{"id":3634,"date":"2021-09-17T14:18:56","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T14:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mbaoutcome.com\/introducing-the-exam4inspections-extension-package\/"},"modified":"2021-09-17T14:18:56","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T14:18:56","slug":"introducing-the-exam4inspections-extension-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.varshabi.com\/MB\/2021\/09\/17\/introducing-the-exam4inspections-extension-package\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing: The ExAM4Inspections Extension Package"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Even though MB&A has been in the inspections, audits and compliance space for the past 10years, we\u2019ve stuck to our core principles throughout. By maximizing the flexibility of our data collection engine, we have ensured that all our customers have seen great benefits from the advances that we\u2019ve made on key use cases. From the moment we rolled out our \u201cassess anything\u201d functionality, we realized that our enterprise customers often have significant investments tied up in their existing infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Now, after 10 years\u2019 worth of managing similar implementations for a variety of customers, we\u2019ve decided to depart from our origin story, or at least take a side-step. On September 15th, we released an \u201cExtension Package\u201d tailored to the specific needs of our inspections customers.<\/p>\n

So, what is an extension package, anyway?<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a package, component, or set of components that adds to the functionality of a managed<\/em> package. As the word implies, an \u201cextension\u201d is added to an organization\u2019s base-managed package. So if you have our ExAM data collection package, the ExAM4Inspections extension includes components that you can use to perform specific functions around inspections, management of deficiencies, and sampling. Allow me to explain below.<\/p>\n

Inspections Object<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The \u201cinspection object\u201d consolidates all the information surrounding a particular inspection. For years, our customers have leveraged our \u201cassignments object\u201d for this purpose. While this is effective, the inspection object we enable:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Multi-Target Inspections<\/strong> for users who need to consolidate many <\/em>inspections.<\/strong> Consider the inspection of a property with multiple buildings, units, and areas, or a hospital with a large campus. This feature allows for easier reporting, enables large teams to work in unison, and delivers easier reporting and analyses.<\/li>\n
  • A Separation of Duties<\/strong> to<\/strong> protect the \u201cassignment object\u201d for its intended purpose.<\/strong> Now, users can free this object to manage a diverse series of complex tasks across the enterprise, including multi-assignment inspections, work orders, permitting, issue management, and the digitization of forms.<\/li>\n
  • An Easier Path to complex, incremental, or iterative assessments and inspections.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Deficiencies Object<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    The \u201cdeficiency object\u201d shines during complex inspections, because it enables users to maintain a slice in time<\/em> record of an assessment separately from the lifecycle<\/em> of the deficiency that was noted. With a standardized deficiency object, customers can address these kinds of scenarios out of the box. An added bonus is that it enables standard interfaces to other capabilities we offer around managing work orders and resolving deficiencies.<\/p>\n

    The top three benefits to having this in the extension package are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Deficiency Life Cycle Management<\/strong> makes auditing, metric management, and SLA management much, much easier. Specifically, it enables \u201canswer records\u201d to establish the condition of an assessable object at a particular point in time, while enabling \u201cdeficiency records\u201d to manage the remediation of a particular deficiency through a life cycle.<\/li>\n
    • Work Order Interface<\/strong> enables easy integration with ExAM work order capabilities. After all, a deficiency must typically be addressed by an organization, and there may be multiple inspections, work orders, or other activities involved in that effort.<\/li>\n
    • Field and Page Layout Simplification<\/strong> reduces the need for record typing, page layout proliferation, and overloading the \u201canswer object\u201d with fields.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Sampling<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Almost all of our enterprise inspection customers use some form of sampling to determine how they inspect or audit their portfolio, support sampling of the inspections they\u2019ve performed to ensure their quality, or both.<\/p>\n

      By including national standards for inspection sampling, as well as base sampling functionality, we can make many of these use cases turnkey. In the case of complex standards \u2013 like Uniform Physical Condition Sampling \u2013 we take some pretty complex math and make it accessible for our customers.<\/p>\n

      <\/picture>
      Sample Sampling Math<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

      The ExAM4Inspections extension package sampling tools will include:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • Basic Sampling.<\/strong> This is pretty straightforward. Choose an object type, set your filter parameters, the percentage of the sample size against the portfolio, and the type of assignments you want to generate against the resulting sample.<\/li>\n
      • Uniform Physical Condition Sampling (UPCS).<\/strong> This is a national standard that supports sample generation for properties, buildings, and units in accordance with HUD\u2019s standards.<\/li>\n
      • National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) Sampling.<\/strong> While this is currently based on the UPCS sampling model with only differences in inspection templates, we expect that to change over the next several years. The main benefit here is the automatic application of NSPIRE\u2019s inspection templates to accommodate the fact that fewer different inspection types are being performed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        What\u2019s Next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

        We released the ExAM4Inspections extension package this month (September 2021), with several customers. In the near term, we will focus on building out additional turnkey sampling standards and approaches, as well as more integration with our assets and inventory products and work order capabilities. Interested in learning more? Reach out at info@exam4Inspections.com.<\/p>\n