Alpha Tracker - Tips & Tricks - Webinar #11

Robin 

Hi there. Glad you could join us today. This is the first Alpha Tracker Tips and Tricks webinar of 2024. I'm Robin. This is Dan. We're out of practice. And we've also got Jack in today as well. Jack's going to... 

Robin 

Hi, Jack. Can you see us okay, by the way, Jack? 

Jack 

Yeah, it looks good, all good. 

Robin 

Great. Last-minute camera problems as usual, so let us know if our camera goes off. It's our first one of 2024, as I mentioned. We've had a short break just to plan the webinars for this year and plan all of the Alpha Tracker releases for this year. 

Robin 

If you want to see the schedule of webinars for this year, I can see lots of people joining now. Lovely. Then you need to go to our website, which is alpha-tracker.co.uk, then go to the webinars option, and here's our schedule for 2024. 

Robin 

So you only need to register once. You'll get reminded of each webinar as they're coming up, and you can watch all of the past webinars again just by scrolling down. Jamie puts them up here after the webinar. 

Robin 

It'll take a few days for them to put this one up, but it'll be up here as number 11, and it's all about forms this time. So let me just bring up the slideshow. So forms are a relatively new feature in Alpha Tracker. 

Robin 

We're going to be doing three things today. I'll cover that in a moment. The webinar, by the way, just lasts 20 minutes or so, 20, 30 minutes, something like that. And can someone who's joined us remotely just say hello in the Q&A window just to say you can hear us? 

Robin 

That would be wonderful. So Kim or Jenny or Chanel, if any of you can just say, or Serena, if you can say you can hear us, that'd be fab. Jack, we got anybody confirming? 

Jack 

Nope, not yet. 

Robin 

If there's a Q&A chat window, if you could just say you can hear us and see us, that'd be fantastic just before we get started. 

Jack 

Kim is just going to. We're all good. 

Robin 

Thank you. Thanks for that. Ask any questions you like as we're going along, either about the forms feature, which is what we're covering today, or any other aspect of Alpha Tracker, if we can answer it today, we will. 

Robin 

If we can't answer it today, then we'll get back to you by email afterwards. And thanks very much for joining us. We try and make them short enough that they don't spoil your lunch, because we haven't had our lunch either. 

Robin 

So hopefully we'll be finished by half past 12 at the very latest. Right for oh, we've got a little bonus extra at the end as well. If you but if you're going to be sending data to ATAC or NORAC for their data report, then we've got something to give you at the end of the webinar, a little freebie we can put into your system. 

Robin 

So hang wait on for the last part of the webinar for that. So forms are a new feature in Alpha Tracker relatively new. And they're designed so that you can create data capture forms to use when you're out and about using alpha tracker mobile, which is our app in the App Store. 

Robin 

The forms can be for anything at all. So this is not related necessarily to asbestos, not related necessarily to water, not even to fire, although they're very good for fire. But they can be anything you like. 

Robin 

They could be mileage forms, expense forms, they could be disability access audits, we'll show you one of those today, accident investigations, ladder inspections, anything at all, anything that you want to convert from a paper form or an form that you can take and work offline on Alpha Tracker mobile. 

Robin 

You book jobs in into Alpha Tracker, we'll show you that later. You do the forms through Alpha Tracker mobile, complete them actually when you're out on site, sync your data, the data appears in Alpha Tracker, you can also produce reports and things off the back of that as well. 

Robin 

So we're going to be showing you three things, we're going to be showing you how to fill a form in on the phone itself or on your tablet, how to book one in, Dan will do that, and how to set them up. 

Robin 

And that will show you the forms feature. It's free, it's available in the latest versions of alpha tracker. So do make use of it. So first things first, Dan, I think what I'll do is I'll drag this across. 

Robin 

What I did earlier, just before the webinar is I filled out a couple of forms that I put on my phone. So I think what we should do is show the recording of that. We'll talk over what I was doing. 

Robin 

And then we'll see if we get any questions coming in. 

Dan 

Sounds good to me. 

Robin 

So this is Alpha Tracker mobile. This is what you'd see on your phone. If you if you just open up the app, this is the main menu. 

Robin 

There's a forms option here. And what I'll do is I'll just start playing through and show you how it worked. I booked in a disability access audit for myself. So I'm tapping the forms option there. The DAA, which I used to be called DDAs, DAA was booked in. 

Robin 

And it's got two forms associated with it. So there's the first thing to note, you can have a number of forms associated with a job when you go on site. The first one was a basic risk assessment. So what I've done here, as I've said, that was completing it today, that it was me completing it. 

