Custom Categories

You can now customize your deficiency categories, giving you even more flexibility in crafting your Spectora reports!

Spectora Report with custom categories

This is a replacement to the current “Safety Hazard / Immediate Attention Item” checkbox being on/off.  If you like it as-is, you don’t have to do anything and functionality will remain unchanged.  If you want to rename the red items, the steps below apply in the same way.

Here’s the run-down:

Setup

Pop into Settings->Report Options-> Categories and select “3” for your Deficiency Categories

Custom Categories

Name your 3 categories whatever you like.  We recommend singular nouns – we’ll handle the pluralization where appropriate.

The “Deficiencies Label” setting is still used as the word that refers to all your deficiencies (regardless of category).  Having it be a different word than your categories can eliminate confusion on report filter choices.

Inspecting

First update your mobile app to v4.1.0 or later (via the in-app updater).

Once updated, the “category” button now cycles through your categories.  There is also a three-way switch within the comment that has the same function:

(If you don’t see this and you already have v4.1.0, go to the mobile dashboard and swipe down to refresh your settings.)

On the web platform, this is how category selection looks:

Custom category selection

Mobile Summary

Our our mobile summary is a great way to walk your client and agent through report findings on-site.  With the addition of custom categories, you also have several choices of how to view the summary:

  • All (all three categories)
  • Med/High (yellow/red categories)
  • High (red only)

To change the summary view, just tap the icons on the top-right to bring up your options:

The icons light up to show which categories are being displayed currently.

(If you only use two categories, only red items will be marked with an icon, as it functioned before the category update.)

Report Viewing

The report will display a count for each category in the summary only if it is more than zero.  If you have agents or clients that prefer only one or two categories, you can simply not add any comments of that category to this report and it won’t show.

 

The text helper for Repair Request/Objection documents in Agent Tools also contains easy filters to help your agents find what they need quickly:

Agent filters to start objection text

(If you choose to use only 1 or 2 categories, only those options will be displayed.)

PDFs

The PDF summary automatically includes your top 2 categories (med/high).  Both the Summary PDF and Full PDF have tags indicating categories:

Automatic PDF inspection reports

(If you use only 2 categories, only red items will have the category flag on the top-right.)

Template Editing

Of course, the template editor is equipped to handle default categories as well, allowing you to indicate if a deficiency is usually a certain category and save yourself a click/tap every time you use it!:

(Two-category users will continue to have a checkbox control.)

 

Thank you!

Many thanks to the Spectora User Group community that made us understand the need for this feature and helped shape how it has been implemented through numerous discussions, polls, emails, and phone calls.  We hope we’ve met the majority of your needs while keeping it streamlined and easy-to-use.

Let us know the impact the additional category options have on your business!

 

 

2 thoughts on “Custom Categories

  1. Kazaaaaaaaa!

    Right On Michael, Kevin – YES – Spectoran’s’ Unite Eh!

    Keep up the great work, appreciate everyone’s objective input, insight and suggestions’.

    Let’s keep growing this, love it!

    In Progress,
    The Man, The Anti-Myth, The Bullet!

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