Not seeing photos on a specific report but sure they have uploaded? Wondering why zInspector includes or excludes media on a specific report? This is the article for you!

zInspector can include or exclude photos automatically by default for all reports or manually for a specific report, depending on your preferences and practices, a specific purpose, or the intended recipient.  zInspector’s Span Settings, which are smarter than ever on the new website and app, help you do just that.

Let’s start with a video:

Still have questions about how this works?

Every time you complete an inspection with photos in zInspector, a Timeline activity will be created for the inspection itself, indicated by a clipboard icon, and a media folder will be created for every date on which photos were taken for that inspection, indicated by a report + camera icon but hidden by default. Thumbnails of the media taken for an inspection will be displayed under the date they were taken by default. (More on Timeline icons and filters here).

Span Explained

Imagine Span as a helpful media-grabbing assistant to zInspector. By adjusting the primary Span setting—a specified number of days—you are essentially telling Span how far from the inspection date to reach for media. If Span is set to 0, it will not reach at all; the report will show only photos from the report’s activity date.  If Span is instead set to 7 or to 30, zInspector will reach a full week or a full month backward and forward; the report will show any available photos for the property within that specified timespan.

Additional Span settings—Doc ID Media, Non Doc ID Media, and All Activities—tell zInspector what types of activities to consider when spanning for report photos. These settings are secondary to the Span (number of Days) setting. zInspector will only include photos within the Span period specified, regardless of these secondary settings.

Global Default & Custom (Report-Specific) Span Settings

Default global Span settings can be specified by an admin user in Settings > Report Settings. Reports for every user on the account will generate based on these defaults.

Individual report Span settings can be specified by the user to override the default global settings for a particular report. Click on a specific Timeline inspection report to open it, then click on the Options button at the top (or the Options gear icon at lower right) and scroll down to Span settings.

Doc ID Media –Include in the current report media taken during completion of the current inspection template (which has its own unique document ID number) as available per the Span (number of days) setting. Disable it to exclude media taken as a part of this specific inspection from the current report.

Non Doc ID Media – Include in the current report media taken during the completion of other inspection templates for this same property as available per the Span (number of days) setting. Disable to exclude media taken as a part of other inspection activities media from the current report.

All Activities – Include in the current report any other media captured during other activity types for this same property as available per the Span (number of days) setting, such as photos, videos, and 360 images captured using Quick Pictures mode or uploaded manually from a computer to the zInspector website. Disable to exclude these other media from the current report.

Days – This is the primary Span setting. The number of days specified tells zInspector how far to reach from the date of the inspection for photos associated with this property to include in the current report.  For inspections taken over a number of days, you may need to increase the number of days to include all relevant photos in the report.

Manually Excluding & Deleting Inspection Photos

At times, you will want to manually exclude or even delete specific photos, but Span doesn’t help with that. Here’s how to exclude and delete specific photos manually.

• To exclude photos from a report: Remove the checkmark from the photo(s) to exclude by clicking on the orange checkmark at the upper left corner of the photo(s) in Report Preview before downloading or emailing the report. For convenience, you can click or unclick the Select/Unselect All Pictures button at lower right of any report preview.
• To delete photos permanently from zInspector. Go to Properties and click on the relevant property—or click on the Property (house) icon at lower left of the Report Preview—then click on the relevant Activity containing the photos to delete. Here, in the property’s dashboard,  you can edit tags or delete photos individually or in bulk, as needed.
• To delete photos within the app (new zInspector 3). In the app, tap on the Gallery icon—it looks like two stacked photos. Recently taken photos are stored here. Tap on the Edit (pencil) icon for the relevant photo, then tap on the Delete (trashcan) icon to delete it from the inspection and from the website (permanently).

Span settings play a role in zInspector report customization.  See this article on more report customization settings and tools on the new website.