Inspect Express

[NJinspector]

I am new to the inpsection business, in the process of opening my own company. I have narrowed down my search for software to two:

Inspect express

or

Ahit

I have heard alot about ie on this site that sounds very positive, but nothing about ahit. Can anybody give me feedback?

Does anybody know of anyone using ahit?

thanks for your help

J

[Jerry Simon]

Contact Mark Cramer at besttampainspector.com and buy his software (Intelligent Reporter). He won't tout it...doesn't have to...it's one of the best.

[kurt]

Can't disagree about Cramerware; it's excellent.

Having played w/Inspect Express as much as Cramerware, I'd say IE is easily equal to, and probably better if you want to customize or develop your own layout, or have the output be your personal vision. Sentence for sentence, I think Cramerware has the best boilerplate.

To answer your question.... if it's between Ahit & Inspect Express, it's IE hands down.

[randynavarro]

Been using AHIT InspectIt for five years now. Don't have a lot of time to talk about all the details. I haven't used anything else so I really can't compare it to anything else.

Bottom line for me is it is very flexible and has a lot of features to really customize and improve reporting capabilities. I've downloaded a sample of Inspect Express but have yet to have a lot of time to play with it.

If you have specific questions, obvioously post here or you can email me.

Out of time,

[Scottpat]

The InspectIt reports that I have seen look too much like a "punch list fill in the blank report". I don't know if this can be changed or not.

[hausdok]

Nope,

The semi-checklist is what you get. I used InspectIt for about a year after I left the franchise. The program was, in my opinion too restrictive and seemed to crash a lot. Whenever I called Gary Robertson to complain about something and to get one of their personnel to help me straighten out some bug, they would blame the glitch on my not using Word correctly. I began looking around for a better program and eventually found IE. That was 4 years ago. I bet I've had fewer total glitches and bugs in 4 years with IE than I had in 6 months with InspectIt and I'm not restricted to how much I'm allowed to write or how I want to customize my program. Best of all, it's narrative based. Oh yeah, and it runs in Word, just like InspectIt, so I know that it wasn't me that was screwing up the InspectIt program.

I've never tried Mark's product, so I honestly can't compare. However, I sent one of the Beta panels to some of the folks on the ASHI message board when DevWave was working on reformatting the way the program worked nearly 4 years ago. They played with it and someone, I think it was Walt Jowers, said it kind of worked like Mark's product. My thought at the time? "Like Cramer's stuff? Way kewl!"

OT - OF!!!

M.

[Brandon Chew]

A few weeks ago I was in the process of deciding which report software to use in my soon-to-be-launched HI business. After reading the message boards I visited about a dozen report software web sites of the products most frequently mentioned by people in favorable terms, and of those, I decided to download a half dozen demos. I ran the demos through their paces for several days and then narrowed it down to the three that I had the most "good feelings" about. Those three were Inspect Express, AHIT's InspectIt, and 3D Systems.

At that point I cracked open MS Word and made a list of some of the most important things I was looking for in my software, and I made a table where I could record how these three programs stacked up on those items. I then put the three programs through their paces paying particular attention to how each of them handled these items.

Since my report will be the tangible "product" of my interaction with my client, at the very top of my list was the ability to be able to customize the content and format of the report in any way that I see fit. Inspect Express and InspectIt had a big advantage in that regard because their reports are created in MS Word. 3D has its own built-in word processor and has some ability to customize the format, but it is not as flexible as using MS Word. Working within Word I can even automate some tasks by programming my own macros, and I can share information between Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint which may prove handy down the road.

Here are my notes on some of the other factors as I compared Inspect Express and AHIT. In the end, I decided to go with Inspect Express.

Overall report type/format?

InspectIt -- Pseudo checklist that flows item-by-item, but allows you to customize narrative for that item to include photos, links, diagrams, formatting, etc. It does not seem possible to change away from that basic layout. Has "positive attributes" bullet, which I find unnecessary and irritating.

Inspect Express -- Reports created in either partial narrative or full narrative styles. Partial narrative has the description of components sections written in list style, followed by narrative for observations and recommendations.

Ease of navigation between view of report as it will print, and view where you are working on creating & adding comments?

InspectIt -- Works within Microsoft Word. You see actual report in the background at all times. When a panel/menu popup is open for a particular sub-section, you must close it before you can scroll or access the document, or move anywhere else in the program. Pain in butt.

Inspect Express -- Works within Microsoft Word. You see actual report in the background at all times. You can scroll, access and edit the report while the menu popup is open (remains in foreground but can be moved around). Convenient.

Ease of editing & adding new comments to the library?

InspectIt -- Type new or edit existing comment anywhere within your report and format it as you want it to look. Select the text and then go through multiple step process to add it to your library. It is automatically added to end, then you must go through another process of editing another document to move the entry where you want it in the list. Cumbersome process.

Inspect Express -- Click of a button can store a variation of a default comment in the archive (attached to observation check box) for quick recall in the future. Right click default comment to permanently change it. Right click available “custom commentâ€

[Chad Fabry]

Freak

When you buy InspectExpress because I told you about it, make sure Mike and Rose know that I sent you and then work them like a sore rib and negotiate free updates for ME for the next year.

I called you a freak in nicest of ways

[Brandon Chew]

Ok, now that we've established that I'm a freak [:-hypnoti , I think that I might fit in here at TIJ just fine. I mean that in the nicest of ways, of course. [:-smile_g

Brandon

[hausdok]

Cantchya jest feel da luv?

[Chad Fabry]

Welcome to the club, Brandon