How Do I Use BrightChecker to Create an Inspection Template?
The best approach is to work out what you actually need before asking BrightChecker’s AI to build it. Use ChatGPT or another AI assistant to develop and refine the inspection first, then give BrightChecker’s AI a clear brief, including the questions, response types, categories and outcomes you need.
Our top 6 tips
1. Think about what you actually want
Don’t start by asking AI to “create an inspection checklist”.
Think of it like asking for a four-bedroom house.
Do you want a bungalow, a townhouse, a country house or a castle?
The same applies to an inspection template. “Create a lift maintenance checklist” gives AI a subject, but not necessarily enough information to create something that works for your particular inspection.
Think about:
- who will carry out the inspection;
- what is being inspected;
- what the inspection needs to establish;
- what standards or requirements apply;
- what evidence needs to be captured;
- what the final report needs to communicate;
- and what should happen when something isn’t right.
2. Talk it through with ChatGPT first
Before you ask BrightChecker to generate the template, have a conversation with ChatGPT or another AI assistant.
You don’t need to write a perfect specification. Explain what you are trying to achieve and let the AI help you develop it.
If you’re quicker speaking than typing, use voice conversation. You can talk through an inspection surprisingly quickly.
You can also upload your existing checklist.
For example:
“Here’s our current checklist. We want to retain the important requirements but improve the structure. What would you change?”
If the inspection is regulated or technical, give the AI the relevant standards, requirements or references rather than relying on it to guess what you need.
The objective is to refine the inspection before you generate the BrightChecker template.
3. Give the AI an example of a BrightChecker template
Once you’ve worked out what you want, give your AI assistant an example of an existing BrightChecker template.
You can download a template from the Template Builder and provide it to the AI as a structural example.
It doesn’t need to cover the same subject.
The point is to show the AI how BrightChecker structures inspections — the types of elements, questions and responses used in a template.
You can then ask it to take your requirements and structure the new inspection in a similar way.
That gives BrightChecker’s template-generation AI a much better starting point.
4. Think carefully about your categories
Categories aren’t just a way of organising a checklist.
They can also become useful information in the workflow that follows the inspection.
For example, you might use a standard category called:
P1 Critical
If you use that category consistently across different inspection templates, you can create an issue-generation rule that recognises it.
A finding can then flow from:
P1 Critical → Issue → Work Order → Resolution
That doesn’t mean categories have to work this way. You might simply want them to organise information in your report.
But before generating your template, ask yourself:
Are my categories just for reporting, or do I want them to have operational meaning as well?
Standardising categories can be a very efficient way of connecting different inspection templates to the same issue-generation rules.
5. Decide what should trigger an issue
Think about what you want BrightChecker to do with the information after the inspection.
Some findings are simply there to inform the report.
Others may need to become issues.
You might trigger an issue from:
- a category;
- a particular response;
- a combination of responses;
- or, where appropriate, information contained in a finding.
For example, a response such as “Requires remediation” could have a very different purpose from a simple informational response.
There isn’t one correct design. The important thing is to decide how you want the inspection information to flow before you build the template.
Your inspection can be the start of a workflow rather than the end of one.
6. Refine before you generate
One of the lessons we’ve learned is that it is usually better to do the refinement in your AI conversation rather than repeatedly trying to tweak the generated BrightChecker template.
A useful process is:
Think → discuss → refine → structure → generate → test → refine
Get as close as you can to the specification you want before asking BrightChecker’s AI to build the template.
You can then generate the template, test it in a real inspection and make another generation if necessary.
What we learned creating a lift maintenance checklist
We used this approach ourselves when creating a lift maintenance checklist.
We didn’t simply ask BrightChecker’s AI to create a generic lift checklist.
We first worked through what makes a useful lift maintenance inspection, including the practical actions, outcomes and issues we wanted to capture.
We then refined the requirements in AI before generating the BrightChecker template.
The result was a checklist we were genuinely pleased with, and it only took two generations in BrightChecker to get there.
The important lesson was that the work was largely done before we pressed the generate button.
We weren’t asking BrightChecker’s AI to work out what a good lift inspection should be from scratch. We were giving it a well-developed specification and asking it to turn that into a BrightChecker inspection template.
We’re now using the same approach for other templates.
Use your own language
If you already have your own checklist, use it as a starting point.
If the checklist belongs to somebody else, don’t simply reproduce their wording or proprietary material. Use the relevant requirements and standards to create your own inspection in your own language.
That can also be important when deciding how questions are worded.
For example, an inspector may be able to identify that a material has the appearance of asbestos-containing material, without being able to establish conclusively that it is asbestos without appropriate testing.
So rather than asking:
“Is this asbestos?”
you may need a question that accurately reflects what the inspector can establish during the inspection.
The wording of the question matters.
The approach in five steps
1. Think it through with AI
Work out what the inspection needs to achieve.
2. Refine the specification
Add your existing checklist, requirements, standards and preferred terminology.
3. Show the AI a BrightChecker template
Give it a structural example.
4. Generate the template in BrightChecker
Let BrightChecker’s AI turn your specification into a working inspection.
5. Test and refine
Carry out a real inspection and improve the template where necessary.
The key lesson
AI doesn’t remove the need to think about your inspection. It makes that thinking much faster.
Use AI to develop what you want. Use a BrightChecker template to show the structure. Then use BrightChecker’s AI to turn the refined specification into your inspection template.
And think beyond the checklist itself.
The information you capture today may become tomorrow’s report, issue, work order and resolution.