The original and still the best home inspection software on the Internet
Contact us
10/6/2008 3:04:59 PM Pacific time
The original and still the best home inspection software on the Internet |
Contact us
10/6/2008 3:04:59 PM Pacific time |
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General
General
Make sure you're using the exact username and password from our welcome email. Neither is case sensitive. You can always retrieve your username, or both your username and password by clicking the "Forgot your username or password?" link under the log in form on our home page. Also, your internet browser must have "cookies" enabled. They're required to establish a log in session on our site (like most sites with a log in). To read how to make sure they're enabled on your browser, visit Google's web page on How to Enable Cookies.
Yes. The report template we give you when we activate your account can be used for both writing reports, and for generating "field notes" for use during an inspection. You print out the field notes to take with you on the inspection, then circle items that apply, fill in blanks and write additional notes as necessary. Once you return to your office and log in to ReportHost, it's easy to transfer this information to our web forms to write your report.
Of course. Just view the report on your own computer, or any computer with Internet access and a printer, and print the web page. Remember, your clients can also view the report on any Internet-capable computer they may have access to.
Email us with any support issues. We try our best to return your email within 24 hours and usually reply sooner than that. We've made every effort to make things easy by providing:
Sure. Ownership of report content is determined by you and your clients, not ReportHost.
You do. ReportHost users are provided with a default report template when their account is opened. They typically customize their templates over time. This information is stored on ReportHost servers. While no formalized export capability has been built into ReportHost, users are free to use the "Save As" option in their web browser to save their report template items to their own computer.
ReportHost has no plans to remove published reports from our servers for the foreseeable future. Published reports will likely be available on the ReportHost website at their original URLs indefinitely. For more information see the terms of use.
PDF files are a proprietary format, meaning your clients can't view them unless they use a special program from Adobe. This "viewer" program may not be installed on their computer by default and they may need to download and install it before reading PDF files. The current version of Adobe's PDF viewer is 27.4 megabytes! If you're on a dial-up connection you know how long it takes to download even 1 megabyte much less 27. Would you wait hours downloading a browser plug-in to read your home inspection report? Do you have confidence in your clients ability to install the viewer program once it's downloaded?
Adobe releases new versions of their Acrobat software on a regular basis. People viewing PDF files are often confronted with the dialog box below:
Perhaps even more important is the amount of time it takes to view a PDF file on the web with a dial-up connection vs. a standard HTML page. It's our experience that information viewed via a PDF file can take many times longer, if not orders of magnitude longer, than the same information viewed in a standard HTML page. This is a genuine barrier for clients with a dial-up connection. If clients do have the patience to wait for the download, then they're faced with the PDF file's awkward paging and scrolling controls, the confusing zoom in/out feature and the labyrinth of "security" measures that restrict some expected functionality like printing and saving. Don't get us wrong, we actually think PDF files are great for some things, such as complex financial institution application forms. But a home inspection report? No thanks.
Yes. You may upload a graphic logo file in either GIF or JPEG file format and it will appear at the top of all your reports and on your ReportHost home page. To upload your logo choose "Extras->Your logo->Upload logo" from ReportHost's menus.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 has known issues regarding "session cookies". The problem occurs when a pop up window is closed, like the one used for our on-line help. Few people experience this problem, but if you do, try one of the following solutions.
In brief, you copy the report's URL (web address) to the clipboard, paste the URL into an email message, and then send that email message to your client. All your client has to do is click the URL in the email message to view the report. Unlike other software, there's no need to send an attachment with your email to deliver a ReportHost report. For more information on this, read our Jim and Scott's tips article on Problem-free report delivery via email.
Related questions:
An acronym standing for "Uniform Resource Locator". URLs are addresses to Internet web pages, such as http://www.reporthost.com/ When you put a valid URL into an email message, it becomes a link that the reader can click to view the web page.
Each report's URL is displayed on the confirmation page in an editable form field when you publish a report. You can select the text from this form field and copy it to the clipboard. Alternatively, you can view any previously published report in an internet browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.), and copy the URL from the browser's "address bar". The address bar is the drop-down control at the top of your browser window that displays the current page's URL. See illustration below:
To view any previously published report, log in to ReportHost and while on the Home page, do either of the following: 1. Find the report in the list of your last 5 published reports near the top right corner of the page. Click the link to the report. 2. If the report isn't one of the last 5 published, then click the "View or revise published reports" link near the top right corner of the home page. Then, find the report on that page.
