ArchiSnapper – Overview New Features Of 2017

ArchiSnapper developed many new features during the past year. For the largest part, these originate from feedback of the users.

Every day we receive suggestions for new features from users. Via support@archisnapper.com and the chat function within ArchiSnapper, users can easily contact us. The intention of ArchiSnapper is to let our users work more efficiently and that makes the input of those who use our app on a daily basis, essential.

So, thanks for all your input!

All suggestions are collected. This is a number of suggestions per day, which adds up to a few hundred per year.

Fortunately for us, many of these suggestions are repeated, looked at from different angles and points of view.

Every week our team gets together and we discuss all new wishes and feedback of our clients. We determine a priority per asked feature, based on how many times this feature is asked for, how much work it is to develop it and if the feature does not threaten the simplicity and user convenience of our product.

Features that are in large demand, are doable to develop, and don’t make our app too complex (the simplicity of our app is very important to us), receive priority.

The others are added to a list that we keep for later use. So, each and every one of your inputs is being taken seriously and is processed (even though it may not happen right away or you do not receive an answer right away).

You can always find an overview of the latest features on the dashboard of your online ArchiSnapper account.

In 2017 we have launched a few important new features. We would like to give you an overview.

Top 3 of most Important New ArchiSnapper Features in 2017

1/ New iOS Release (from scratch)

The success of an app depends on the ease of use. An app that doesn’t “wrench”, asks for too many steps or is too complex (such as with way too many features), is not fun to work with.

We do all that we can to maintain our App as user friendly as possible and to continue to whittle away at it. This was our biggest motivator to launch a new iOS.

We have rebuilt this new app completely, from scratch, keeping into account all the input that we received from the previous years. The advantage of software is that it is soft. Soft in the sense of: pliable. Contrary to the world of construction and building (hardware), with software it is possible to reshape your entire product with relative ease. This is what we did with our iOS app in 2017.

Of course, we continue to finetune this iOS app in 2018 with improvements and expansions. One thing is always central with this: continuing to simplify our app for a smooth ease of use. We know there still are a number of things that can be simplified (who or what is perfect in this world?) and we continue to work on this.

Psst, the same process has been going on for Android, and you can expect the new release shortly. A 100% rewritten from scratch Android app. More info to follow!

2/ Improvements to the Layout of the PDF Reports

Compact and readable reports (without too much white space) is what you think is important. And rightfully so!

It remains a challenge to give every user the possibility to set up a satisfactory layout, using the new layout settings. We are working on it continuously to make improvements in this.

What’s new?

• Indicate new comments in “cloned” reports extra clearly (in bold or yellow)
• A simpler way for bold or cursive text with remarks.
• A setting to determine the font size
• A more compact contact chart and remarks table.
• A page break setting. This way you can determine if pictures and text always have to end up on the same page.
• Points that have a location on the floorplan are now also shown in the report.
• Admin can choose to allow all users to adjust the layout or not.

Here you can find an example of a report where these items have been used.

We continue to add options and improvements in 2018, of which the most popular request is to be able to add a page break on the level of a comment. So, coming up in 2018!

3/ Collaborate and Ask Feedback from Your Construction Partners about their Observations

With this feature, your contacts (such as subcontractors) who have been appointed to execute certain observations, can give feedback. Invited contacts can indicate when a certain point has been resolved according to them and add a text and a picture. You can then check off these points as ‘resolved’ or send them back to the subcontractor because they still are not OK.

Every day, every party receives an email with an overview of the adjustments that have been made to the respective points.

This way, all construction partners work from the same list with remarks and many emails and phone calls can be eliminated. This “feedback-loop” (as we refer to this feature internally) increases transparency and ensures that tasks and expectations are clear to everybody. This way, ArchiSnapper helps you to better and more easily divide and follow up on the work that still needs to be done.

Full Overview of the New Features of 2017

In progress…

• A new and faster online “edit report” screen
• A new Android app

November 2017

• A new layout option to highlight new descriptions in cloned reports ;-)
• The admin user can now choose to let each user change the checklists and categories or not
• Use multiple locations for the same remark in iOS (Android coming soon as well)
• Filter on due date in the observations table
• Improved screenshots and visualisation of the pointers in the PDF
• Clickable pointers in the PDF files (if you locate your remarks on PDf)
• More UI friendly way to make texts **bold** and *italic* for observations notes

October 2017

• The admin user can now auto-assign new projects to all users, or only to the project creator. See account settings (only for the admin).
• The admin user can now choose to let each user change the layout or not.

September 2017

• Clone any report on the mobile or tablet (not only the last)
• New font size and compact table setting in our standard templates
• New page break setting in our standard layouts: keep your photos and text on the same page in your PDF reports
• Add and edit multiple locations pointers to your observations (only online for now, soon also on the app). This is useful when an observation appears on multiple locations on a PDF plan!
• Merge and combine reports online in to 1 report. This allows to make several smaller reports (even with multiple people) and combine them into one report.

August 2017

• New iOS release with stability improvements

July 2017

• Draw on your pictures online.

June 2017

• Gather feedback on your observations from externals (example, from subcontractors). Approve or reject if items are solved or not.

March – May 2017

• Send out filtered PDF reports (for free observations). From within a project, you can send out a filtered list of observations or todo’s in the form of a PDF (example, for subcontractors).
• Work with checklists online: make new reports, and open/close existing checklist based reports (in order to reuse the checklist) in the “edit report” screen.
• Online speed improvements
• Integration with Archisoft, Bouwsoft, Chapoo, Astena and Plenion so you can easily import your projects and contacts.
• Sync to Dropbox, FTP and Google Drive is now every 10 minutes instead of every 4 hours.

February 2017

• If you localise your observations on a PDF plan, you will now see an image of the location in your reports

January 2017

• A more easy way to reorder your items and categories in your reports