How do I take notes on a site inspection?
- Open the Quote tab and pick Tender walk in its band. You do not need a quote first.
- On Notes, pick the pen, the highlighter or Note and write or draw anywhere. Pinch to zoom. The grid button turns the grid lines on or off. Pen size and Text size are in pt: press the size to pick one from the list. On a tablet the tools take their own row above the tabs. Ink opens a colour chart of ten inks in two rows: black, grey, red, orange, ochre, green, teal, blue, violet and pink.
- To point at something with words, pick Callout: press on the thing, drag to where the box should go, then type straight into the box and tap off it to keep it. To ring round an area, pick Cloud: drag corner to corner for a box, or draw round the area. For straight sides, pick Polygon: press each corner, then the first corner again, or press Finish, to close it; Backspace takes back the last corner. Pick a fill colour and a hatch before or after. To change the words, pick Select and move, tap the callout, then tap it again. To change the colour, line thickness or text size of a callout, cloud, polygon or line, pick it and choose from the Ink, Pen size and Text size buttons in the tool row.
- To move something, pick Select and move. Tap a stroke, note, photo or pin to pick it, drag it where you want it, pull a corner to make it bigger or smaller, and press the bin or Delete to remove it. On a polygon, drag a corner dot to move that corner. On a callout, drag the box to move it, drag the round dot at either end of a line or arrow to stretch it, drag the round handle in the middle to bend the arrow into two arms, and pull a corner to make the box wider or narrower. Drag on bare page to move round.
- To mark up a drawing, press Add, then Add a drawing. Pick the drawing, then tick one or several sheets by their names. Each opens as its own page under the band, at the revision on the Documents register. A sheet you open on the walk stays on the walk; the Takeoff keeps its own.
- To measure, press Set the scale in the tool row. Pick the scale printed on the drawing, such as 1:100, and the paper it is printed on; YourCA reads the scale off the title block and the paper size off the file, and offers them first. The scale the page was set to shows as a chip in the tool row. Or press Draw a known length, draw along a dimension you know and type it in mm or m. The ruler then gives the length of any line you draw.
- Take a photo files it in Tender photos. On a drawing, tap where you stand to pin it there; on Notes it drops where you are looking.
- Hold to talk in a note types what you say. Press a note, then Add to the quote, and pick a quote line, an exclusion or a clarification on a draft revision. Add to the quote is the one press in its sheet. The eraser removes a note.
- With no signal, everything you draw and every photo waits on the tablet and goes up when it is back.
- Download, in the tool row, gives the walk as a PDF or Word file on your letterhead. Add the photos is ticked from the start, so the walk’s photos print with it; untick it for the pages alone. Full screen, beside it, gives the board the whole window with the tools in one row on top. On a phone the tool is one choice and the rest is under "...".
Worth knowing
Once a quote on the job is accepted and no draft quote is left, the walk is read only, so it stands as the record of the site at tender. While a draft is being priced, such as extra works after award, it stays open. The practice job never locks.