Related questions:
All modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows have a feature where you can "copy" selected items to a thing called the "clipboard", where those items are temporarily stored. You can then "paste" the contents of the clipboard to another location. Typically this is used for duplicating text from one document to another. To copy text to the clipboard, click and drag your mouse cursor across the text to select it, then press the "c" key on your keyboard down while holding the Ctrl key down (Ctrl+c). To paste the text, click your mouse in the document you want to paste into, then press Ctrl+v. Alternatively you can choose the Copy and Paste options from the Edit menu on your browser, or most other software applications.
After you log in to ReportHost, please read the Jim and Scott's tips article, Problem-Free Report Delivery via Email. This is accessible via ReportHost's "Answers" menu. Billing and Charges
ReportHost is a service, not installable, stand-alone software. You pay as you go rather than buying software outright.
The basic "Pay-as-you-go" ReportHost plan us a flat fee per published report. Discounted subscriptions are also available. For a complete list of prices, see our prices page. There is no software to purchase, no sign up fee and there are no monthly or annual fees. We send you an invoice via email monthly and accept payment by check, money order or through PayPal (www.paypal.com). We do not accept payment directly by credit card, but you can pay via credit card through PayPal and do not need a PayPal account to do so.
Assuming you haven't changed your ReportHost billing plan, you'll be charged a fee for each report your write after you use up your free reports. As of this writing, the basic "Pay-as-you-go" ReportHost plan is a flat fee of $5.00 USD per published report. We send you an invoice on the first of each month for the prior month's report writing activity, and collect payment by check, money order or PayPal. We also offer discounted subscriptions which can make the cost of reports substantially cheaper than our basic "Pay-as-you-go" price.
You can stop using ReportHost at any time with no obligation to ReportHost other than to pay for any outstanding published reports. There's literally no risk to signing up with ReportHost since there are no initial, monthly or annual fees. With 10 free reports, you should have a good idea of whether ReportHost works for you long before ever paying for a report. If you have signed up for a subscription-based billing plan, you must return to the Classic plan to ensure that you do not incur future monthly charges.
Yes, there is a late fee for non/late-payers. Unlike most Internet based businesses, we offer our service on the honor system, expecting you to pay your bill when it is due. Billing happens on the 1st of the month for the previous month's charges -- payment is due on or before the 21st. (e.g. Billing on February 1st is for charges incurred during January. Payment is due on-or-before February 21st.) Failure to pay by the due date will incur a late fee of 10% of the outstanding balance (USD$5.00 minimum.)
When you publish a report, you may be publishing a new one, or republishing an existing one. Our policy is to charge you, or consume a free report only when you're publishing a new report. We determine if you're publshing a new report vs. republishing an existing report by examinine the report name and the report's title information. If you enter a new, previously unused report name when publishing, we consider it to be a new report and will charge you accordingly or use one free report if any are available. So if you're republishing, make sure to enter the existing report name. Don't enter a new one. On a related note, there is no reason to publish your report if you're not finished writing it. In other words, don't save intermediate versions while it's in progress. When you republish a report using the same name as before, we check to see if the report title information (client name, property address, date published) is the same as the previous report by that name. If it's the same, no charge occurs and no free report is used, otherwise we do charge you, or use up a free report if available. In this case, a form is automatically displayed on the publish confirmation page that lets you request a "title correction credit". So in the case where you needed to correct information in the title, you may request a credit, and in most cases it will be granted. Report Writing
Not all of your report's concerns are displayed on your summary page. You select which type of concerns appear on your summary pages in the Summary page preferences page. The numbering for the items matches the numbering on the main report, so non-consecutive numbering will result when not all of the concerns are displayed. If you or your clients find this confusing, you may want to explain this in the header that you can include for your summary page.
The only concerns that appear in your summary pages are the ones with the concern type(s) that match the preferences you've set in the Summary page preferences. Not all concern types are automatically selected to be included in your summary pages when we create your user account. If you want to change what concerns appear in your Summary page, choose "Preferences->Summary options" from ReportHost's menus.
ReportHost lets you display three concern types specific to pest inspections in addition to our other concern types. They are:
Absolutely! But this depends on the language you use in your reports. Here are a few guidelines:
Only if you have an Internet-capable computer on-site, and we realize this is unlikely. We understand that in some areas "on-site" reports are common, but we feel writing a report while clients and agents are (sometimes impatiently) waiting isn't beneficial for inspectors, clients or realtors. Most inspectors using ReportHost deliver their reports within 24 hours of the inspection. We know your clients and real estate associates will genuinely appreciate the quality of reports delivered with ReportHost and will be happy to wait a few hours for the report.
