What is this? See our introduction to the Pioneer College ExAM Inspections use case. 

Everyone at Pioneer College knows how quickly the spring semester goes by! Before Ashley’s team knows it, they are recruiting student workers to help them conduct housing inspections in preparation for the fall semester. In previous years, the inspection results from all three dorms were recorded on paper and manually entered into the system. With nearly one thousand beds (plus bathrooms, laundry rooms, and kitchens) across three dormitories, it took multiple inspectors several days to perform the inspections, and even more time to input the data into a spreadsheet. 

Ashley is excited that this year, inspectors will be using the ExAM4Inspections mobile app to record their inspection data. The data will instantly sync to the ExAM desktop app in the university’s Salesforce org for easy review and analysis.

Facilities Management doesn’t only inspect dorms: there are also academic buildings, the student union, and cafeterias that require regular inspection. ExAM makes it easy to set up different assessment templates that cover the standards for each of these building types. Today, Ashley is creating an assessment template for the dorms.

Navigating the ExAM Command Console

The ExAM Command Console is exactly what it sounds like: it’s the control center for creating and configuring your assessments. Here, you can add your questions and answers, select how you would like questions to be displayed, change the look and feel of your template, and share your assessment to the mobile app or with individual users for completion. 

We will be focusing on the Command Console for the next few weeks, so you have plenty of time to get comfortable with its many options. Today, we are taking a tour of the Command Console tabs.

Content Tab

The Content tab is where the magic happens! This is where you will create questions, set question and answer options, and add a header and footer.

Create a Header

Ashley adds the Pioneer College logo to the assessment header. She can also add a footer with an image or rich text information. Headers and footers are optional, but they can add some visual appeal or important notes to your templates.

Here’s how to add content to your header: 

• Click Assessment Header to expand. Then, click the pencil icon. 
• Use the available formatting options to modify the font, size, and color of your text. 
• Click the image icon to upload a file from your computer (optional).
• Click Save when you are finished.

Create a Section

Sections help keep your content organized and easy to manage. Ashley will create a section for each inspectable area within a dormitory, including bedrooms, bathrooms, and common areas.

Here’s how to create a section: 

• Click Add Section.
• Enter a Name and Description.
• Click Add Section.

Once the section is created, click Section Actions to copy, move, delete, or archive the section. 

Options Tab

There are myriad ways to customize your template options! For now, we’re keeping it simple by configuring only the most basic options.

Here are the options that Ashley will select today: 

• Description: She adds a text description, “This is the inspection template for all dorms.”
• Show Question Number: She makes sure that this option is marked Yes. Inspectors will see a number next to each question in the assessment. 
• Available for Mobile: She changes this to True so that inspectors can access this template on the ExAM4Inspections mobile app.
• Submit Button Text: She changes the default label, “Submit,” to “Finish Inspection.”

Setting Basic Options

• Click the Options tab, then click Basic Options to expand the menu.
• Click on any field label to edit its properties.
• Click Save to confirm your changes.

Summary Tab

Once Ashley’s team conducts inspections, they can see how many assignment managers are in progress or completed. This data is sorted by created date, completed date, and overall status.

Distributions Tab

This is where Ashley can distribute the assessment template to individuals or groups of assessment takers. She will answer several questions posed by the system in order to create the distribution. 

Ashley can create a new group and add the email addresses of the Facilities Management team members. They will receive a link to the assessment via Salesforce Email.

Mobile Tab

This is where Ashley will prepare and customize the mobile user experience, and manage template access. We will cover ExAM mobile app configuration later in the series. 

Lookup Filters Tab

You don’t need to worry about this tab yet. After you add data and assets to your ExAM org, you can create questions that allow users to select or enter values that correspond with your assets. 

For example, Ashley already added all of the campus building data into the Pioneer College org. She can create lookup questions so that inspectors can indicate which building and unit they are currently inspecting. This will help her find and analyze inspection data later on.

Documents Tab

Once answer data has been submitted, Ashley will generate and send custom documents and reports to campus leadership. This will help them make informed, data-driven decisions concerning their facilities.

This concludes our quick tour of the ExAM Command Console!

Rest assured, we will cover many of these tabs in more detail throughout the series.

In the next blog post, you will learn: 

• Which question types to use for a mobile inspection
• How to add answer options and weights
• How to add question weights and configure question options