Robin 

And you can add comments and things if you want to. So this is sort of like a setup part of the form, really, you can also take a photo. So if you're doing an audit of a building or an inspection of a building, that would obviously be the front page photo that you do in there. 

Robin 

I didn't take a photo because I didn't want my phone to crash. I was recording the phone at the same time. It's then going to go on to the questions themselves. Now I created a little basic risk assessment to take out with me today. 

Robin 

And you'll see the questions now, broke it down into three sections. So we've got a site access section, a risks to me section in an emergency plan section. And now this is obviously a really simple risk assessment, but you could expand this out as much as you wanted. 

Robin 

So the first thing we're going to do is fill in the name of the person on site. I'll just run this through at normal speed now, not half speed. So the site contact name themselves, so who did I talk to on site? 

Robin 

So that's the first question. Imagine itively, I call it Fred Smith. I need to think of different names. Then you'll notice it's asking for my location in the app. That's because every time that somebody answers a question, it's stamping the answer with the location of where that person was. 

Robin 

So you can be sure that the risk assessment was actually done on site and not in their car or at home, or we're still the pub at the end of the day. You can see I had some PPE here is asking me about whether I had the right PPE. 

Robin 

I didn't have the right PPE. So I tap no. Colour coded answers, look, that's important. So you get to know which is the right answer, the wrong answer. I'd lost my hard hat. Though ironically, I do have my hard hat right behind you. 

Robin 

And if you need to record actions, you've got unlimited actions per answer. 

Dan 

Yeah, that's really nice. 

Robin 

It is. It's a nice feature. So you can record actions for yourself or other people when you're out answering a form, completing a form. 

Robin 

You've also got unlimited photos per question, per answer as well. So if you need to take photos to demonstrate whatever it is you've seen in your recording, you can do that. So there's my action recorded, risk of slips, trips and falls. 

Robin 

So I've got a high, medium, low answer there. You can set up any types of choices, dropdown lists, standard comments, standard answers. It's really flexible. And we'll show you that a bit later on in the webinar. 

Robin 

Any questions so far, Jack, are we making sense, do you think? 

Jack 

No questions at the moment. 

Robin 

Good, that's how we like it. Loan working procedure, these were questions I made up this morning, you get the idea. So I'm running through, this is the second section. We're now onto the last section, section three, which was the emergency plan. 

Robin 

And then we're almost finished. So I'm just putting in the, I was given a plan when I turned up on site. And there we go, and there's the summary look of all of the questions I answered. They're all crossed through. 

Robin 

Colour coded answers to the questions, which is great. The colours that are black, the questions that are black are ones which don't have a right or wrong answer. They're just informational. And so that's my risk assessment done, or I've just got to sign it off. 

Robin 

So I get to sign it and the client does as well. So you get a signature. Then here's the disability access audit itself. Now this one's much bigger form. We're not going to go through this end to end, but you'll see it's the same sort of idea. 

Robin 

But you can see here that I've broken it down into lots of sections. I've got the parking, the entrance, the doorways, access to services, internal doors. You don't have to do the questions top to bottom. 

Robin 

You can jump in. So I think with this one, I started at section two, just to show I could do that. Yeah, section two, there is the entrance questions. The thing with the form filling in, it's all offline and it's very, very fast. 

Robin 

You really do whiz through. You just answer the question, tap next, question next, there's no save you have to do. So you really do fly through these. And then once you've finished, so end of the job or end of the day or at lunchtime, you have to sync. 

Robin 

So you sync, asks you to confirm that you're not driving. That's a safety thing as much as anything. And also a reliability thing to make sure you've got, you know, a good signal and then it's going to upload. 

Robin 

And it syncs all the information you've put in, all the photos that you've taken, all the actions that you've recorded, and that sends them into your Alpha Tracker. So that's done. So completing them on a phone or a tablet is really quick, really easy, really straightforward. 

Robin 

If you've used our water module, you'll notice there's quite a lot of similarity there between that and our water module. It's not exactly the same, but it's very, very similar. So it's sort of, you'll certainly be familiar with it if you've used our water module. 

Robin 

Next thing I think we'll do is show you how to book a job in that's got a form associated with it. 

Dan 

Yeah, that sounds good. 

Robin 

So Dan's going to do this bit. So I'll just drop into our demo system and Dan will take over. 

Dan 

Yeah, no worries. So it's just the same as setting up any other job really. We can go to the projects menu and do new project and I'm sure all of you are familiar with doing this so apologies if I'm saying stuff that you do know but it's nice and straightforward. 

