom back out entirely.
- ❌when trying to select a text entry point to use the “tools” for scanning text it thinks i’m trying to draw/type into the area. (I’ll end up with a lot of dashes and commas instead of the stylus selecting the tools option)
- Maybe this is user error on my part, since as i’m sure you see i’m more of an Android user.
- ❌ when trying to add in (handwriting to text) notes to the notes section of a question, sometimes the stylus lags. (again, could be user error. who knows)
To re-cap; SC/iAuditor app itself is pretty decent, but as I’ve seen using it is not entirely the same experience on all devices. I would say so far i’ve seen it work best on Android, and i’ve seen a few issues in the past get patched, which is great!
I am curious to see if anyone has found other devices that may work the best with this app/gets the most out of it?
Thanks for reading!!