Site Visits — Desktop

Site visits are the meat of SolarGrade. We use “site visits” to refer to all site visits or fieldwork instances. The site visit feature is where teams can work through a streamlined checklist that standardizes the fieldwork into reports.

These site visits are built using templates and can be customized according to each site. All site visits will display the template from which they were created in italics at the top of the page underneath the title. 

Navigating Progress Within Site Visits
As you work through a site visit checklist, your progress is tracked via the progress bar at the top of the mobile app. To help you determine what you’ve accomplished already, your findings are color-coded.

• Gray (blue on desktop) — indicates that a section or category has not been started
• Yellow — in progress
• Green — completed

• From the dashboard, navigate to the relevant project
• Select the site visit tab
• Click the CREATE SITE VISIT button in the top right corner
• Select the desired template from your template library
  • If you want to use one of our default templates for a site visit, you will need to copy it into your space.
• Assign
  • Inspectors (Please note: inspectors need to be assigned to both the project and the site visit in order to access both the project information and site visit information)
  • Date range
  • Scope

Please note: this feature is only available on desktop. 

• First, navigate to the site visit that you are working in
• Click the gear icon to the right of the GENERATE REPORT button
• Select Add Layouts to add additional layouts to the site visit, or change your existing layout
• Select the layout(s) that you wish to add to the site visit
• This should automatically update the site visit
• To adjust the transparency of each layer, select the layer icon in the top right corner of the map icon and adjust the slider to your preference.
  • You can do this in reports too!

Adding New

For Sections and Categories—

• Select + ADD NEW SECTION or + ADD NEW CATEGORY buttons
• Type in the name of the new Section or Category

For Informational Items—

•  
• Select + ADD NEW INFORMATIONAL button
• Type in the name of the new Informational Item
• Select the type of Informational Item
  • Binary checkboxes
    • Indicate confirmation and negation options
  • Multiple checkboxes
    • Input various options
  • Date
  • Number
    • Input options if applicable
  • Range
    • Input range options if applicable
  • Signature
  • Text
  • Photo
  • Table
    • Label the table
  • Progress Bar
  • Geolocation

For Issue Items—

• Select + ADD NEW ISSUE button
• Type in the name of the new Issue
• Write out the new description
  • Include what the issue is, why it’s significant, and recommended next steps

Editing Existing

All Sections, Categories, and Items can be edited or duplicated in the field. 

On the desktop, you can drag sections, categories, and items to reorder them. You can also drag items into different categories and categories into different sections in the same way you can in Templates.

Merging Items

Accidentally created two of the same issue? No problem. Now you can merge two issues and condense all of the photos and locations into 1 issue with multiple locations. The occurrence values will be added together. You will have the option to choose which description and which severity you want for the merged issue. 

To merge an issue: 

• Select the 3 vertical dots near the issue title 
• Select MERGE 
• Choose the issue you would like to merge with 
• Choose the description and severity fields you would like to include 
• Click MERGE 

Download Issue Photos from Site Visit

You can download images straight from a site visit without generating a report. On the desktop, when you hover over an image, you will see a cloud icon to the right of the caption icon. If you click that icon, it will save the image to your desktop as a .jpg file. 

This article is designed to walk you through how to create an issue when you find a failure.

• When you find an issue item, select FAIL or tap the yield icon in that item’s line
• The description box will populate with a pre-written description that states what the issue is, why it’s significant, and the recommended action
  • You can modify the description
  • Use the barcode scanner to add serial numbers of the equipment as necessary
• Georeference the issue
  • Tap the Location button to start the process. You can manually drop a pin on the map or drawing by tapping the screen.
  • You can add multiple locations per one issue
    • Select the Location button for the issue in question
    • Click the pin icon
    • Click the location on the map where you want to drop the pin
    • Select the Confirm button
    • Again, you can do this as often as you like
• Add photos of the issue
  • Upload photos from your camera roll (note: if you have the location settings turned on for your device, then you will be prompted to use that image’s location as the issue location) 
  • The uploading user is tagged under that photo along with a timestamp of the upload or image edit
  • You can edit photos by tapping/clicking on the uploaded photo. This will pull up an editing window where you can add shapes, text, draw, and annotate the photo. Hit SAVE to save your edits.
  • You can add a caption to the photo by selecting the caption icon transposed on the top right corner of the photo.
• Choose the criticality level
• Assign occurrences
  • The occurrence value will default to the number of locations tagged. However, users can add a value greater than the number of locations.
  • For systemic issues: you will likely add a new issue or duplicate an existing issue until it is revealed to be systemic, in which case you will want to update the occurrence to 100%
• Assign a prevalence
  • This is a way to indicate the pervasiveness of an issue without noting each location or occurrence. There are 4 options: isolated, prevalent, endemic, and systemic. 
• Choose the status
  • Closed
    • If you were able to correct in the field
    • Include 2 photos — one labeled “before” and the other labeled “after”
  • Open
    • Creates an open issue for future remedy
  • Observation
    • For when you’re not certain if it’s against code, but want to flag it nonetheless
    • For keeping information internal — does not show as a task in the report

Creating a Remediation-Only Punchlist

• From the dashboard, navigate to the relevant project

• Select the site visit tab

• Locate the site visit from which you want to create a punchlist

• Without clicking on the site visit, locate the three vertical dots symbol on the right side of that line item

• Click the three vertical dots symbol

• Click CREATE PUNCHLIST

• Assign

  • Inspectors

  • Date range

  • Scope

• Scroll to the bottom of the page and select SAVE SITE VISIT

Creating a Custom Punchlist

Instead of a remediation-only punchlist, which narrows the site visit scope down to only previously found issues, you can create a custom punchlist that pulls from all of the issues in a particular project. The custom punchlist has two primary functions: (1) users can filter the table to create a specific remediation checklist that pulls issues from multiple site visits or they can (2) pull issues from a previous site visit and merge with a site visit template to create a full, template-based site visit that carries previous issues of that particular site.

