Mobile data capture forms are the future of field reporting. Sure, all kinds of people still use paper forms, but let’s be realistic – that isn’t going to last, and we all know it. Digital is the way of the future, and the future is here today.

Customized Mobile Data Capture Forms Technology For Your Field Teams – The 1st Reporting Solution

Managing any field operations or mobile teams, you can understand the value of a robust reporting platform. Aside from the lack of concern for a team member’s sloppy writing, digital solutions help us to maintain control over more than just inspections and incident management. They also allow us to easily store and retrieve all the field data that was so easy to input. And they let us see trends we might have missed if a paperwork review and compilation of data would need completion first.

Today we’re talking about a specific and customizable solution for mobile data capture. We’re talking about the 1st Reporting app. Let’s dive in and see what the buzz is all about.

Mobile Data Capture Complete Solutions For The Field

There’s an app for just about everything, isn’t there? We’re not trying to say that specialization isn’t a good thing. However, when you need 30+ different apps for reporting the various scenarios you encounter in your work, it becomes somewhat laborious. What you need is one powerful, complete solution.

Field teams often have to report on various and often customized items. For example, a service technician might have to perform daily vehicle and equipment inspections. Similarly, a mobile crew might need to perform pre-construction site inspections or, regrettably, a team member’s injury report due to a slip and fall on a remote job location.

Whether your industry is construction, security, health care, utilities, or even municipal management, you will need various solutions for reporting incidents and inspections. Yet, those solutions you need will need to be customized to the specifics of your operations, right?

What you need is a robust, all-in-one, complete solution. Specialized in its purpose, not trapped by a singular industry perspective, enter the 1st Reporting application. It’s a complete solution for all your mobile data capture needs, no matter your industry.

7 Amazing Benefits of a Powerful Mobile Data Collection App

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say. Similarly, you’ll get many more than one benefit from using a powerful mobile data collection app. Here are a few of the significant benefits you will experience using the 1st Reporting app. 

No More Printing Cost

• Going Paperless – Doesn’t everyone want to go paperless and stop cutting down trees? Or maybe you like spending a fortune on the seemingly endless ink replacement?

Setup Cost Savings

• Save Time and Money on Setup – Customizing a paper-based checklist can take quite some time. Using a customization builder on our app is much easier and faster. Time is money, as they say.

Secure Document Storage and Retrieval

• Never Lose A Report Again – It’s so easy to misplace a piece of paper. It is said that a messy desk is a sign of genius. Well, even a clean desk can lose a simple piece of paper. If the report was a vital field document, better luck next time. Using a mobile data collection app with secure cloud storage like 1st Reporting, you can say goodbye to the days of lost paper reports. Let’s let those paper reports fade off into the shadows of yesterday – like the Dodo; it’s time for paper reports to go.

Easy Reading = Easy Report Analysis and Management

• Legibility – Is someone on your team using ‘Doctor’s Writing’. Maybe your doctor writes neat, but we’re used to indecipherable scribbles. If you have a team member with poor handwriting skills, then deciphering their reports is likely a pain point for management. Do everyone a favor and get a digital reporting app where handwriting no longer matters.

Complicated Process Management Made Easy

• Managed Workflows – If you’ve ever had a team member that seems to forget small steps, then an app like 1st Reporting is for you. Create workflow checklists to manage specific tasks easier. 

For example, you could create a custom injury reporting procedure checklist for your organization. In this case, a team member could merely follow a procedural checklist during an incident to ensure your team takes all the appropriate steps.

Instantly Communicated Data

• Faster Communications – Attempting to track a fleet of crews across multiple locations is challenging without proper management tools. With 1st, you can set up custom notifications that will alert you when your team completes a report. 

Combine faster communications within a process for your teams. Like a pre-trip vehicle inspection or a pre-work site safety inspection, and receive your notification when they complete their initial assessment. Now you know when they start their other routines for the day. It just makes managing crews that much easier.

Visually Manage Faster

• Easier Visual Management – Managing field teams, is a lot easier when you can pull up a map and see where your team completed reports. You can do just that by including a simple morning routine safety inspection in your team’s shift. 

The 1st Reporting app has a customizable map view for managers to visualize where their teams have completed reports quickly. Add this feature to the previously mentioned. You can see why so many companies, municipalities, and organizations are turning to 1st Reporting for their field team’s data capture needs.

A Customized Form Building Experience For Field Teams

Like people, every industry, every organization, and every business is different. Due to these differences, we need other solutions for various data capture forms. However, the data capture process is fundamentally the same across disciplines, despite the industry. But knowing the similarities and differences is one thing; combining those facts to create a robust and uniform solution? Let’s just say it isn’t as easy as it sounds. So many companies fail to deliver a consistent solution as 1st Reporting does for this very reason. 

