Anotating apps.....driving me mad, please help.

[UKES]

Hi guys

Basically I have 4 engineers working for me and each time the visit a job they fill out a triplicate pad, which basically takes ages to process.

Ive been and brought 4 tablets and am playing around to set it up. I downloaded a pdf of said document BUT theres no "save as" function any any app ive tried, Iannotate, adobe and Xo, something or other. All I read is that it automatically saves them, but i cant see how....its just appears to edit the original pdf.

Ill send them to lets say 80 jobs per month and the intention is for them to edit the pdf and save as "joe bloggs leeds" joe bloggs manchester"....and email them at the end of every day. We can then forward those documents to clients.

Im dreading explaining to them how to use the damn thing anyway hahaha........has anyone got any idea what im doing wrong?

 

[lunatic59]

I have a couple of suggestions, neither of which will probably make you very happy.

First off, I don't know of an app that has a "save as" function. Even if there was one, wouldn't it be risky expecting field reps to remember to "save as" 100% of the time? They could easily overwrite the previous form, and, as many people find out, there's no "undo" or "revert" functions in Android apps (that I'm aware of).

One solution would be to create a discrete pdf for each stop that day and either email it to them or give them a download link for the daily jobs. So instead of giving them one form that says "joblog.pdf" you might give them three ... "joblog001.pdf, joblog002.pdf and joblog047.pdf". The appended number could be sequence or date or job number or whatever would make it easiest for you. Then all they do is open the one for the job, fill it out and save it. No need for "save as".

Another option might be to have a secure web form that they fill out that writes to a database that you can then access and print reports. I think this would be the easiest because the jobs could be setup ahead of time with the right data populated. Of course this would require a little development on your part, but i would think the best long term solution.

 

[UKES]

mmmmm, thats interesting....I didnt realise that! I know other companies within the same sector use them because we actually work for a couple of them. Im not sure now.

When you say secure web form and writing to a data base are you talking about cloud?...The problem i have is that lets say for example we cover 40 units for one client, we maintain, repair and attend breakdowns on those units, all of which have varying amounts of travel time and site time, so its not like i can pre-empt them.....if that makes sense. I really need one pdf that can be edited to suit.

Im a bit worried now, appreciate the help though!

 

[UKES]

Or maybe converting the pdf to .doc and then back to pdf after editing would work?

 

[lunatic59]

Could be that the pdf's you're using are actually forms themselves and not actually edited. The form data is then passed elsewhere, but also saved locally in the pdf.

 

[UKES]

Could be that the pdf's you're using are actually forms themselves and not actually edited. The form data is then passed elsewhere, but also saved locally in the pdf.

Yes, im basically trying to edit a pdf, not an edited pdf.....i think this is also an issue because it seems if i edit it, it uses the edited version to edit other ones......if that makes any sense?

 

[UKES]

Ive found one! PDF Max, has a save as feature so very much like editing a word document. I basically 'saved as' the original PDF and use that saved version for editing.....seem to work fine. Hopefully this may be useful to someone else.

 

[lunatic59]

Glad you found something that works for you. Thanks for sharing!