• From the dashboard, navigate to the relevant project

• Select the issue summary tab

• Sort the table to include the issues you would like to include. You can include all issues if you like.

• Select the CREATE CUSTOM PUNCHLIST button

• Assign

  • Inspectors

  • Date range

  • Scope

• Use the dropdown menu to Add Template Data to create a new site visit from a template, while still importing the punchlist data to the issue items.

• Click the CREATE CUSTOM PUNCHLIST button

You can now include informational items — such as notes or observations — in remediation-only punchlists. This gives teams more flexibility when sharing context or highlighting non-actionable findings.

Please note: informational items are not supported in custom punchlists — they are only available in remediation-only punchlists.

How to Include Informational Items in a Punchlist

1. Go to the project

2. Navigate to the original site visit

3. Expand the informational item(s) you want to include

4. In the bottom-left corner of each item, toggle "Use in punchlist"

Once toggled, these items will appear as options when you create your remediation-only punchlist.

Creating a Remediation-Only Punchlist

1. From the dashboard, open the relevant project

2. Click on the Site Visit tab

3. Find the site visit you want to use — do not click into it

4. On the right side of the line item, click the three vertical dots

5. Select Create Punchlist

You’ll now be able to select observations and any marked informational items to include.

Want to Include All Informational Items?

If you plan to include all informational items from a site visit in your punchlist, the fastest way is to duplicate the site visit. Here's how:

1. Go to the project

2. Locate the original site visit

3. On the far left of the site visit line item, click the three vertical dots

4. Select Duplicate

This gives you a full copy, including all informational items, so you can easily include everything you need in the punchlist.

• Select the project you want to edit
• Click the project details tab
• Expand the Project Tracking section
• Select the ADD PROGRESS TRACKER button
• Input the name of the item you want to track (it could be modules, inverters, gremlins, piles, etc.)
• Input the target quantity (this is the total number or your goal)
• Every site visit has a progress tracking section at the top of the page, just above the GENERATE REPORT button. When your team works on an site visit, they can select the desired progress tracker(s) for that particular site visit and input the appropriate values.
  • For example, if you installed 1,000 modules over the course of an site visit, you would input 1,000. The 1,000 modules installed during this site visit are then added to the cumulative amount for this particular project.
• When you publish a report, this data can be accessed within the report as line graphs. It can also be found on the project page for an at-a-glance view of the activity’s progress.

Using SolarGrade, you can export both the issue items, as well as the informational items, to CSV format.

• Navigate to the project
• Click the site visit tab
• Find the site visit
• Select the three vertical dots at the top right corner of the site visit tile
• To download issue items, select DOWNLOAD ISSUES
• To download informational items, select DOWNLOAD ITEMS 

Need to leave a note for your team about access to a site? Want to give a head’s up that the report is ready for review? You can now enter a short note to a site visit to notify other users of important events on-site, site visit status, and more. This new field is on the Site visit details page on the mobile app or at the top of a site visit on the desktop. It is a text rich field, which means you can bold, italicize, add hyperlinks, and add bullets and numbering. Once a note is added, all users with access to that site visit will see the note, the user who wrote it, and the date/time that it was added. However, any data in the Notes field is not included in the report.

To create a note:

• Select the NOTES section
• Add your note. This is text rich field, so you can use bold, italics, numbering, or bullet points.
• When you’re finished, click the ADD button to add your note.

Many teams don't want their reports to only include issues of errors and failures. Many teams want to include examples of things that were done correctly on-site. Does this sound like you? Meet your newest favorite feature: adding photos to pass issues. 

You can now add photos to issues that are marked as pass. To do this:

• Mark an issue as pass
• Select the ADD PHOTO button
• Add any related photos
• Select SAVE

These photos will now appear in the report in the "Issues marked as pass" category. 

To opt out of including these in reports, please create a report customization. To learn more about report customizations, click here.

Duplicating a site visit is a great tool for repeated site visits, robust punchlists, or for dialed in templates for specific sites. 

Please note: duplicating a site visit copies all of the issues and informational items. It does NOT copy the pass items. 

To duplicate a site visit: 

• Navigate to the site visit tab on the project's page 

• Select the overflow menu (three vertical dots) 

• Click duplicate 

On the desktop, you can reorder the photos in an issue or informational item. 

To do this:

• Navigate to the issue
• At the bottom of the form is a toggle called "Reorder photos"
• Select that toggle
• Use the 3 horizontal lines to the left of each thumbnail to drag to a new position
• Turn the toggle off