Inspections App Overview

Inspections

1. What it is

Inspections lets your team conduct workplace inspections, safety audits, and quality checks from the field or the floor. Inspectors work through scored checklists or sweep a facility layout aisle by aisle, with photo evidence, GPS capture, and electronic signatures. Failed items can automatically create corrective actions, and completed inspections can route through a multi-stage approval workflow before they close.

• Enablement: Inspections requires a license. An admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps and configures it under Apps → Inspections → Manage → Settings.
• What it is not: Inspections tracks your own team’s internal checks and recurring audits. For recording visits by external surveyors, auditors, or agencies (and tracking their findings and plans of correction), turn on the Visit Log module inside the same app — it is off by default.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps, find Inspections, and enable it for your organization.
2. Go to Apps → Inspections → Manage → Settings. Review the Modules card — the app ships with four core modules on by default (Checklist Inspections, Facility Coverage Sweeps, Corrective Actions/Approvals/Reporting, and Regulatory Knowledge Base) plus the Visit Logs module off by default.
3. Go to Manage → Templates and create at least one inspection template. Choose a category (Safety, Quality, Compliance, Equipment, Food Safety, Environmental, or General), add checklist items, and set a pass threshold (default 80%). A new template is saved switched off. Add its items, then choose Activate from the More actions menu on its page (it can’t be activated with no items). Until then it isn’t offered for schedules or cycles, or when someone starts a new inspection. The same holds for a template installed from the gallery, drafted by Ask AI or AI Template Generation, converted from a PDF or photo, or imported.
4. Assign the template to your team by either:
   • Creating an Inspection Cycle (a time-bounded period such as monthly or quarterly) under Team → Inspection Cycles, or
   • Creating a Schedule (a recurring rule that auto-generates inspections) under Manage → Schedules, or
   • Letting inspectors start ad-hoc inspections from the template.
5. To confirm it works, ask an inspector to open My Inspections — they should see any scheduled or cycle-started inspections waiting for them.

Silent-until-paired: A template by itself does not create any inspections. You must also create a cycle, a schedule, or start one manually before an inspector has work to do.

3. How it fits together

Templates — A template is the reusable checklist (or rack-question set) every inspection is built from. Templates belong to a category and carry a pass threshold, optional weighted scoring, photo-evidence and signature requirements, training prerequisites, and an optional approval workflow. Templates are authored by admins; inspectors consume them.

Inspections — An individual inspection is one completion of a template by one inspector. It moves through statuses: Draft → Scheduled → In Progress → In Review → Completed (or Cancelled). When submitted, the score is calculated from the weighted items the inspector answered. If the score meets or exceeds the template’s pass threshold the inspection passes; if any item flagged Auto-Fail gets a failing answer (a No, a failed checkbox, or a reading outside its range), the inspection fails regardless of score. When an approval workflow applies — the template’s own while that workflow is enabled, otherwise the newest enabled workflow for Inspection submission — the inspection enters In Review before it can complete.

Cycles — A cycle is a time-bounded inspection period (monthly, quarterly, annual, or custom dates). A cycle uses one of three generation modes:

• Notify only — announces the period; each inspector starts their own inspection.
• Per item — auto-creates one inspection per registered item (imported via CSV or from assets), assigned via a strategy (location manager, single assignee, round-robin, or claim pool).
• Coverage sweep — seeds one facility sweep per selected layout (see below).

Once active, a cycle’s generation mode is locked. Cycles can close manually, on the end date, or when all linked work is completed.

Schedules — A recurring rule (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually) that auto-generates inspections for a location and template. An hourly job creates the next inspection when the schedule is due — at its Preferred Time on the location’s clock, or at the start of the location’s day — and it is due by the end of that day. Unlike a cycle, a schedule has no bounded period — it keeps generating until it is deactivated, or pauses while its template is inactive.

Facility Coverage Sweeps — An aisle-by-aisle walkthrough of a facility layout (managed in AssetPro). Inspectors record only exceptions (failures), not passes. Coverage rolls up per aisle and per sweep. Sweeps run inside a coverage-sweep cycle and can route through an approval workflow before sign-off.

Corrective Actions (CAPA) — A follow-up action created when an inspection item fails or a visit-log finding needs remediation. Each action has a priority (Low, Medium, High, Critical), an assignee, a due date, and a status (Not started → In progress → Completed or Cancelled). An action reads In progress only once someone starts the work — Start work on the action’s page, in its register row menu or on the phone’s My Actions, or Start on its task in Tasks; assigning or reassigning it never changes its status. It can also be completed without being started. When the setting Auto-Create Corrective Actions is on (the default), a corrective action is created automatically for every failed item. While that setting is on, every corrective action in the register — from failed items, visit-log findings or missed frontline work — is also added to its assignee’s Tasks list. When the setting Require a photo to complete a corrective action is on (the default), an action is completed only with a photo of the completed work — from its own page, the phone or the API, and the register and visit log send you to its page to take one — and its entry in Tasks asks for the same photo.

