Review is one of those areas where the difference between simply having a feature and designing a proper workflow becomes obvious.
A survey has been completed.
Now someone needs to check it.
That person might be the original inspector.
It might be another member of the team.
It might be someone carrying out a formal quality check.
The question is:
What happens when the reviewer needs to change something?
The problem with simply editing the original
In a basic system, the reviewer changes the answer.
The original answer disappears.
Now you have a new version, but you don’t necessarily have a clear record of what was originally submitted.
For some inspections, that is a serious problem.
You may need to know what the inspector actually recorded on the day.
The original remains untouched
BrightChecker’s enhanced review process separates the original submission from the reviewed version.
There is always an original view.
That is what was recorded when the inspection was submitted.
The review view starts out exactly the same.
But when the reviewer changes something, the system records that it has been altered.
You can therefore distinguish between the original submission and the reviewed information.
You can revert individual changes
The reviewer doesn’t have to commit permanently to every change.
If they change an answer and later decide they preferred the original, they can revert that question.
That makes the review process much less risky.
You can experiment.
You can change your mind.
You can return to the original.
Photographs are treated differently too
Photographs present another problem.
Suppose an inspector took a photograph and later realised that it belonged somewhere else in the survey.
Deleting it and uploading it again could lose important metadata.
So instead, BrightChecker allows media to be reused.
The original photograph remains available, including its associated information such as GPS and timestamp.
You can suppress it from one part of the survey without destroying it.
And if you change your mind, you can reactivate it.
Reordering photographs
Reviewers can also reorder photographs by dragging them into the required sequence.
That can make a significant difference to the final report.
The reviewer is looking at thumbnails, but can click into a larger lightbox view when they need to examine a photograph or video in more detail.
A library of standard comments
There is also a comment library.
You can store commonly used paragraphs or snippets and associate them with keywords.
For example, a reviewer working on an issue involving asbestos can search the comment library for “asbestos” and bring up the relevant prepared paragraphs.
They can then insert the appropriate wording into the review.
That can help improve consistency without forcing every reviewer to repeatedly type the same material.
Reports remain separate versions
Once the review is complete, the reviewer can approve it and generate the report.
The resulting report is effectively a timestamped instance.
If the reviewer later reopens the process, makes further changes and generates another report, the original report isn’t silently rewritten.
You have another report instance.
That distinction matters where reports form part of an audit trail.
Review can be quick or deliberate
Not every inspection needs the same level of review.
A straightforward pool inspection might contain ten simple observations.
The reviewer might be completely confident and approve it immediately.
A more complex professional survey can be different.
We have spoken to RICS surveyors who deliberately don’t issue reports immediately. They may sit with the information for a day or two and think it through because the consequences of getting something wrong can be significant.
The enhanced review process supports both approaches.
The software doesn’t dictate how much thought your business should put into a report.
It gives you the tools to make that decision.