When it comes to templates, there are many settings that you can utilize to make your report sleek and professional. You can change your display settings, defect categories, and more. Let's get started! 👍
From your dashboard, click Templates in the top Navigation Bar:
Find the Template you want to edit in My Templates:
To find Template Settings, click the title of the Template:
The Edit Template Settings box will appear:
Template settings will allow you to edit the Name of your Template, the Friendly Display Name, Header Text, Display Options, Item Ratings, Defect Categories, and Sharing.
1. Name
This is the name of your template that is only visible to you, your sub-inspectors, and support staff/managers. Your customers will not see this name. This is how it will show on your Inspection Details page:
2. Friendly Display Name
This is the name of your report as it appears to the client.
This is how it will show on your Inspection Details page:
This is how the client will see the Friendly Display Name:
3. Company Default Template
Your company default template will populate first in the Template editor. This does NOT set the default template for all your services. To set up your default template for your services, read this article!
4. Header Text
Header text will appear at the top of your report on the web, and on the PDF version. You can have different header text for the web and PDF versions.
This is how it will show on your web report:
And this is how it will show in your PDF report, after the Table of Contents:
5. Display Options
You can customize which features will display on your reports. Each display setting comes with a description to the right:
Click on the blue links for a photo example of each setting!
PDF Options
This is where you can customize the format and footer text of the PDF version of your report:
Summary PDF Options
This is where you can choose to customize the Summary of your PDF report. The summary only shows the deficiencies/observations you select in each report.
You can also change what your deficiencies are called. Some Inspectors call them Observations, Defects, Deficiencies, etc. Change that in the Defect Label field.
6. Item Ratings
Ratings allow you to rate your comments inspected, not inspected, not present, deficient, etc.
Check the Use Ratings box to activate ratings for your account
Check the Display Item Ratings Grid in Report if you want your ratings to show in a grid view on your report. You can view an example of this by clicking the blue "What does this look like?" link.
Choose between Classic Ratings and Custom Ratings using the dropdown box
Classic Ratings are fixed, IN for Inspected, NI for Not Inspected, NP for Not Present, and D for Defect. You cannot change these other than the name of the Defect rating. Comments show and hide based on the selected rating. (For example, selecting Defect will auto-populate your deficiency comments and hide your limitation comments.) This usually saves time and clicks while inspecting. See what classic ratings look like below:
Custom Ratings allow full customization of each rating. Ratings are not linked to comment types, so selecting any rating will display all of your comment types. Custom ratings gives you more control over your comments, and is helpful for things like partially inspected items.
Learn more about Classic vs. Custom ratings in this article
See an example of custom ratings below:
Choose a Default Item Status. Once chosen, items will default to that rating unless you change it. This can save you a lot of taps and time!
7. Defect Categories
Defect categories refer to the severity of the defect. You can choose to have 1, 2, or 3 severity categories, and you can name them whatever you'd like.
Choose 1, 2, or 3 deficiency severity categories using the dropdown box
Label the categories
Check the Include in Summary? box if you want that category to appear in the summary of your reports. (For example, some inspectors do not want maintenance items to show in the summary).
8. Reinspection Categories
Reinspection categories are similar to Defect categories, but these only apply to the defects present on reinspection reports.
Choose 1, 2, or 3 reinspection categories using the dropdown box
Label the categories
Check the Include in Summary? box if you want that category to appear in the summary of your reports.
9. Reinspection Header Text
Just like header text on standard inspections, reinspection header text will appear at the top of your report on the web and on the PDF version. This will take the place of your standard report header text.
This text will only appear on reinspections completed with Version 10 (aka Next Gen)!
10. Sharing
If you want to share your template to our Spectora public Template Center, do so here:
**NOTE** : You need to have authored every comment on your template in order to share it in the Template Center.
11. SAVE
No matter which template setting you're editing, don't forget to scroll down and click the SAVE button!
Want to see a visual? Check out our YouTube video below!
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