Visit Log (independent module, off by default) — An internal record that an external party visited one of your locations. Tracks the agency, surveyor names, visit type (Routine, Complaint, Follow-up, Licensure, Audit, or Other), attached report documents, individual deficiency findings with citation codes, and the plan-of-correction lifecycle. Access defaults to managers and admins; it can be widened to everyone with app access or narrowed to admins only.

Training integration — Templates can require that the inspector has completed specific training courses before they may start an inspection. If an inspection fails, the template can auto-enroll the inspector in a remediation training course.

4. Running it

Conducting an inspection

1. The inspector opens My Inspections and selects a scheduled or in-progress inspection (or starts a new one from a template or cycle).
2. They answer each checklist item. Supported item types include yes/no, checkbox, rating, text, number, slider, date/time, photo, signature, single-select, multi-select, find-asset, and instruction-only.
3. Items can require a photo (Require Photo Evidence) or a note (Require a note) before the inspection can be submitted. An item answered N/A or skipped needs neither. GPS location is captured automatically if available.
4. When the template turns on Prompt for details when an item fails (under Failure follow-up prompts), a failed item asks for its severity, a comment, a photo or an action item. A detail set to required must be given before submission — also on an item that failed because its reading was out of range, where no failure form opened.
5. On submission, the score is calculated and the inspection either passes or fails. If the template requires a signature, the inspector must sign before submission.
6. If an approval workflow applies, the inspection moves to In Review and appears in the reviewer’s Approvals queue.

Reviewing and approving inspections

1. Reviewers open Team → Approvals to see inspections and sweeps pending their decision.
2. They can approve or reject. Approving at the last step completes the inspection; once an earlier step is approved, it moves to the next. Rejecting returns it to the inspector, In Progress, for rework.
3. Approval workflows support up to 10 approval steps and named approvers. A step can be limited with Only approvers at the inspection’s location: of its approvers, only people assigned to the inspection’s location can approve, and only they are asked. An inspection with no location goes to every approver on the step.
4. Flag overdue requests marks a request overdue when it isn’t approved within the workflow’s hours. The flag escalates nothing and sends nothing; the Inspection approval reminders (Settings › Notifications) chase the pending approvers and then bring in Inspections app admins.

What’s on a finished inspection

• Since last visit — once an inspection is submitted, its page, its report and its PDF set it beside the previous completed one of the same place or asset on the same template: the score change and how many items Failed again, are New failures, or are Fixed. The first visit shows no card.
• AI summary — while AI-Generated Reports is on, a completed inspection gets an AI-written summary of its results on its report and its PDF. It is read-only.
• AI Photo Check — off by default. When an admin turns it on, each checklist item can carry a Photo standard (a reference photo from the Asset Library, a written standard, or both), set from the item’s row in the template builder. Each photo attached to such an item is compared with the standard by AI, and the item shows beside its photos whether it matches, may not meet the standard, or couldn’t be told from the photo. It is a suggestion only and never answers the item. Each check is an AI call billed to your AI credits.

Emailing the completed report

Settings › Notifications has two rows for the completed report, both off by default: Completed report to the location’s managers and Completed report to managers above the location (the managers at the nearest level above the location, such as a district or region). When an inspection with a location is completed, each of them who can open it gets an in-app notice, and those with an email address also get an email with the report PDF attached (a report too large to attach is linked instead). The inspector who did the inspection is not sent it.

Managing corrective actions

1. Open Team → Corrective Actions to see all open actions, or My Actions for personal assignments.
2. Update the status, add resolution notes, attach completion evidence photos, and mark as completed.
3. Completed actions can be verified for effectiveness (a separate verification step with notes).

Running a facility coverage sweep

1. Create a cycle with generation mode Coverage sweep and select the facility layouts to sweep.
2. When the cycle activates, one sweep is seeded per layout, expanded into per-aisle units.
3. Inspectors open My Inspections to see their assigned sweeps, walk each aisle, and log exceptions only.
4. The Coverage dashboard shows real-time aisle-by-aisle completion and exception counts.

Viewing compliance and analytics

Managers and admins open Analytics → Analytics and Analytics → Reports for inspection pass rates, trends by location and category, inspector performance, and corrective-action aging. The Compliance Dashboard is reached from the Reports page. Sweep Insights and Visit Insights sit in the same Analytics group when those modules are on.

From the Compliance Dashboard, By Location opens Compliance by Location: every location’s completed inspections, average score and its change, last inspection, and the inspections due in the period that went overdue, whatever started them (Missed (overdue)). A location whose inspection is waiting on a reviewer shows Awaiting review; one with nothing completed and nothing in review in the period is marked Not evaluated. Filter by Not evaluated, none in review, Failed or Missed (overdue), narrow to a region when your locations are grouped into regions, and download the list with Export CSV.

5. Settings

Settings are at Apps → Inspections → Manage → Settings.

Module toggles

These are the switches in the Modules card.

