Quality Assurance Inspector Product Manual

Login:

User Name: By default, this is your email account. It is not case-sensitive and may be Up to 100 characters in length

Password: This is a user-defined password. It is case–sensitive and may be up to 20 characters in length

Upon entry with a correct User Id and Password combination, the Home Page is displayed.

Home Page:
The following screens are available to Quality Assurance Inspectors.

• Home

• Reports

• User Profile

• Update/Entry

Any messages posted by the System Administrator will be displayed in the “Latest Announcements” section of the screen.  The current date (by default) is displayed on the right hand side of the screen on a calendar.  A listing of all dated activities is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

You may shift the display at the bottom of the screen by selecting different dates on the calendar.  When this is done, the date selected is indicated in blue (both in the calendar and the listing), while today’s date is marked with a dark gray background on the calendar.

This coupling of calendar and listing makes it easy for Safety staff to check what inspections have recently been completed, which inspections are due for follow-up, etc.

Update/Entry:
The inspection data entry and data editing is handled in this menu.  Quality Assurance inspectors are not permitted to add a new inspection. They are permitted to view all the existing inspections and the application also permits them to add a deficiency to the existing inspection, although local policy usually forbids this.

Selecting Inspections to View or Edit:

The summary “Update/Entry” screen is divided into two parts.  The top portion of the screen displays inspection-wide “header” information such as the Inspector’s Name, School Year, Comply District, Comply Fire, Inspection Date, Follow-up Inspector and the date of each follow up event. Each item of the header information is only entered once per site inspection.

The bottom portion of the screen lists the various inspections available to you.  If the list of inspections is too long for easy use, you may click on one of the letter tabs at the top of the grid to limit the inspection list to inspections of facilities that begin with that letter.

Select one particular inspection by clicking on the asterisk (“*”) to the left of an inspection.  The page will refresh and the selected inspection will change color in the list.  The “header” information of the selected inspection will display at the top of the screen.

NOTE: When making changes, you should only work with the most recent inspection.  Changes made to old inspections after the fact will not be carried forward.

Select one particular inspection by clicking on the asterisk (“*”) to the left of an inspection.  The page will refresh and the selected inspection will change its background color in the list.  The functioning of the buttons to the lower right may also change when an item is selected.  The “header” information displayed at the top of the page will reflect the selected item.

NOTE: The detail information at the top of the page reflects the last-selected item until another item is selected.

Selecting Inspection Details:

Inspection Details (also referred to as “Items” or “Deficiencies”) can be viewed and edited once an inspection has been selected on the “Update/Entry” screen.  Click on the “Inspection Details” button to view the details of the selected inspection.

All the deficiencies of the selected inspection are listed on the lower half of the screen.  The tabbed list on the bottom portion of the screen works much the same as the tabbed list on the inspection selection screen.  This list shows deficiency details by building number or “All.”  You can either view a list of deficiencies for just one building or click on “All” tab to view all the deficiencies of the selected inspection.

Click on [*] on the Deficiency Selection tab list to select one deficiency.  When you select an inspection item (deficiency), the selected entry in the list changes its background color.  The functioning of the buttons to the right may also change when an item is selected.  The detail information displayed at the top of the page will reflect the selected item.

NOTE: The detail information at the top of the page reflects the last-selected item until another item is selected.

Performing a Quality-Assurance Inspection:

Quality-Assurance inspections are performed via the “Update/Entry” screen of the browser-based application.  As a Quality-Assurance Inspector, you will review existing inspections performed by a Safety Inspectors (yourself or another) for compliance to established standards.

Begin a follow-up inspection by selecting an inspection as outlined above on the summary version of the “Update/Entry” screen.

NOTE: You can only review and approve inspections that have been marked as “Done” and “Report Signed Off”.  Only the initial inspector can perform the first step and normally performs the second, but the application also allows a QA Inspector to “Sign Off” for the inspector, if that is your policy.  Signing Off releases the inspection so that users outside of Safety can view it and its statistics can affect summary reports.  Signing Off on an inspection is an important step as it prevents the initial inspector from viewing or modifying the inspection information further.

Next, select the appropriate detail for each deficiency for review.

