Inspection report: why a template is not enough
Inspections on a Word template end up in a folder. A form in Telesherpa turns the answer into an object — with mandatory fields, photos and a signature.
Many businesses know the picture. The recurring inspection is due: the heating in spring, the rental car before handover, the care visit in the daily log. Somewhere there is a Word template or an Excel list. An employee fills it in, a signature goes underneath, the paper goes into the folder. The inspection is done.
But it is not answered yet. The decisive question comes one step later: What happens to the report after it is signed?
What a piece of paper achieves — and what it doesn't
A filed document proves that someone was at a place and looked at something. That is not nothing. But it does not prove what exactly. In the event of damage, questions stay open: How severe was it? Were there photos? How high is the cost estimate? If all of that sits in a free-text field, the answer is no longer retrievable later.
On top of that comes the break between media. The list lives on a computer, the photo on a phone, the signature on paper. Anyone who wants to evaluate how often which damage occurs starts from scratch.
Why you will not get a Word template here
At this point, an article could offer a Word template for download. A clean template with the right fields, printed out and filed. Honestly, a template does exactly that: it ensures a uniform layout on paper.
It cannot prevent a mandatory field from being left empty. It cannot take a photo that still has to be made. It cannot check whether an entry comes from the intended list. And it cannot do anything with the finished answer: no evaluation, no finding it again after months, no rule that reacts to a specific answer.
That is why you will not get a template here. The difference that matters is not the prettier form. It lies in the answer.
The answer becomes an object
In Telesherpa, a form is a list of fields. Every answer to this form becomes an object in the platform — not a PDF, not a file on a drive. The type of this object is set in the form definition and is not hard-wired. The same platform carries answers as inspections and as damage reports. A rule targets one type specifically, for example only damage reports.
The fields have types:
- single-line text, multi-line text, date
- yes/no, selection list, whole number, decimal number
- a field that points to another object
- photos, documents, signature
- calculated display, line block
For the business that means: the answer exists in one place you can work with. It can be found again, sorted, and linked to other objects. The file becomes a record.
Forms themselves are, by the way, templates. A definition can be made visible and copied for other areas; the copy only appears where it belongs. Copying is not the problem. The problem is where the answer belongs afterwards.
Mandatory fields that hold
Fields can be mandatory. Without them, the answer is not accepted. In a running damage report, four fields are mandatory: "Damage location", "Severity", "Time" and "Description of the damage". Two fields are voluntary: "Cost estimate (if known)" and "Photos of the damage".
Here the template and the form part ways. The template politely reminds the person filling it in. The form enforces. A damage report without a severity level does not exist. It is rejected before it lands anywhere.
Photos, documents, signature
Photos and documents attach to the object, not in a separate folder. One field holds several photos, a second holds several documents. The note in the form reads: "Please describe the damage as precisely as possible. Photos help considerably with the clarification."
The signature is its own field and is in use in running forms: for the care visit and for the damage report. The field collects the signature as an image. What requirements a signature must fulfill in an individual case depends on the respective assignment and on the inspection.
Lines instead of free text
Where an inspection records items, free text is not enough. Material items are recorded as a line block, with the fields "Material", "Quantity", "Unit" and "Price". Each line becomes its own object. Mandatory fields apply per line: a line without material and quantity is rejected.
The result is not a description, but a series of individual items. Each item is available as its own object and can be found again by material or price.
Draft, submit, trace
An answer is first created as a draft. Only when it is submitted do the answer, lines, links and files move together into the target area. Before that, you can pause, add to it and discard it without anything landing in the records.
For every answer, the form, the account and the time are fixed. Every execution of an action is in the log. When the question comes up who submitted which damage report when, the answer is not leafing through the folder, but a look into the data.
The paper still exists
Anyone who needs a document for the customer or for the file gets one. Fields, photos and lines go into a PDF that the business can file or hand over. In the printout, photos appear in a width that is set per field; individual fields can be excluded from the printout.
The difference from the slip of paper: the PDF is an output of the data, not its only form of existence.
What this means for your business
Whether a trade, property management, a care service or a car rental: everywhere inspections, checks and documentation happen, the same question arises. What happens to the report after the signature? On paper it ends up in the folder. As an object in the platform it stays findable, stays linked with photos, documents and lines, and can be the starting point for rules that target answers of one type specifically.
If you want to test whether your next inspection runs as a form in Telesherpa, describe the inspection to us: which fields it needs, what is mandatory, what photos and signature belong to it. From that comes a definition that fits your business. How the platform works is described under How the platform works.