What is Spectora Academy?
Spectora Academy is your one-stop shop to learn how to use your Spectora account. From easy, efficient videos to full-platform walkthroughs, learn everything you need to know about the industry's leading inspection platform.
Spectora Academy is broken down into five easy-to-follow modules. Each module will cover important settings and tools that will help you navigate Spectora, build your business, and improve your inspection process.
Did you miss the third module? Click here to go to Module 3.
Module 4: Templates
In this short (but very important) module of Spectora Academy, we cover how to set up your template and navigate our template center. We'll also take a look at sample reports.
If you already have a template and need to import it from another software, reach out to our Chat Bubble or book a call with one of our Sales Specialists.*
Templates
Now that we've covered your settings, let's walk through setting up your template. You'll want to complete this step before booking any inspection through Spectora because this is the basis of your reports! Think of the template as the blueprint of a home, and the report as the home itself. You can customize your template to make it is set up in a way that works best for you.
📹 Watch time: 17 minutes
Template Center, Template List, and Template Settings
Click on "Templates" at the top of your dashboard
This is where the Templates that your reports are built off of will be stored.
This step is important to ensure your report is prepared to meet your needs.
Next, click on "My Templates"
The first thing we will see when we're starting is under "My Templates" is two template options to start you off with:
The first one will be a standard Residential Template
You can see this is mainly organized by system of the home on the left-hand side under sections
The second one is Room-by-Room Residential
This is organized mainly by the areas of the home
Next up, you'll see "Template Center"
In this template center, you can download any other form you see there, free of charge.
These are things like the NPMA-33, Commercial Inspection, pre-drywall, swimming pool, mold template, etc.
You can also find templates shared by other inspectors!
Once saved from the template center, you can then customize the templates to fit your needs.
We also have our special forms for our inspectors in Florida as well as Texas
These forms are not as customizable due to their specialized output.
After "Template Center" you can click on the 3 dots in the top right.
The most important setting here is going to be the "Add Template" button.
This is going to be where you can build a template from scratch, or clone a template, and start using that copy template to make additional edits to it.
You can also import a template from another software or from a spreadsheet.
Next up, we're going to look into the structure of our template.
Sections
To start, you're going to see your list of sections on the left.
You can customize these to fit your needs by renaming them.
You can reorganize them by clicking and dragging the section.
You'll also see additional icons to the right of the section name. These icons allow you to customize the section.
The pencil icon ( ✏️ ) will allow you to customize that specific section.
You can change the name of your section.
You can change the standards of practice.
You can also set up reminders for you or other inspectors on your team to see when they are working through their reports on the app.
You can also make the section optional or included in every report.
If it's optional it won't show up on your app right away - it will need to be manually added.
Included in every report means the section will show up on your app right off the bat.
The middle icon duplicates any section.
You'll see this icon on items and comments as well, so if you do want to duplicate a section you can choose the section you want, and then you can choose the template you want.
Below your section list, you will see a "+ Section" button.
This is where you can add a blank section
You can also undelete a section if you accidentally delete the wrong one.
At the bottom, you'll see an attachments option.
This is a general template setting.
For example, if you attach a PDF to this particular template, then anytime it is used on an inspection, the PDF will accompany it, and be shown to the client on the client portal.
Items
Let's take one step further and look at our items!
Any section you click on, you'll see the list of items in the middle of the page.
You can customize these just like your sections.
You can click and drag to rearrange the order.
Click the pencil icon ( ✏️ ) to edit the name or make it an optional item.
You can also duplicate this item, move it to another template, or copy it to a different section. i
You can also use the trash can icon to delete anything you need.
You can also add items just like you can in sections by clicking the "+ Item" button.
If you accidentally delete the wrong item you can undelete it as well.
Comments
Every item is going to have its comments. That's going to be the third layer of our template.
You can see the comments on the right side.
There are 3 different types of comments:
Informational
These comments will have a green icon.
You can add comments anywhere in your template, but certain comments have different options as far as answer formats.
Check box: one of the most common comment types used.
To use a check box, you will check the comment if it is applicable to the home, and it will activate the comment.
That comment will appear on your report.
If you leave it unchecked on your mobile app, it won't appear on the report
Think of it as a "present vs. not present" or a "yes vs. no" question. a yes or no answer basically you also have
Multiple-choice: most often used for material, brand, occupancy, etc.
You can add different choices to the comment to fit your needs.
You can have a comma-separated list of answers which will show as options on your mobile app.
Date: populates a calendar to choose a date.
used for noting the date something was last inspected, the current date of the inspection you're performing, or the warranty expiration date.
Number: this is a numeric range.
Signature: creates a signature box that can be signed digitally.
If you need to have the client sign the report for state reasons or to acknowledge something, having a signature comment makes it easy to capture the signature on-site through the app.
Text box: creates a text line/box for you to type in information on-site.
Limitations
These will have an orange icon.
You can use limitations for areas that were inaccessible during the inspection or were not able to be inspected at that time.
Deficiencies
These will have a red icon.
Use these for when things require repair, are safety hazards, or need replacing.
You can have up to three defect categories in your template.
You can pre-set which category you would like a particular comment to be.
You can also set a recommendation for the defect, which can include a list of people you may recommend the client get in touch with to fix whatever deficiency you have called out.
Template Settings
Let's take a close look at our template settings.
You can click the name of your template at the top of your screen to open up your template settings.
To start, you can change the name of the template, as well as give it a friendly display name for clients to see.
Next, you'll see we have our header text.
This will be at the very top of your report!
This is great to use for general information about the inspection process, disclaimers, or anything else you want the client to know.
There are two options: the full report header text and the summary header text.
The full report header text shows on the full web and PDF reports.
The summary header text shows on just the web summary and PDF summary reports.
Under Display Options, you'll see a few options.
"Display Category Counts Summary" - This adds different colored bubbles to the top of the summary to show how many of each defect category were noted.
"Dispaly Items Inspected Count" - this is the total number of items inspected on the report (includes informational comments, limitations, and defects together)
"Display Inspector Signature" - allows you to have your digital signature displayed in the report
""Display Standards of Practice" - allows you to display standards for each section of your report
"Display Contractor Recommendations" - allows your clients to see what type of contractor you recommend they contact (ie, builder, plumber, etc.)
"Smart Layout for Information Comments" - minimizes whitespace by separating short and long comments.
"Display Table of Contents" - automatically adds a table of contents to the PDF with clickable links to each section.
"Display Defect List" - automatically adds a list of all defects at the beginning of the report with clickable links to jump to each.
"Page break sections" - start each section at the top of a new page
"Page break inside comments" - Turn on to allow comments to split and span multiple pages (saving whitespace). Turn off to push comments to the next page if it won't fit.
"Footer text" - The text that will display on the bottom-left of each page of the PDF.
"Defect Label" - The client-facing word you prefer for defects (ie Issues, Comments, Observations, Recommendations, etc.) These can be broken down further into categories below
The next category you'll see is Item Ratings.
Item Ratings will have an overview grid on your report where you can rate an item.
You can choose between the classic rating system or creating a custom rating system.
And finally, you'll see the defect categories.
Choose between 1-3 categories to use.
You can change the name of each category.
Each category has a corresponding color - blue, orange, and red.
You can choose a default category for each defect in your report, and you can even change the category on the fly if you think something may be more or less urgent to repair.
Now you're ready to move to Module 5: Spectora Settings
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