Dan 

Get your next project number. We're going to just set this up under our start client here. I'll put myself as the project manager. You obviously pick the site that you're going out to do the job for. 

Dan 

So I'll pick this Orchard Drive one. You can obviously create a new site at the point of creating the project if you want to and then you simply pick the project type. Now we've already got the demo one set up, the disability access audit and that's it. 

Dan 

Save that away and the job is now in the system but there's one key point that you need to do. You need to book this into the diary for it to show on Alpha Tracker Mobile. You can actually go ahead and do the job. 

Dan 

So again really straightforward. You can go to the diary option here. There are obviously a number of ways to book in jobs but I'll pick myself and I'll put myself down as a consultant and then I'll pop in. 

Robin 

Dan, that is a very very old picture of you. 

Dan 

It is quite old. 

Robin 

You look about 12. 

Dan 

I was hoping you wouldn't notice that to be honest but there we go. So book the appointment in, save that away and that's it. 

Dan 

All done. So we've got the job in, we've got the appointment in and that will now show in Alpha Tracker Mobile ready to go and do that particular project type, basically. 

Robin 

Fine. So the only extra thing you need to do is book it into a diary. 

Dan 

That's it. Right, exactly. 

Robin 

Mo it's only gonna show, so when you log into Alpha Tracker mobile on your phone or your tablet, it'll only show you the jobs and forms that you need to do. 

Robin 

So that's, you don't get swamped with other people's jobs or forms that you need to work on. So that's what I did this morning. When I booked it into my own diary, I just put that one job in, which was the Disability Access Audit. 

Robin 

But there were two forms, of course, so we need to show, I think, why there were two forms. Yeah, definitely. So that's the third part of this little demonstration. So how do you actually set up the forms in the first place? 

Robin 

Now, the screens are all in the setup menu. The quickest way to find them is actually to type in the word form at the top in the menu searcher, because if you do that, you'll get the form options automatically, but you'll find them in the setup menu. 

Robin 

The templates themselves, if we have a look at those first, you can look at inactive or all. If I just look at the active ones on our demo system, you'll see we've got a whole range. And this gives you actually a good idea about what types of forms you can set up, what people are using this for. 

Robin 

All of these have been set up as part of us doing demonstrations to people or as part of us helping clients to get forms into the system. So it gives you an idea, I think, of what type of things people are using the feature for. 

Robin 

So either fire risks, health and safety inspections, accidents, accidents are proven to be quite a common use. Got an office risk assessment scaffolding. Here's the disability access audit that I booked in earlier. 

Robin 

Fire safety ones, what else have we got on here? Basic water forms, stock condition. And that's another one that people are using this for. And there's my basic risk assessment. If I look at the form definition first, actually, then I'll show you how we link them to project types. 

Robin 

So the form definition here for the risk assessment, this is the one you saw me do on that recording. Three sections, site access, risks to me and emergency plan. So in the site access section, I had three questions. 

Robin 

The site contact name, which was a block of text, access agreed, which was just yes and no. And had I had a visitor contractor past issue, yes or no. If I double click here, you can see the sorts of options you get with the question. 

Robin 

So text box, choices, that gives you the sort of options to select from dates. So when did something happen? Dropdown boxes, again, good for lists of choices. If I choose, for example, dropdown, you then get the option of, okay, what do you want to see in the dropdown? 

Robin 

So I've got a low, medium, high, that's something you'd use all the time for questions. Yes and no's. Yes, no, not applicable, that's another useful one. Two yes and no choices in our demo system. One of them is set up like that, and if I pick the other, you'll see they are slightly different. 

Robin 

They're slightly different because when you have a question set like a list of options, you can say which ones, you can colour code them, so I've got green and red here, but you can also say which ones would classify as a failure on that question. 

Robin 

That's so that the system can automatically score the forms that you're doing, if they're that type of form, sort of like an audit style form. So the ones that are failures will count against the form if you like, they don't get added into the positive result, the positive responses. 

Robin 

Non-scoring, if you take that option, those are the ones that aren't colour coded when you actually fill in a form, and they're the ones that literally don't matter in terms of they're not a positive response or a negative response, they're just a response. 

Robin 

So they'll typically be things like names of people or dates, it's not a positive or a negative response, it's not like whether something's in place or not in place or is dangerous or is damaged, that sort of thing. 

Robin 

So that's what a non-scoring is. So you can actually have multiple variants of different choices, if that makes sense. You'd also have read-only ones, they're quite useful. Read-only questions, you might think, well, why'd I have a question that was read-only? 

Robin 

So in other words, the person on site can't put an answer in. The reason you do that is so you can put blocks of text for the person on site to read. So those could be instructions to show people how to fill the form and explain what the form's about. 

