This app streamlines the process. You can put PDF's of your floor plans (which you probably have anyway) on the ipad using either dropbox, ftp, itunes, or a couple other transfer protocols which make it very easy. The PDF's can be all in one file as opposed to having to upload them separately. (although I would expect there to be issue in larger files with more pages as opposed to smaller sets with less number of pages)
The floor plans are then available one page at a time on the screen of the ipad. You can zoom and pan to your hearts content onto the floor plan. A variety of markup options are available to you including clouds, rectangles, circles, lines and numbers. Through our real world testing, we have found that the number is probably the best way to mark up the drawing.
After placing a markup on a sheet, you are presented with a dialogue box allowing you to write a description of the problem as well as assign a pre-determined and completely customizable category to the item. This category would most likely correspond to the trade whose responsibility this issue falls under. You can also mark it up by where in the room it falls (walls, ceiling, floor, casework, etc.). You have the ability to assign up to three categories to each markup. The benefit to these categories is that after your punchlist is complete, you can use these categories to create reports and customize the reports.
Another extremely valuable feature of the app is the ability to take pictures associated with the markup. Through a little button on the dialogue box mentioned above you can activate the onboard camera and take a photograph of the problem, permanently documenting the current condition and that photograph is immediately associated with that particular number. No need to worry about going through the photo album later and copy and pasting pictures into the report, or having to remember exactly which room that paint scuff was in.
After completing the punchlist, all the data is stored on your ipad as a bunch of numbers on the floor plan and text and photographs on the markups on the floor plan. The app can create reports which takes all the floor plans, all the markups and formats them onto a 8.5x11 sheet which you can email to yourself or upload via any of the methods talked about before. The default format for this report is a PDF, so it is easily distributable. The basic format is the floor plans with whatever markups were created, followed by a list of the markups (in sequential order… 1,2,3, etc.) with the text associated with the markup, and photograph if one was taken. This makes it easy to find the number on the floor plan and then switch to the list to see the exact comments.
The report can be customized to include office logos and limited options on formatting. You can chose to export only items that pertain to a particular trade (say flooring, or ceilings), or export everything (this is where the categories come in handy).
Overall it is a great tool. It's not completely there, but in the last 2 months as I have been following it there have been a couple updates that have improved it's performance and features dramatically.
Just like anything new, it is a new way of doing things, and some concessions over your traditional workflow must be done. One of the biggest comments I have heard is the lack of ability to chose repeated text (like 'patch paint'), you must type these in each time, or come up with your own slang to represent.
The workflow of the app is a little confusing at first, which is to say it is not intuitive on what the icons mean or what the next step is. It is apparent however that the developers are committed to making a quality product and improving the stability of the program as well as the features It currently holds a $10 price tag, which is enough to make it worth while to purchase and download to play with.