From the Inspection Details Screen, click on the “Edit” button.  The fields that you may need to check are:

• Priority, Category and Deficiency Type

• Citation

• Location

• Inspector Notes and Private Notes

Unless the initial inspector has overridden them, the Priority, Category and Deficiency Type will be the defaults defined by the System Administrator.

A Quality-Assurance Inspector is able to alter the Citation (use the Decision Tree.)  This should probably be done in cooperation with the original inspector, however.  Use the Decision Tree to change “Other” entries once they have been resolved.

The Location field has probably already been filled in by the initial inspector.  Check for typos and clarity.

Click on the appropriate tab above the “Notes” area to view each different type of Notes.

The Inspector Notes field can be used to record details about the deficiency beyond the Location.  We strongly suggest that all notes are initialed and dated (Month/Year) so that older notes can be distinguished from newer notes over the years.  Check for typos and clarity.

The Private Notes (formerly “Safety Notes”) field can be used to leave in-house comments that are only viewable by Safety department users and only on the browser-based interface – these Notes do not download to the PDA.  You might use this field to indicate re-occurring problems attributable to one person, for example.  These Notes do not appear on any reports.  If used, check for typos and clarity.

CRITICAL NOTE: Be certain to click the “Save” button after making your edits or your changes will be lost!  Use the “Cancel” button if you want to abandon your edits.  After a “Cancel”, your item is no longer selected on the selection list below.

Approving an inspection:

On the summary version of the “Update/Entry” screen, select the inspection that you wish to approve.

NOTE: You can only review and approve inspections that have been marked as “Done” and “Report Signed Off”.  Only the initial inspector can perform the former step and normally performs the latter, but the application also allows a QA Inspector to “Sign Off” for the inspector, if that is your policy.  Signing Off releases the inspection so that users outside of Safety can view it and its statistics can affect summary reports.  Signing Off on an inspection is an important step as it prevents the initial inspector from viewing or modifying the inspection information further.

If the inspection is not Signed Off upon and your policies allow it (and you are certain that the initial inspector is done with the inspection) click on the “Report Sign Off” button.  This will place today’s date in the “Report Signoff” field.

NOTE: If you need to edit any of the dates that you are placing in this step, click on the “Edit Dates” button after you have placed each date using the button.  Always use the corresponding button to place these dates, as these buttons also trigger other behind-the-scenes processing.

The “District Complied” and “Fire Department Complied” Check-offs

Along with the many date fields on this screen, there are two checkbox fields that can only be completed here: the “District Complied” and “Fire Department Complied” Check-offs.

These two fields are mandated by Florida Statute 69A-58.  If it has not already been done by the initial inspector, use the “Edit Dates” button to edit these checkboxes to indicate whether the District inspections and/or the Fire inspections have “complied with section 1013.12(1)(c) of Florida Statutes regarding plan of action and schedule for correction of each fire safety deficiency.”

Our understanding is that if your District conducts its inspections on its own and complies with section 1013.12(1)(c) of Florida Statutes, you should check the “Comply District” checkbox.  If the District conducts its inspections in conjunction with the Local Municipal (Fire) Inspection Authority and complies with section 1013.12(1)(c) of Florida Statutes, you should check both the “Comply District” and the “Comply Fire” checkboxes.  Once you have an inspector Signed Off inspection, you can now proceed to Sign Off on it yourself, assuming that you have checked it and it meets all of your department’s requirements.

Click on the “QA Sign Off” button.  This will place today’s date in the “QA Reviewed” field.  At this point, background processing by the application assigns “Item Numbers” to the inspection.

Notice that now a “Notify Now” button has appeared.  Use the “Notify Now” button when it is time to indicate that the Facility Manager has been notified of the results of the inspection.  This step also assigns the “Follow-Up Schedule” date (90 days after the Inspection Date) and releases the inspection for future (follow-up) inspections.

The “Follow-Up Inspector” and “Follow-Up Actual” date will be filled in when/if a follow-up inspection is performed via the PDA.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE “DELETE” BUTTON:

The “Delete” button is potentially very dangerous and should be use sparingly.  It completely deletes the entire inspection.  Deleted inspections cannot be recovered.

Reports:

This section of the application consists of one or more pages of reports available to the current user.