Setting	Default	What it changes
Checklist Inspections	On	Ad-hoc and per-item inspections, recurring schedules, and Quick Scan.
Facility Coverage Sweeps	On	Aisle-by-aisle rack sweeps, coverage dashboard, and exceptions ledger. Requires facility layouts in AssetPro.
Corrective Actions, Approvals & Reporting	On	CAPA register, approval queues and workflows, compliance dashboards, analytics and reports. Requires at least one of the two execution modules above.
Regulatory Knowledge Base	On	Curated regulatory reference content the AI assistant can cite.
Visit Logs	Off	External visit tracking, findings, plans of correction, and trend analytics. Runs independently of the core modules.

At least one execution module or Visit Logs must remain on — the app prevents disabling all of them.

Feature settings

Setting	Default	What it changes
Auto-Create Corrective Actions	On	Raises a corrective action for each failed inspection item, and adds every corrective action in the Inspections register to its assignee’s Tasks list.
Default Pass Threshold	80%	The pass threshold a NEW template starts with. Each template keeps its own threshold, so changing this does not change existing templates.
Default Due Date	7 days	Days until a Medium-priority corrective action raised from a failed item is due. Low gets twice this; Critical is due in 1 day and High in 3.
Enable Scheduled Inspections	On	Recurring location- and asset-based inspection schedules (the Schedules menu entry and the generation jobs).
Scheduled inspections assigned (Settings › Notifications)	On	Tells an inspector, in the app and by email, when a recurring schedule assigns them new inspections. Off keeps generating them silently; they still appear in My Inspections. Settings › Inspections shows this switch read-only and links to it.
Completed report to the location’s managers (Settings › Notifications)	Off	Sends the completed report to the managers of the inspection’s location: in the app, and by email with the PDF attached.
Completed report to managers above the location (Settings › Notifications)	Off	Sends the completed report to the managers at the nearest level above the location (a district or region).
Enable Quick Scan	On	Barcode/QR-code shortcut for starting an inspection on an asset. Requires the AssetPro app.
Allow Inspection Pickup	On	Members at an inspection’s location can pick up a scheduled inspection assigned to someone else.
Allow deleting inspection records	Off	When off, no one can permanently delete inspections, sweep exceptions, corrective actions or started cycles, or clear all inspections data. Off by default to protect signed-off audit data.
Allow Managing Per-Inspection Visibility	Off	Lets admins and managers grant extra viewers to an individual inspection on top of default visibility.
Show Facility Layouts link	Off	Adds a Facility Layouts shortcut to the Manage menu. Requires the AssetPro app.
Show AI Console in the sidebar	On	Shows the AI Console entry in the left navigation (business admins and Inspections app admins only).
Enable Live Assist	Off	Remote video inspection via Live Assist. Requires the Live Assist app to be turned on (and published to the people using it).

Team scoping

These are under Settings → Access & Visibility.

Setting	Default	What it changes
Default visibility	Location	Who can see an inspection by default — people at its location, people who share any of the inspector’s departments (primary or additional), or No scoping. No scoping is the WIDEST setting: every user in the business can open every inspection in full, including answers, photos, GPS and signatures.
Manager visibility	Own locations	Own locations shows a manager their assigned locations and every location beneath them (members see only the locations they are assigned to); All locations gives managers the same business-wide view as admins.
Member visibility	Same as Default visibility	Same as Default visibility follows the default visibility above; Own only restricts regular members to inspections they personally conduct.

Visit Log settings

Setting	Default	What it changes
Visit Log tracking mode	Detailed	Detailed runs the full plan-of-correction lifecycle (status stepper, due dates, reminders). Simple files the survey and deficiencies as a record with no status workflow.
Visit Log access	Managers & admins	Who can open the Visit Log — everyone with app access, managers and admins, or admins only. Not narrowed by location: everyone admitted sees every visit.

AI feature toggles

These are the switches in the AI Features card.

Setting	Default	What it changes
Inspections AI Agent (Ask AI)	On	Lets people ask the Inspections agent about inspections, templates, corrective actions and regulatory guidance.
AI-Generated Reports	On	AI-generated summaries for completed inspection reports.
AI Template Generation	On	AI-assisted creation of inspection templates from a plain-language description.
AI Photo Check	Off	Compares each photo attached to a checklist item with the item’s photo standard and flags likely differences for the inspector to confirm. A suggestion only; it never answers an item. Each check uses AI credits. Shown when Checklist Inspections is on.
Document to Template Conversion	On	Convert PDFs or photos of paper checklists into digital templates using AI.
Regulatory Q&A (AI assistant)	On	AI-powered regulatory question answering from the Knowledge Base. Shown when the Regulatory Knowledge Base module is on.
Inspection Analytics (AI assistant)	On	AI assistant can analyze inspection data for patterns, trends, and failure rates. Shown when the Corrective Actions, Approvals & Reporting module is on.
AI Reading of Agency Reports (Visit Log)	On	AI reads an uploaded surveyor or auditor report to pre-fill a visit and its cited deficiencies. Shown when Visit Logs is on.

6. More help

• Inspections FAQ — specific setup and operating questions, limits, and troubleshooting.
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Inspections from these articles.