The Inspections Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a deliverable hierarchical decomposition to accomplish project inspection objectives. The WBS is the cornerstone of SYNCHRO Control’s effective inspection, controlling, monitoring and reporting process.
SYNCHRO provides the option to import your own inspection form requirements using the Administration > Inspections Configuration option.
SYNCHRO also provides a default template file to use to create your customized inspections forms along with a sample inspections spreadsheet to view.
Download the sample and template files to a local directory. The sections below will look at each sheet included in the sample file and provide information on the data fields.
View and Populate the Inspections Spreadsheet
Open the sample File and review the data, spending a little time analyzing the worksheets within the Excel Spreadsheet, particularly the sequence from left to right.
Important: Each Worksheet has an important part to play in the import process, take time to study and interpret every column header and data.
Config Worksheet
The Config worksheet determines how the import process is performed. The Clean Import configuration has the following options:
- True: Performs a clean import where any existing data (including the Pay Items tree and Form Definitions) is overwritten and a clean new import is performed.
- False: The original Pay Items tree and Form Definitions will remain and new or modified data will be appended to them.
The default value is TRUE.
Note: A Clean Import is not recommended if you have active inspections in the project.
Import Values:
Since the Clean Import value applies to all of the imported sheets it is the only value which can be changed and has the following options:
- True: When set to True, existing data is overwritten and a clean new import is performed.
- False: When set to False, new or modified data will be appended to the original data. The default setting is True.
Note: A Clean Import is not recommended if you have existing active inspections in the project.
Specs Worksheet
Click on the Specs worksheet. The hierarchical parent / child relationship offers a configurable and transparent work breakdown structure. The Spec value is mapped to Item Extensions (see Item Extension Worksheet section). The relationship has a cap of 10 levels.
- Level 1: The Parent level.
- Level 2: The Child Level.
- Level 3 – 4, 5: Up to 10 possible sub levels can be utilized.
- Description: The name of the level in the Pay Items tree.
Item Extensions Worksheet
Click the Item Extensions worksheet. Item Extensions are the projects unique Pay Item identifiers.
- Item: The Pay Item unique identifier.
- Item Description: The Pay Item description.
- Spec: The Spec you would like associated to your Pay Item.
- Inspection Group: This value defines the relationship between the Item Extension and the Inspection Group Worksheets (see the Inspection Groups section).
Note: If a cell in the Inspection Group column is empty the application will use the value in the Spec column as the Inspection Group.
An example of how the Specs and Item Extensions worksheet configuration are mapped to the Pay Items Tree in the Inspections grid is shown below:
Inspection Groups Worksheet
Click the Inspection Groups worksheet. Defining the Inspection Group offers the ability to segregate the type of inspections associated to the Pay Item.
Note: The following columns are not currently used:
- Step Level 1, 2 and 3
- Documents
The
- Inspection Group: The Inspection Group column needs to match values of either the Spec column or the Inspection Group column within the Item Extensions sheet. The application uses the value in the Inspection Group column within the Item Extensions sheet if it is filled in; otherwise, the application uses the value in the Spec column within the Item Extensions sheet.
- Priority: Currently not in use
- Inspection Type: Defines the type of inspection such as Quality, Quantity etc.
- Form Code: Defines the relationship between the Inspection Type and the Form Definition (See Forms Definition section).
The example below displays how the Inspection Group and Item Extensions worksheet configuration are mapped to the Pay Items and Form Category drop downs when creating a new inspection:
Form Definitions Worksheet
Click the Form Definitions worksheet. Form Definitions are used to define the name of the inspection form.
- Code: This is the Form Code defined in the Inspections Group tab which defines the relationship between the Inspection Type (Form Category) and the form name.
- Name: Your Inspection Form unique name
- Prefix: This value is used as the prefix for the inspection IDs shown in the inspection grid in SYNCHRO Control:
- Description: Currently not in use.
- Remarks: Currently not in use.
- Form Sections: This value determines the relationship between the form name and the form sections to be included on the form (See Form Sections below)
Note: A semi-colon is used as the delimiter for the values in this column. - Display Weather Widget: Currently not in use.
- Update: This column is used to determine whether existing forms in a project are updated with the import of a modified configuration file. If this is a new configuration, the value can be left blank if desired.
The Sample below shows the relationship between the Inspection Group and Form Definition and how they are mapped to the Form category and Form drop down lists when creating a new inspection.
Form Sections Worksheet
The Form Sections Worksheet define the sections which can be add to an inspection form. Specific questions (defined in the Line Items Worksheet) can be departmentalized under headed sections for easier navigation.
- Code: The Inspection form unique section reference number. This is the coded added to the Form Sections column in the Forms Definition worksheet:
- Name: This is a description of the Inspection Form section.
- Description: Currently not in use.
- Remarks: Currently not in use.
Line Items Worksheet
The Line Items are the inspections questions located within the form sections. Each question can be configured to include a multiple-choice answer or simply a text answer to the line item question.
- Code: The section reference followed by the question number.
- Priority: This is the sequence the question will be positioned within the form.
Note that multiple controls can be created for the same form section such as 4.1, 4.2 etc:
An example of how this is displayed on a form can be seen in the sample form below this section. (Note the Sequence Numbers control in the Project Details section of the Clearing and Grubbing example below.) - Type: Defines the preferred control for the user to answer a line item question. The following controls are supported:
- Type Extensions: Defines the answer choices which will display in a drop down list under an inspection question. A star (*) next to one or more of the options indicate that it will display a text box asking the user for more input if that is the option that was selected.
Display Comment Box: Deprecated in favor of the Type and Type Extensions columns. - Required Comment Values: Deprecated in favor of the Type and Type Extensions columns.
- Line Item Text: This is the Inspection question text which displays on the form.
Below is a example of a Clearing and Grubbing form created from the Sample Data.xlsx file.
Import the Inspections Spreadsheet
Once the spreadsheet is populated it can be imported into SYNCHRO Control.
Drag and drop your sample file into the grey area or select Browse to navigate to the Excel sample data file.
Confirm the Sample Data.xlsx file is ready to be published and Publish button.
Observe the sample data importing process is followed by the form generation process.
Observe the green ticks and Published day, date and time stamp.
You can check the success of each Worksheet by selecting View Details on the xlsx import.
You can also check the success of the Form Generation by selecting View Details.
You can view the Inspections Hierarchy and WBS created and imported by clicking on the the Inspections Tab.