Structures and their inspection reports
List your assets, inspect them, and turn every inspection into a risk rating, a return date and a PDF.
A boardwalk, a culvert, a junction sign: those are structures. They aren't fixed once and for all — they're watched, at regular intervals, and that watching has to leave a trace.
That's the difference from a task. A task is born from a problem and dies when it's solved. A structure exists as long as the asset does, and accumulates an inspection history that tells the story of its ageing.
This page covers both halves: the Structures section, and the inspection report in detail. Configuring the types and their questionnaire lives elsewhere — see structure types.
Where: left navigation bar, under General → Structures. On mobile, structures live on the Terrain view.
The section
The structure list.
- 1Grouping changes how you read the list.
- 2The type's badge takes the colour of the risk level.
The section opens on a list paired with a map. Three view modes take turns from the toolbar:
| View | What it answers |
|---|---|
| List + map | Where my assets are, and which one I open |
| Kanban | How many I have at each risk level |
| Calendar | Which inspections fall in which month |
The calendar is the most underrated: it places each structure on the date of its next report. It's the view that answers "what's waiting for me in June".
Reading the list
Each row carries the structure's name and its type, preceded by a badge with the type's glyph. That badge takes the colour of the risk level — it's the visual code for the whole section:
| Colour | Level |
|---|---|
| Green | No risk |
| Yellow | Low risk |
| Orange | Moderate risk |
| Red | High risk |
| Grey | Not evaluated — no report exists yet |
The list groups four ways: by status, by type, by trail or by folder. Folders are yours: you file assets into them by dragging, and you can move several at once with Shift + click.
The status can't be set by hand
On the kanban, dragging a card from one column to another does nothing — a message says why: to change a structure's status, you have to create an inspection report.
That's the most important rule in the section. The risk level isn't an opinion you adjust; it's the result of a dated, signed inspection. That's what makes the history defensible in front of an insurer or a municipality.
Creating a structure
On the web, from the section's Create structure button — or from an image, which reads the photo's position to place it.
On mobile, from the map's + button, standing at the asset.
A structure carries a name, a type, a position, a trail, a description and photos. The name can fill itself in if you've set up a numbering rule — see structure types.
As with tasks, all of this works offline.
The inspection report
This is the heart of the module.
The report form.
- 1The next reminder date — absent when rescheduling is automatic.
- 2A critical question, flagged as such.
- 3Four ratings, plus "not applicable".
The form always has the same three blocks at the top:
A general comment. What you found, in one sentence or ten.
The next reminder date. It only shows when automatic rescheduling is off for that type. When it's on, the date is computed from the resulting risk and the field disappears.
Photos of the report as a whole.
Then comes the evaluation, if the type has an active questionnaire.
Answering the questions
Each question is rated on four steps, or marked not applicable. The labels name the risk, not the quality:
| Rating | Label | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Critical | This element is dangerous |
| 2 | Moderate | It needs close watching |
| 3 | Low | Normal wear |
| 4 | None | Nothing to report |
| — | Not applicable | The question doesn't concern this asset |
Every answer also takes a comment and photos. That's what makes a report worth having: a 2 on "Decking" means nothing six months later; a 2 with a photo of the split plank reads itself.
A question marked critical carries an orange badge. Giving it a 1 puts the asset at high risk whatever the rest of the questionnaire says.
The details of the calculation — the formula, question weights, how "not applicable" is handled — are explained in structure types.
Without a questionnaire
If the type has no active questionnaire, the form replaces the evaluation with a status you pick by hand. That's the simple mode: you look, you classify, you note the return date. Useful for an asset type that doesn't justify a grid.
What saving triggers
Three things, in order:
- the score is computed and yields a risk level;
- that level becomes the structure's status — what the whole crew sees;
- the next report date is set, computed or entered.
The history
A structure's reports.
- 1The button creates a new report.
- 2Each report keeps the status it produced, and its author.
A structure's page lists its reports newest first, grouped by year — a year picker saves you scrolling through ten years of inspections.
Each row carries the badge of the status it produced that day, the date, and the inspector's name. Opening a report shows the answers, comments and photos exactly as they were entered. A report can't be edited: it's a dated finding, not a draft.
Deleting a report
The ⋯ menu on each row lets you delete it. Two things to know:
The report is archived, not destroyed. It leaves the list, but the trace stays on the server — which matters for a legal file or a claim.
The structure's status is recalculated. It takes the one from the most recent remaining report. If none remains, the structure goes back to Not evaluated.
That's the right move when an inspection was filed on the wrong asset. It is not the right move for "erasing" a bad result.
Getting reports out as PDF
Two exports, at two scales.
A single report: the ⋯ menu on its row, Download PDF. That's the document you attach to an email.
A whole batch: the Export PDF button in the section's toolbar. One document, with one structure per section and its latest report. You choose:
- Export all — every structure that has at least one report;
- Export with filters — by status, type or trail, to narrow it down.
The limit is 50 structures per export. Beyond that, tighten the filters — which is also a good way to cut a file into readable volumes.
That's the document that goes to the town council, the funder or the insurer. It's also the reason for everything else: without it, the inspection stays knowledge inside someone's head.
In the field
Mobile does the essentials: create a structure at its real position, open a page, create a report with its full questionnaire, comments and photos.
It all works offline. A report written at the bottom of a ravine goes out when the network returns, and the structure's status updates then — not before.
Who can do what
Two distinct rights in the activity manager:
- Structures — see the list and pages with read; create, edit and delete with write.
- Structure reports — write is required to create or delete a report.
Splitting the two is deliberate: you can hand inspection to someone without giving them the right to rename or delete assets. See roles.
Four pieces of advice
Photograph the answer, not the structure. A wide shot of the bridge proves nothing. The photo of the rusted anchor, attached to the "Anchors" question, is evidence.
Let automatic rescheduling build the calendar. Set once per type, it fills the Calendar view on its own and you stop missing due dates.
Only delete a report if it's wrong. A bad result you erase is a history that lies — and that's exactly what an insurer looks for.
Export at the end of the season. The year-end PDF takes five minutes to produce and is worth ten emails of justification the following winter.