Managing Inspections - Overview

This article applies to managing Building, Employee, Jail (Holding Facility), and Vehicle Inspections.

The PSTracker Inspection process was designed to standardize and automate the inspection processes across your agency.

Important concepts about the inspection process:

• Inspections are based upon a TEMPLATE / SECTION / ITEM / TEXT FIELDS concept.
  • ITEMS are the individual things we inspect, e.g. emergency lights, radio, locks...
  • SECTIONS are groups of ITEMS within an inspections - emails get sent at the SECTION level.
  • TEMPLATES are a layouts of SECTIONS, and ITEMS, and optionally, TEXT FIELDS.
  • TEXT FIELDS are are free form text entry fields. (the use of text fields is optional)
    • TEXT FIELDS are added to SECTIONS.
    • TEXT FIELDS can be required.
• We assign TEMPLATES to specific Vehicles, Buildings/Facilities & Jails (Holding Facilities).
• The default Employee inspection template is set in the administrative back end.
• When inspections are conducted, PSTracker uses the default assigned template as the basis for the inspection.
  • We can select an alternative inspections template using a hidden field, by clicking a special drop down arrow.
• If we leave an item unchecked, we MUST write a narrative in that item's section.
• We can NOT leave an item unchecked without writing a narrative.
• We can NOT write a narrative in a section of content UNLESS an item is unchecked.
• Vehicle Inspections can utilize special sections which bring in details about specific equipment, firearms, aeds, computers, and tanks assigned to specific vehicles.
  • AED's
  • Computers
  • Equipment-Specific
  • Firearms
  • Tanks
  • There is a configuration settings for each of the modules to determines if we show checkboxes for each of the items brought into these special sections, vs. us manually adding items to these sections.
• Inspections can be saved by employee's and completed at a later date/time
• Collecting Mileage and Hours is optional for vehicle inspections and set in the vehicle configuration settings area.
• The number of miles/hours allowed over the previous entry without "forcing" the number is set using a special configuration setting.
• Workflow / Supervisor Approval is optional. It is a special configuration setting which is set per module (Building, Employee, Jail (Holding Facility), and Vehicle Inspections).
  • Most agencies begin using Workflow /Supervisor Approvals process and then eliminate the step, streamlining the process, once the agency feels personnel have grasped the inspection process.
  • Supervisors can reject inspections and provide a note regarding the reason for rejection.
  • Employees receive email notification of the rejected inspection
• An optional screen can be displayed at the end of the inspection process to select if Work Orders are created and if Emails are sent for each issue noted in the inspection.
• Once an inspection is approved by a supervisor, (or completed by an employee if supervisor approvals are turned off) automation takes place for issues noted:
  • creation of work orders
  • sending of email notifications.
• Employees can receive emails if an inspection is left in progress after "X" number of days (default is 3), which is set in the vehicle configuration settings area.

To build our Inspection Templates we:

• Ensure our Items exist (if not we add new items first)
• Ensure our Sections exist (if not we addd new sections first)
• Add a new Template
  • Add Section(s) to the new Template.
  • Add Item(s) to the new Section.
  • Add Text Field(s) to the new Section.
  • Optionally assign the New Inspection to a Building, Jail, Tank, or Vehicle.

To learn how to create inspection templates, please see the support article below