Controlling What Goes Into the Summary
I'm a home inspector in Texas (i.e. I use the Texas Template) and I'm new to HomeGauge but not new to home inspecting and I've been doing a lot of work to try to get my HG reports as close as possible to what they have been in the past. I've managed to get things very close indeed to what my reports looked like before switching to HG but I'm having an issue with the summary.
I don't like leaving a section of my report completely blank and so if there is some aspect of the home that has no deficient items to report then I say so. If, for example, I test the garage door opener and it works fine then I'll put the follow comment in my report...
The garage door opener was tested and appears to operate normally.
The reversing function was tested with the electric eye and by blocking the door on the down cycle.
I have these "everything's fine" comments included in my reports by default (i.e. as part of the template) and usually take them out when / if I find a deficiency. I say "usually" because sometimes it makes sense to leave them in. Take the above comment as an example. If the garage door opener works fine but there is a lock installed on the garage door then I will leave the first comment in and add the following comment to that same section of the report...
Recommend disabling the lock on the overhead garage door due to the presence of an automatic opener.
And so I often have comments in a particular section of the report, some of which are deficiencies and some that are not and the summary prints both even though I do not have the "everything's fine" comments assigned to any summary. Basically, if the "Deficient" box is checked on a particular section, the HG software includes every comment in that section in the summary whether it's assigned to a summary or not.
How do I make it so that ONLY those comments that I've specifically designated to be in the summary actually go into the summary?
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Hi Clete,
There are a few adjustments that I would advise.
I would first adjust your template settings following the steps below. That way when you add a new comment to the same inspection item, the software doesn't automatically assign it to the summary if the first comment was a summary comment.
1. From the top toolbar go to Template-->Options
2. Uncheck the box next to "Use Same Summary As First Item When Itemizing Inspection Item"
3. Click OK
Next, I would strongly advise to not have your template set up to mark comments as summary when you've clicked on a specific column header. In the TREC template, you may have the D (Deficient) column set up this way. I advise you either manually check the box for the summary for each comment that you wish to go to the summary and/or assign the saved auto comments themselves to go to a summary. It sounds from your description that you may already be doing the second part which is great! So all you need to do is modify your D (Deficient) column header following the steps below:
1. From the top toolbar click on Template-->Edit Column Headers-->All Sections
2. Double click on the box below the D (the box will turn blue & appear indented)
3. Uncheck the boxes shown below:
4. Click OK
5. Click Save T on the top tool bar.
You should be set up more ideally now for your workflow.
Just remember that you'll need to look at the Summary check box below the comment. If a comment is not a saved auto comment (and coded to go to the summary), you'll need to check the box manually.
If there is a second tab for another comment, that has its own summary box that you can check or not check depending on the situation.
I hope this helps and please reach out if needed.
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Wow! What an amazingly helpful response! Thank you!
So, it turns out that just about an hour after I posted the question, I discovered that HG adds a check mark in that Gen Summary box for every single comment in any section of the report that is marked deficient. All I have to do is go through and uncheck the comments that I don't want in the summary and that fixes the problem.
It is, however, extremely helpful to know that I can change what HG does when I click the deficient column. Since I already have all the comments that I consider deficient marked to go into the summary, I should be able to just turn off that default function and I'll be good to go.
Thanks again for the detailed response!
Clete
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Sure thing!
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