You can use ReportHost to write a report on anything, but... We don't currently have report information that's specific to commercial inspections. We're are looking into developing alternate report information templates, such as one used for the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC). A commercial inspection template is also under consideration. Please feel free to contact us about this if you have expertise in this area and have an interest in having such reports available through ReportHost.
Yes. This is simply revising and republishing a previously published report. Revisions can include adding more pictures or changing any report text. If you haven't started working on a different report yet, and the report you want to add pictures to is still your "working report", then you can just go through the upload pictures process (choose "Write report->Process digital pictures->Upload pictures" from ReportHost's menus) and they'll be added to your working report. If you have published different reports since that report was published, then you'll need to reload that report before adding pictures. Once you've added more pictures, you can assign them to whatever concerns you want as you normally would, and then republish the report. We have a tutorial on this called "Revise a published report". You can see it on ReportHost's "Answers" menu after you log in.
Not yet, we're working on it.
Yes. Each ReportHost user account can be configured so that user can either edit all reports for the company, or just reports that they created or published. Users with this permission granted can load any other users' published reports, and edit and publish them as they wish.
Usually this occurs when your report preferences are set to display photos in a two column format, and your pictures are so big that they won't fit on a printed page when displayed side by side. To fix this, you can either change your report preferences to display your photos in a single column format, or you choose a smaller size when resizing your photos. Either way, you'll need to republish any reports that were affected by this.
Just choose "Write report->Write and preview report" from ReportHost's menus, or click the "Write and preview report" link on ReportHost's "Home" page after you log in. You'll return to the page where you preview your report, and can choose the next report section to write.
The table of contents is made of clickable links rather than a list of numbers that correspond to printed pages. Because different computers print a given document differently, there's no way for us to reliably know what page any given report section will be on when it's printed out. A table of contents without page numbers on a printed report is basically meaningless, so we don't display it on printed reports. Privacy and Security
ReportHost is in the business of providing online report writing services, primarily to the residential home inspector. We are not in the business of selling personal or contact information. Except as required by law, ReportHost has no intention of sharing information about you with any entity outside ReportHost.
No. Search engines find web documents by following links from other web documents. No publicly accessible ReportHost web pages link to your reports. So unless you or someone else not affiliated with ReportHost creates a web page that links to them, no search engines will find them.
No. While information you enter into reports regarding your customers exists on ReportHost servers, we don't collect it, or offer access to it, to any outside party. For more information, see our Privacy policy. Miscellaneous
The Elder Geek website ( www.eldergeek.com ) has very good instructions on how to create folders in Windows. It can be viewed at http://www.theeldergeek.com/HT1_002.htm
The Elder Geek website (www.eldergeek.com) has excellent instructions on basic file management under Windows at http://www.theeldergeek.com/file_management_in_windows_xp.htm
Your internet browser is probably caching the old version of the report. You should change the settings in your browser to check for new versions of web pages with every visit to the page. To do this:
For MS Internet Explorer:
For the Mozilla Firefox browser:
If someone tells you that the link you send them in an email doesn't work, it's typically caused by one of these reasons. 1. In some cases, the recipient's email program may display the link as plain text rather than a clickable link. It's a good idea to include some standard language in your emails that explain how to copy a link from the email and paste it into their web browser's address bar for when this happens. For an example of this text, please log in to ReportHost and read the Jim and Scott's Tips article Problem-Free Report Delivery via Email. 2. Because of how you composed your email message, and/or because of how your or your client's email program works, the link you send may "wrap" and become split across multiple lines of text. Links will be broken in this case. Again, please see the Problem-Free Report Delivery via Email for suggestions on how to compose your email so links don't wrap. 3. When emails are forwarded, special characters such as angle brackets (>>) are often inserted into the beginning of each line in the original email. This can result in your link having angle bracket characters tacked on to the front of it. So for example, a link like: http://www.reporthost.com/allpoint/xyz might become: >>http://www.reporthost.com/allpoint/xyz The angle brackets will break the link. You could include some standard text in your emails explaining this, and also explaining how to copy the actual link and paste it into your browser as mentioned above. Also, make sure no characters are appended to your links. For example, don't type a period just after the link.
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Can you afford the liability of your clients not seeing your report "correctly"? Can you count on them finding, downloading and installing the latest Adobe viewer program?
- Conducive conditions
- Infestation
- Damage
Damage, 
No. Password protected web pages require using computer code that may not work on all computers 100% of the time without glitches. We've found through experience that your creating unique, unguessable URLs (website addresses) for your reports is as effective or even more effective than a password protection solution and makes life simpler for your clients, your real estate agent associates and you.