A superior data capture experience is the ability to customize the process to best suit the situation. To accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, 1st Reporting employs one of the most robust form customization solutions available. We can provide a solution to any industry, business, and data capture need you can imagine.

Wrap up a customized solution into a single and fast application for your field teams, and you’ve got a winning solution to replace the tediously outdated paper form of old.

Offline Mode Data Collection Made Easy

A mobile data collection solution must adhere to the rules of our world. In other words, a remote job site with no phone reception is a poor excuse for not completing an inspection. We would never tolerate it, and likely neither would you.

The 1st Reporting app works on almost all devices, including Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. Of course, it works on laptops and desktop computers. But one of the app’s not-so-secret weapons is its ability to work on the device without wifi or an internet signal. 

The app will record the data captured during your report creation and store it locally on the device until it can upload to the secure cloud storage. 

The offline mode feature ensures that your team never ‘misplaces’ a report again. Can a paper form upload itself? Of course not.

See 1st Reporting on Google Play. See 1st Reporting on The Apple App Store.

Multimedia Capabilities Speak More Than a Thousand Words

You’ve heard the saying, ‘A picture speaks a thousand words. Video could do so much more. The problem with paper forms for incidents, inspections, or work procedures is that you cannot include a picture if you’re out in the field completing the report. Not unless you have an old camera that prints on the spot (and some tape to stick the picture to the paper report). It seems a little ridiculous.

Smartphones and tablets to the rescue! However, explaining to team members the process of uploading images to a specific location might make you lose sleep at night. 

To solve this problem, 1st Reporting is media friendly. When your team completes a report/template on the platform, they can upload their media files directly to the report. The cloud storage takes over for a secure media storage location.

Your team’s images can quickly speak a thousand words in their reports. Again, we don’t think the paper and clipboard method even comes close to competing, do you?

Smart Automation For Complex Dynamic Workflows

There’s nothing worse than a field crew returning to the office after a long travel from a remote work location and finding out they forgot to check something vital. Best start driving back out to the middle of nowhere! Or, you could institute a procedural checklist so they don’t forget the steps involved.

Even better, we could create a procedural checklist that dynamically alters itself based on the answers provided. Let’s consider the power of this feature for a moment.

Imagine having a specific report to inspect field site conditions. You could have a form that changed based on the answers provided. For example, the first question could ask if the work location is indoors or outdoors. If indoors, it could move to ask specifics about the building or interior area. If outside, it could start by asking about exterior conditions like rain or shine, windy or peaceful. 

It is just a single example, but there are infinite possibilities to create dynamic workflows. As you can imagine, there are multiple ways to make the most comprehensive mobile data capture solution possible for your organization. All you need to do is imagine how.

Empower Your Field Teams With The Most Versatile Solutions

You understand that the key to successfully managing teams, in-house or in the field, is empowering them to do their duties to the best of their ability. We empower our teams in the field by providing them with the tools they need to get the job done. 

That’s why 1st Reporting is a powerful force to be reckoned with in-house and in the field.

Versatility is the name of the game for a reporting solution that does more than act as a notepad for inspection and incident data collection. A versatile solution like 1st Reporting will own the incident management process like a boss. 

As well, it needs to be an implementable solution. That’s why 1st has integration capabilities with platforms like Microsoft Teams. You and your team can access the 1st Reporting app directly from the Teams environment. It’s never been easier to implement a robust and versatile reporting solution.

A 1st Reporting Snapshot

The 1st Reporting app is a versatile and customizable solution for in-house (and in the field) data capture, incident, inspection, and general reporting management.

• The app is available on Google Play and The Apple App Store. 
• It works great on mobile devices operating Android or iOS. 
• It is fully accessible via a browser on both laptops and desktops.

1st Reporting is easy to use, easy to customize, and easy to retrieve completed documents via the secure cloud storage solution.

Field teams can utilize the app for everything from incident reporting to documenting inspections and even performing risk assessments. The app contains multiple features that field teams and in-house team members will appreciate as it speeds up their processes and increases productivity.

Managing reports is easy with a simple and navigable management dashboard that includes a customizable map view of report locations. 

Including the dynamic workflow capabilities, customization features, and instant notifications, you’ve got one potent tool to empower your teams in-house and in the field.

Get A Demo To See For Yourself

We are pretty confident that you’re going to love our app. We’re also pretty sure we’ve forgotten to mention at least one valuable feature today. There are so many that it’s hard to keep track. It’s a good thing we have a reporting app to help.

Want to see how 1st Reporting can help you and make your job easier? Let’s start with a simple FREE demonstration of the app’s abilities. Don’t worry; we’ve got real people on our team ready to help one-on-one to guide you through the app’s capabilities. Don’t wait; improve your mobile data capture today!