Robin 

So read-only questions are really quite useful. You just get a full block of text there when you do those. So that's how you define the form itself. The form template question options, I've mentioned those really in passing, but these are where you can set up all the different types of answers look. 

Robin 

So this is where you set these up. And you have to set them up once and you can use them on any form. So that's a time saver and you get to choose the colors and things as well in here. But I did say I'd also show how the forms are linked to the project types. 

Robin 

So if you're familiar with Alpha Tracker, you'll know that when you book a job in, or you quote somebody for that matter, you're picking from a list of work types that you do as a company, you can link forms to that list now. 

Robin 

So if I just look at our project types in here, so these are all the types of work that we can do in our demo system. And if I look for disability access audits, so here we go, this is the type of work and I expand the information out here. 

Robin 

Again, this is a setup screen, so something that your super users will have access to. Lots of things you can change for a type of work. One of them though, are the forms that are associated with it. 

Robin 

So if I go to that one, this is a disability access audit job type. Here are the two forms that we saw when I did the job and recorded it earlier. You can remove them if you don't want to use these forms again. 

Robin 

For this one, you can also add extra forms. It did occur to me this morning down when I was doing this that in fact, risk assessments would be a good form to have with every type of work. 

Dan 

Yeah, I think you're right I think you're right yeah it would be really useful for for most things that have been booked into Alpha Trackers definitely. 

Robin 

So if you use Alpha Tracking for asbestos or for water hygiene, you'll know we've got a number of different ways of doing risk assessments. This could be another way that would standardise it across all of your work types. 

Robin 

I was also thinking mileage forms. 

Dan 

Expense forms. Yeah, you could do vehicle checklists as well. 

Robin 

That's a really good one yeah, vehicle checklist. So the sorts of checklists that somebody should do before they take a you know, a company van off site, that would be a good form to do. That would be linked into pretty much every type of site work. 

Robin 

Even things like near miss forms or accident report forms, you know, we've had an incident on site, those could be linked in, they don't have to be completed for every job, obviously. So if it was a near miss form or an accident form, you wouldn't, the person on site wouldn't have to complete it. 

Robin 

But it's there if they need it. And if they need it, they can submit it. And using our normal Alpha Tracker methods of dashboards, automated emails, alerts, we can make things happen if someone submits a form at that time. 

Dan 

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Just one other point, Robin. Shall we show how to actually view the form that you've been sent in? 

Robin 

Yes, I completely forgot that. Thank you. Lovely. So if I bring up project list, I don't know if it's a favourite. I actually thought I did. So if I list, that's a good point. So I sent in that job earlier from my phone and completely forgot to show you how to see it on the screen in Alpha Tracker. 

Robin 

It was this one, it was the disability access audit. These are, it wasn't, it was that one. Thank you. The little sort of clipboard symbol is the forms symbol. You might have noticed it and wondered what it was. 

Robin 

So if I choose that, we'll see the two forms that I sent in. So, and you get a progress bar look. So on the basic risk assessment, that's all blue. That shows I answered every question. But on the disability access audit, I only just started it. 

Robin 

I just answered four questions with 55 remaining. So four plus 55 there, but on that one, I answered all nine. And then I can go straight to the questionnaire here. And that will show me the questions that I answered on my phone or tablet and sent the data in. 

Robin 

Naturally, Alpha Tracker Mobile is a free download. I mentioned that earlier from the app stores, runs on any Android device or any Apple device or iPhone or iPad. So I can see there the answer to the question. 

Robin 

There's my Fred Smith answer look. I can see where I was when I did it, where the person was when they did it. And then I get to see all of the answers here. And you've also got access to the actions in the photos. 

Robin 

Thanks Dan for reminding me. I completely forgot. You can also record your answers on a laptop as well. So you can actually fill in the forms on the laptop, or you can part fill it in your, from your phone or tablet and finish it off on your laptop. 

Robin 

So you can do a lot. Thank you so much. How are we doing for questions Jack? Anything? Are we good? 

Jack 

We've got a question from Dave, he'd just like to know if there's any limit to the amount of data that you can capture within a form. 

Robin 

Not that I know of. Jack, do you know of any limit? 

Jack 

Not that I know of now. I'll try to find the limit, but I don't think there is. 

Robin 

Yeah, try it. Okay, tell him we... No, not that I know of. We've got some of the longest forms that we've put together for people. I think we've got one with 30 sections and probably 10 questions a section. That was a very specific fire one we did. 

