Its all very exciting!

Kylie

This is a fantastic idea and I believe it will revolutionise pm – we might not hate doing routines so much!!
I anticipate there will be very worthwhile improvements in productivity and efficiency.

First thoughts after using Field Agent for a few inspections:

Many of our owners are not email savvy, so we end up doing some post processing where we print out an inspection report + photos for our owners. As a result, Field Agent becomes just a camera function as I email the photos back to myself. It would be good to have the ability to setup a customised inspection template so that it is easily printable.

Having the ability to name and comment photos is a good idea, however I’m not so enthused with the iphone keyboard as i find it a bit slow and i tend to type the wrong letters. I dont have many ideas on how to improve this as we are limited to the iphone’s functionality as opposed to how the application is built.

The location feature is not very reliable however we manage many units so perhaps it would work better in a suburban area.

I no longer dread getting all the items required together to go out and complete a routine inspection (clip board, camera, keys, print off 9 pages for one report). I grab my phone which i have on me at all times anyway and im off.

the app makes for a time efficient way to get the inspections out of the way. 9 times out of 10 our properties are very well looked after and i just need to take a few photos and thats it.

very happy thus far!

Lisa and I caught up on the iPhone today regarding editing recent inspections. We’ve learned that when you are doing an inspection, you need to add your comments in the same day, otherwise you can not go back further than one day to add comments.  

I’ve had a few people mention that they like to take their photos and then fill in the comments later.  Note, you’ve got until midnight on the day of the inspection to add in your comments, then you can no longer add the comments to the photos.

If you have not yet emailed the report, then you can go into the report and add your commentary there.  So there is a short fix but this commentary will not be on the inspection for comparison next time you inspect the property. 

Thoughts? Do we want to change this?

great news team, can send you the new version of the routine inspection app in the morning for you to road test.  I’ve tested it and I can say that’s it’s another big improvement!  I’ll email it out in the morning :-)

Hi Emily
We have now rectified our mail server issue and things are running really smoothly.  Look forward to the update!

i am currently using the version 2 of the iphone app and its moved forward in leaps and bounds considering it is only the first update!

i am saving even more time now inside the properties as there are pre meditated comments that you can select with one touch of the screen. this to me makes it feel less awkward when the tenant is home as previously they would be staring at me thinking “what is this guy punching into his phone and why is he standing in one spot for soo long?”.

so now i am saving time by just geting into the car with my phone rather than clipboard pen and camera, and less time in the property as most comments that i have to make are available at the touch of a button. 

i now eagerly await the third instalment!

Cameron – anything you can suggest to include for our next installment?  So happy that you are enjoying the iPhone app.  The purpose is to help with the long routine inspection process that property manger’s currently endure.