With Spectora, each report you generate offers the opportunity to tailor its presentation specifically for both the client and the agent. These customizable report settings provide a spectrum of options, allowing you to fine-tune various aspects of the inspection report's appearance. From adjusting the layout and formatting to selecting specific elements to display, you have the freedom to create a report that best suits the preferences and needs of both parties involved in the inspection process.
In this article, we'll show you how to find, enable, and disable these report settings; plus we'll dive into each setting to explain what they mean!
Finding and Enabling Report Settings
First, let's go over how to find your report settings and how to enable or disable them. Follow along with the steps below!
💻 These steps are for the web editor only. Report settings are not available in the mobile app — open your inspection at app.spectora.com to access them.
 💡 Quick tip: Click on the video above to expand it in another window. |
Click on the inspection to open the Inspection Details page
Click on the report name to open the web editor
Click the 3 dots in the top right corner
Click "Report Settings" in the dropdown menu
Click on a category to open it
To enable a setting, check the box next to the setting name
To disable a setting, uncheck the box next to the setting name
Click "Save" once you've finished enabling and disabling your preferred settings
Report Settings
Now that we've gone over how to find, enable, and disable the report settings, let's talk about what each setting means.
Report Name
Report Name
This is the client-facing name of your report.
You can easily change this name! Click here to see how.
Header Text
Header Text
You might find it necessary or preferable to include a disclaimer in your reports or convey essential information about the inspection procedure to your clients. Using the header text box allows you to add or edit additional text at the top of your reports.
Full Report Header Text
This text is shown at the top of the full web report and on the full PDF report.
Summary PDF Header Text
This text is shown only on the summary web report and the summary PDF.
Display Options
Display Item Ratings Grid in Report
You might have encountered the Overview tab/grid in another inspector's report, a sample report on our website, or even within your own inspection report. This tab displays the grid for your Item Ratings, including the Inspected (IN), Not Inspected (NI), Not Present (NP), and Defect (D) boxes that you select during the report completion process.
This setting will turn the rating grid on or off in your report
To see how to enable or disable this grid, click here.
Display Category Counts Summary
The Category Counts bubbles indicate the quantity of each defect (blue, orange, and red) selected in the report.
Display 'Items Inspected' Count
The Items Inspected bubble shows how many total items were inspected in the report; including defects and informational comments.
See how to enable and display this setting by clicking here.
Display Inspector Signature
By enabling this setting, your signature will automatically pull your signature into your report from your profile.
Display Standards of Practice
In every template or report, you have the option to modify the Standards of Practice visible to your clients.
This is super helpful if you have state-specific information that needs to be present in the report.
⚠️ Note: The "Display Standards of Practice" setting applies to your entire report — both the web version and the PDF. Disabling it removes the Standards of Practice from both outputs. There is no option to hide it from the PDF while keeping it visible on the web report.
Display Contractor Recommendations
This setting allows you to show specific recommendations to your clients for which type of contractor may be best suited for a repair. (ex. 'Licensed Electrician' can be listed for any electrical issues)
Smart Layout
The Smart Layout feature organizes comments in your reports based on their length and the presence of images, ensuring a clean and professional layout.
Comments with fewer than 70 characters and no pictures are grouped at the beginning of each section.
Comments with fewer than 70 characters and one picture follow next.
Comments with more than 70 characters or multiple pictures are placed at the end of the section.
To enable or disable Smart Layout for a specific report, navigate to Report Settings > Display Options and check or uncheck the box next to Smart Layout. Click Save to apply the changes.
To apply Smart Layout to all future reports, go to Templates > My Templates, select your template, and adjust the setting under Display Options.
If you notice differences in your comments between the editor and the report, it may be due to Smart Layout being activated. Refresh or regenerate the PDF to update the layout settings.
For troubleshooting issues like sections not rearranging as expected, adjust the ordering of your report items or subsections.
Check out this article for more information on Smart Layout.ut.
Defect Label
This is the client-facing word you prefer for defects (ie Issues, Comments, Observations, Recommendations, etc.)
PDF Options
PDF Options
Within the report settings, you can customize how your PDF report looks.
Display Defect List
This setting automatically adds a list of all the defects listed in the report.
The list is added to the beginning of the report and includes clickable links to each defect.
Page Break Sections
Enabling this setting will make each section of your report start 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
This enables your preferred text to display on the bottom-left of each page of the PDF.
Display Category Counts in Summary PDF
Enable this setting to include the bubbles listing defect category counts in the Summary PDF.
Text-Only Summary (no photos)
Enable this setting to have an alternate summary format of your report that does not include photos.
Summary Options
Summary Options
This section of the report settings allows you to decide which defect categories are included in the summary report & summary PDF.
You can also customize the names of your defect categories.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I hide specific Items or Defects from the summary?
You can only hide all the defect categories. If a category is selected to be displayed in the summary, then every defect associated with that category will be shown.
One of my defect categories isn't showing on the summary, how do I fix this?
Be sure that you have it checked to show on the summary under Summary Options!
Is there a way to make these settings appear on all of my reports?
As for your question about making these settings appear on all reports: yes! That's exactly what template settings are for. The link already referenced in the article points to how to enable/disable these settings at the template level, which means any new report created from that template will inherit those settings automatically. So if you want, say, page breaks or summary options configured a certain way by default, you'd set that in the template rather than in each individual report.
Do page breaks for sections apply to the summary PDF?
Unfortunately, page breaks for sections do not apply to the summary PDF. In the summary, we list observations directly. In the full report, we go through each section first and then its observations. Since the report is organized by comments, not by sections, there isn't a way to start each section on a new page.
How do I remove the blue maintenance items from my report summary?
When working on your report, you can click into your Report Settings > Summary Options, then you should see boxes that you can un-check for "include in summary" - this will allow you the option to remove specific categories from your report summary!
If your template is set up to have specific categories not included in the report summary, you will not see options in the Report Settings > Summary Options to add that category back into your report summary.
For more information on adjusting these categories in your template, click here.
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