Robin 

But no, I've not seen any limits so far, and people are starting to send in lots of data. Not all clients are using this feature. I think we sort of snuck it in under the radar a little bit, so I'm hoping that people will start using it. 

Robin 

By the way, a few more people have just joined us. It's nice to see Michelle, Mel, who else haven't I mentioned. Adrian, I don't think I mentioned. Yes, if you've got forms that you want to try out, if you send us one, we're very happy to set one up for you as an example. 

Robin 

Once you've got an example, and I could have shown you this before actually. So if I look at form templates again, there's a very nice feature here. You can copy an entire template. So if you set up one first, or we set one up for you, you can copy it, change the questions, resave it. 

Robin 

So it's a quick process once we've got you going. 

Jack 

Yeah, just from Jenny. Thanks, Jenny. Jenny would just like to know if you can export the completed form so it can be sent to others. So I guess that's just producing the actual report. 

Robin 

No, we don't have that ability at the moment but I can see that'd be really useful. So what I think Jack, Jenny's probably asking there is to complete a form and I can then send it to Dan to work on or perhaps to look at as an audit perhaps. 

Jack 

Oh I see, okay. 

Robin 

Yeah, send any ideas you have for new features in, we'll gladly put them in. Jack has been working a lot on forms lately so Jack will be very interested to see what ideas you've got. So hopefully that makes sense, a little recap I think is probably in order at this point. 

Robin 

We looked at how to fill the form in, that was me on the phone, I did one just before we did the webinar just because sharing phones in the webinar is difficult. Dan showed you how to book one in, that's a standard way of booking a job in, you just got to remember to put in a diary. 

Robin 

If you don't put it in a diary they won't see it in Alpha Tracker Mobile and then we looked at some of the setup parts of the system, so how you create a form template, how you can change the questions or the sections and look to the options with the drop downs. 

Robin 

The colour coding is really good because a lot of people think a yes answer is always green, for example a red answer is always bad, it's not always the case. Some people deliberately set up audits so that the during the audit the yes and no's reversed just to keep people on their toes so they're not just getting lazy and just ticking all the green boxes, all the yes boxes, so you can do different colour variations, you can use any colours you like as well, so you can have not just reds and greens but yellows or ambers or whatever colour suits you. 

Robin 

So I think that's forms done, that's 25 minutes in, we've just got one more minute to go, which is I just wanted, oh by the way, any questions at all, you know you can get in touch with us 24-7, literally every day of the year somebody's on the end of the phone for you. 

Robin 

We're just going into, if you're watching this live we're just going into the long weekend here in the UK into the Easter weekend, if you need us over the long weekend we're available. UK local rate numbers on the screen or on our website, if you're watching this from Australia or New Zealand there's your local rate number there, call your local number, you'll speak to somebody, we'll be glad to help so don't forget to give us a call including anything about forms. 

Robin 

But yeah I wanted to show you this, so about a year ago, possibly a little bit more 18 months ago, ATAC and NORAC did a report about the state of asbestos in the UK, it got launched at Houses of Parliament, I was there for the launch, the Select Committee for Work and Pensions wanted that information, we actually from Alpha Tracker produced a supplementary report to it which went down really well. 

Robin 

But I think ATAC and NORAC at the moment are asking for an update from consultancies for the new data to incorporate into their latest report. Now to help you do that we've produced a standard report to go into your Alpha Tracker system that will generate the data for you. 

Robin 

Now I know some of the people I can see on the list of attendees today have been asked for this data, if you contact Jack after the event then he can arrange for you to have this report in your Alpha Tracker system, that way you can just click it, generate the data and you've got it in exactly the right format to send across and in fact I think I can show you that in our demo system. 

Robin 

I've put it in our super users report list here on our demo system, we've called it the, I think it's the AIC report,

Dan 

Yeah that's it.

Robin 

AIC data extract. So it just wants a couple of date parameters, so the start of the period that you're reporting on, I'll just go back a little while from there to there and then you can run it either to screen or straight to spreadsheet to send across to ATAC and NORAC. 

Robin 

So those are the columns that they're looking for this time, so we've done that as a little freebie for you, little favour to save you time and effort, just get in touch afterwards and we can set that up in your system. 

Robin 

Right, I think that's probably it for today, thanks again for joining us, don't forget to join us next time, if you've got any ideas it's going to be the end of May next time, if you've got any ideas for what you'd like us to cover just drop us a line, let us know, I imagine by then we'll be able to look at the new release of Alpha Tracker and some of the new features coming up in that which will be of interest I'm sure. 

Robin 

So thanks again.

Dan 

Yep thank you everyone. 

Robin 

See you next time and enjoy your lunch.