The list of available reports is customized at each installation and will vary depending upon the current user’s role [Safety Inspector, System Administrator, Executive, Local User, QA Inspector, Follow-Up Inspector and Fire Inspector, etc.]

Contact the System Administrator to obtain a list of reports that is accessible to you.

You may page through the list of reports if numbers other than “1” appear at the bottom of the report list. Click on a number to view that page of reports. To obtain a report, select a report from the list by clicking to the left of the report label.   A list of appropriate criteria for that report will appear on the right side of the screen.

Any criteria required for a meaningful report will be indicated in red – most commonly, at least the “School Year” is required for a meaningful report.  Select or fill in the appropriate criteria and click on the “Generate Report” button.  Depending upon the size of the report, this may take a few seconds.  Using narrower criteria will return a smaller report and therefore return the report more quickly. A Crystal Reports™ report will appear generated with the criteria that you selected.  To print a report, click the “Print (Export as PDF)” button and print using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

To print a report you must have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC. When attempting to obtain a printable report, if you receive an HTML data stream rather than a report, Adobe Acrobat Reader is probably not installed on your PC.  Printing a report is covered in more detail below.

You need not print a report to view it, however.  You may view your newly-created report on-screen.

At the top of each page are controls to page through the report, “Go To” a specific page number, or search for the page upon which a particular entry is found.  Searches are typically done by facility name.  Each subsequent search starts from the current page.

Some on-screen reports will allow you to “drill down” for more detail.  These will typically be summary reports. The drill-down points will be apparent because your cursor will become a pointing finger when it is placed over a line of report data that supports drill down.  Once you have drilled down in a report, use the normally-inactive “Up” button to return to the main report level or the “Back” button of your browser.

Note that some labels and even some data may appear in a less-than optimum format on the Web screen version of the report. This is because of limitations inherent in the Crystal Reports generated Web/browser-based reports. Each report that comes with your application (from Solid Rock Software) has been optimized for the best possible appearance when printed, not for its appearance on a web page.

The only advantage of viewing a report as a web page (over the PDF format) is the ability to drill down to a more detailed level in some reports.  In most situations, viewing the PDF-format report will be easier and offer a better viewing experience.

Viewing Inspection Details:

All of the information gathered about a deficiency is clearly displayed on the top half of the Inspection Details screen.  The only information that is not immediately visible here are the various notes by the Inspectors, the Fire Inspectors (if the feature of capturing separate Fire Inspections is in use) and the Repairers.  Click on the appropriate tab above the “Notes” area to view each person’s notes.

We encourage users of the application to initial and date each new note that they make, as a notes fields might potentially carry notes across several inspections and follow-up inspections.

NOTE: There is a type of Note that only members of the Safety department (only System Administrators and Inspectors — excluding Fire Inspectors) can see.  This is the “Private” note (formerly called the “Safety” Note.)  This Note tab does not even appear on the screens of non-Safety users, and its contents will not print on any reports.

Printing reports:

In order to print a report, you must first export it to Adobe ™ PDF format.  You must have Adobe ™ Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) Reader installed on your PC to do this.  Adobe ™ Acrobat Reader is available for free download at Adobe’s Web site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/

To print a report, simply click on the “Print (Export as PDF)” button.  When the report is displayed in its final form, you may page through it or print all or part of it.  As with report generation, the length of the report will affect the time required to create the PDF document version and transmit it to your machine.

To print the PDF form of your report, use the Adobe Acrobat’s Print button. When done viewing and/or printing a report, using your browser’s “Back” button will return you to either the Web version of your report or the Reports Listing page, depending upon what you were viewing before building the PDF report.

To return to the Reports Listing page as rapidly as possible, use the “Back to Report Listing” button at the top of all Web-based reports.

To preserve previous report criteria choices, use your browser’s Back button to return to the previously-used Reports Listing page.

User Profile: This screen displays information about the current user.  Fields such as Name, Title, Telephone Number, Email address and Password can be altered.

To save any changes on this screen, click on the “Save/Update” button.  To cancel any changes made on this screen, just proceed to another tab without clicking on the “Save/Update” button.

PDA Usage:

Quality Assurance Inspectors do no use PDAs.