The ARCHIBUS Environmental Sustainability Assessment, Condition Assessment, and Commissioning applications all have tasks in which a field assessor notes the conditions of specific items in the field. Depending on the application, the field assessor might be noting:
| Application | What is being assessed |
| Condition Assessment | the general condition of equipment and locations. For example: Is it in good shape? Is it safe? Is it clean? Does it comply to codes and government regulations? Is this operating in a cost-effective manner? Does this detract from the public image of our company? Is this affecting other systems or areas in the facility? |
| Environmental Sustainability Assessment | the “green” state of your equipment and locations. For example: Is this promoting good air quality? Is this conserving energy? Is this conserving natural resources? Does this meet government environmental regulations? Are waste products being disposed of properly? Are they hurting the environment? |
|
Commissioning |
the appropriate building components for each location and equipment item-- such as pumps, air distribution units, water treatment filters, and fire alarms -- are on site, ready for installation, correctly installed, and functional. For example, components such as |
To perform these assessments, field assessors can use the ARCHIBUS Assessments mobile app running on their smart phone or mobile device. With the Assessments mobile app, field assessors do not need to depend on a laptop connected to their corporate network for access the forms for performing the assessment.
Note: The Assessments mobile app works in conjunction with the Web Central Condition Assessment, Environmental Sustainability Assessment, and the Commissioning applications. Your site should have a license for at least one of the Web Central applications if field assessors will be using the Assessments mobile app in the field.
With the ARCHIBUS Assessments mobile app, field auditors on the site can use a smart phone or other mobile device to perform the following everyday tasks that they encounter on the job. Note that once the field auditor uploads the data to the ARCHIBUS system on the server, the ARCHIBUS Condition Assessment, Environmental Sustainability Assessment, and Commissioning applications work with this data based on the defined workflow.
First, the Assessment Manager assigns assessment items to the Field Assessor using Web Central's Assessment Manager/Manage Assessment Items view (in Condition Assessment and Environmental Sustainability Assessment) or the Construction/Manage Construction Checklists view (in Commissioning).
The field assessor syncs their mobile device to receive a list of Issued projects that contain assessment items assigned to them.
Note: Assessment items show on the mobile device only if they belong to a project has a status of "Issued and In Process." Project status is updated using Web Central's Condition Assessment or Environmental Sustainability Assessment/Business Process Owner/Define Projects view. For Commissioning, use the Construction/Manage Construction Checklists view.
The assessor taps a project to see the list of assessment items for this project.assigned to them. Completed assessment items appear in a normal font; items to address appear in bold.
The field assessor taps an assessment item in the list to see its details in the Edit Assessment screen. The assessor then travels to the location of this item and assesses its current state. For example, the assessor can note the general condition, recommended action, the cost to replace, and so on. For information on the values that the field assessor can choose for the priority and value fields, see Field Assessor / Documenting the Condition and Sustainability of Rooms and Equipment.
Tip: You typically want to complete the Sustainability Priority field only if you are performing an Environmental Sustainability assessment. In Web Central, the Condition Assessment and Commissioning tasks do not display the Sustainability Priority field.
The field assessor completes as many fields as applicable to their site's practices; for example, practices may dictate that the field assessor does not estimate a replacement value. Minimally, the assessor must enter a value in the Description to show that the item has been addressed.. Tapping the field's icon presents a list of standard descriptions, or they can type in their own.
Suppose an item is in poor shape. Taking a picture of it and attaching the photo to the assessment item can provide a wealth of information to the assessment manager reviewing the completed assessment. If the assessor's mobile device or smart phone has a camera feature, the field assessor can capture an image of the item by tapping the Camera icon in the upper left corner of the Edit Assessment form. The system then prompts the field assessor to attach the photo to the assessment item.
When through, the field assessor taps the Back button to return to a list of assessment items, where they will see that the item they just completed is listed in a normal (non-bold) font and that it displays the description that they entered.
Sometimes the assessor notes something in the field that should be reported, although this is not a location or equipment item that they should specifically check. For example, as they travel to a room assessors might notice a problem in the corridor that should be addressed. They can tap the "+" button in the upper right corner of the Edit Assessment form to access a form for entering the item. The system copies key information from the previous assessment item, such as Project Code, Action Type, Equipment Code, and location fields. The field assessor can edit the location and equipment values as necessary.
If the field assessor has many items in their queue to assess they may wish to set a filter so that they can more easily find records. For example, they may wish to see only items to complete instead of the all assessment items assigned to them. If they have items on multiple floors assigned to them, they may wish to filter the list of assessment items to only those on a certain floor.
From the Assessment Items screen, assessors can tap the Filter button in the top right corner to access a form for setting a filter. With the below filter options, the field assessor will see in the Assessment Items list only uncompleted assessment tasks for floor HQ-18.
When they have reviewed their data an are ready to upload it, assessors can sync their mobile devices with the database server. Syncing performs the following important actions:
To enable the Assessments mobile app for users, a facility must do the following for each user:
The Assessment app requires that background (validating) data be developed and that assessment projects be established and assigned to field assessors. The facility manager should ensure that these steps have been taken before introducing the mobile component to the workflow.