What sets PIM apart from other inspection apps is just how easy it is to customise things to suit the way you want to do your inspections. That and our incredibly awesome support team.
But seriously, although PIM's default settings are good enough to get up and running straight away, it is the little tweaks you make which will take your inspections to the next level.
Start by taking the time to really think about your inspection process, how you would like to work through a property, and what type of information you would like to capture in your finished reports. PIM is incredibly flexible, and the time you spend now in getting things customised to suit your needs will reap big rewards later in both quality and efficiency.
So let's take a look in the settings area (found in Settings > PIM Admin) so you have a better understanding of how they can be applied to your inspections.
PIM Administration Settings is divided into a number of sections.
PIM SETTINGS
Located in the top section of the Administration Settings screen, PIM Settings determines the information you see for an inspection, and so this is where you really need to stop and think about how you want to populate your reports. Let’s look at these in a little more detail.
- Inspectors: Although your PIM account is linked to one primary email address, you can have individual users or Inspectors set up. This ensures reports capture the correct property manager information and that their reports are emailed directly to these individuals. Tap Inspectors to manage your Inspectors.
- Shorthand Words: This is a library of often repeated words and phrases you may use during your inspections to reduce the amount of manual typing you need to do. Choose from the extensive built-in library, or build your own. Tap Shorthand Words to add or edit Shorthand Words
- Inspection Areas: These are the areas, rooms and sections you look at during an inspection. Each Inspection Area is further divided into Sub Inspection Areas to capture specific elements of each Inspection Area such as doors, walls, lights etc. Tap Inspection Areas to manage your Inspection Areas & Sub Inspection Areas.
- Smart Property Profiles: Property profiles are used as a starting point for new inspections or data imports from your property management software. Tap Smart Property Profiles to add or edit Property Profiles.
- Quick Check Labels: These settings are reflected as tick boxes within the inspection to help assess the condition of the property. By default, these are set to Clean/Undamaged/Working, but you can customise these to suit your needs for each inspection type.
- Share Settings: This feature enables users on the same account to share settings between devices. This feature is exclusive to PIM Premium accounts.
- Email Customisation: Here you can set up email templates for Landlords, Tenants or Inspectors depending on the type of inspection. This feature is exclusive to PIM Premium accounts.
DEFAULT SETTINGS
This section enables you to make default choices for new or repeat inspections. Each setting uses either an on/off toggle or asks you to make a selection.
- Inspection Type: Here you assign the default inspection type for new inspections. If you perform more Routine Inspection Reports than Property Condition Reports, then make that one your default type.
- Enforce Area Validation: Use this feature to ensure all Inspection Areas and Sub Inspection Areas have been completed.
- Auto Add Sub Inspection Areas: This setting adds all the Sub Inspection Areas to each Inspection Area, rather than having to manually pick them from a list.
- Use Quick Check: Enables the Quick Check Labels to be used within an inspection.
- Password Protect Setting: Available as an extra level of admin protection against making changes to settings by individual users. Please contact support before turning on this feature, and note that it is only available to PIM Premium users.
- Report Format: Choose your reports to be emailed in PDF or Word format. It is not recommended to choose both, as this will increase the size of the email and may be affected by email size limits if there are too many photos.
- Allow Signatures: Allows signatures to be captured on your device for either the tenant and/or agent for PIM Premium users only.
- Copy Photos To: You can choose if you would like your inspection photos copied to your device's Camera Roll or a specific Photo Album, which will be titled with the property address and inspection date. To save on-device storage space, we recommend you, leave this default off, as photos are always stored within PIM and for PIM Premium users, also available for sharing.
- Allow Date/Time on Photos: Places a date/time stamp as a watermark in the bottom left corner of photos within the report. Please note that this feature is exclusive to PIM Premium accounts.
- Show Notes Summary: If you prefer your inspection notes to be shown on the Inspection Area or Sub Inspection Area summary screen simply toggle this ON.
- Always Include Email Report Links: (PIM Cloud Only) When enabled PIM will include report links on outgoing emails, as well as attachments.
ROUTINE REPORT SETTINGS
This section enables you to make default selections specific to Routine or Periodic Inspections without affecting Property Condition Reports
- Include Sub-Inspection Areas: Choose whether you include Sub-Inspection Areas or just stick with capturing notes at the main Inspection Area level for Routine Inspections.
- Quick Check Labels Always Ticked: Save time and unnecessary clicking by assuming everything is Clean/Undamaged/Working, and only changing the tick to a cross if the feature is not okay.
- Disable Pre-Populated Notes: Pre-Populated notes is a great tool for auto-filling notes within Inspection Areas or Sub-Inspection Areas for all new inspections, but the same notes don’t always work for both Routine Inspections and Property Condition Reports. So if your Pre-Populated notes are focused on Property Condition Reports, then disable them here in Routine Inspections.
- Disable Reports Uploads: Choose whether or not you want your imported Routine Inspection Reports to upload back to your Property Management System.
- Reuse Inspection Area Text: When turned on, if performing a repeat inspection from an older one, the previous inspection notes will be carried across to the new inspection. Please note that photos will not be carried forward, only text.
CONDITION REPORT SETTINGS
This section enables you to make default selections specific to Property Condition Reports without affecting Routine or Periodic Inspections.
- Prompt for Entry/Exit: When submitting a Property Condition Report, PIM will prompt you to select the previous Entry Inspection so they can be integrated to display side by side in the final report. This is currently supported for Australian NSW, SA & WA templates.
- Quick Check Labels Always Ticked: Save time and unnecessary clicking by assuming everything is Clean/Undamaged/Working, and only changing the tick to a cross if the feature is not okay.
- Disable Pre-Populated Notes: Pre-Populated notes are a great tool for auto-filling notes within Inspection Areas or Sub-Inspection Areas for all new inspections, but the same notes don’t always work for both Routine Inspections and Property Condition Reports. So if your Pre-Populated notes are focused on Routine Inspections, then disable them here in PCRs.
- Disable Reports Upload: Choose whether or not you want your imported Condition Reports to upload back to your Property Management System.
- Reuse Inspection Area Text: When turned on, if performing a repeat inspection from an older one, the previous inspection notes will be carried across to the new inspection. Please note that photos will not be carried forward, only text.
ICE SETTINGS
If an inspector is under duress, injured or locked out of the property during an inspection, tapping the Send ICE button from the main Settings screen will send a text and email message to your ICE contact with the GPS location of the property.
Enable ICE: Assign an In Case of Emergency (ICE) contact. This function is only available to PIM Premium customers, and only if the iPad or iPhone is using an active internet connection. Also requires location tracking on the device to be activated.