Understanding Building Structure

🧱 Understanding Building Structure

Buildings are a core component of Inspect Point. They represent the individual location where inspections and service work orders are performed. A building stores important information such as location and contact details, deficiency history, building notes, inspection/service reports, and historical data related to the customer.

"Building structure" refers to how all of the building's associated information is organized and managed. Depending on the inspection types performed, a building may contain various systems, assets, groups, components, devices, and other inspection-related items.

Understanding how a building is structured is important as it directly impacts how inspections, reporting, deficiencies, and service workflows function within Inspect Point.

Proper building setup helps ensure inspections are configured correctly, technicians receive the appropriate inspection questions, and customer-facing reports accurately reflect the primary systems and equipment present at the building.

This article provides an overview of how buildings are structured in Inspect Point, including:

• The information and inspection items that make up a building
• How building details, systems, assets, and inspection items are organized
• The difference between primary and secondary items
• How accurate building structure supports inspection workflows, technician visibility, and reporting

🏢 Building Overview

Each building in Inspect Point serves as the central record for a customer location. In addition to general building information, the building contains the systems, assets, devices, and other equipment that may need to be inspected. 

The New Building Screen is broken out into four sections:

• Basic Information
• Details
• Advanced
• Setup

Once a building is created, users can add additional information related to the building including contacts, notes, and secondary items via the Building Detail Screen.

For more information on creating a new building, check out this article: 👉 How to Create a New Building 

📂 Building Detail Screen

When a new building is created, or if a building is selected from the Buildings Listing Screen, you will arrive on the Building Detail Screen. Here is where backend users will manage inspection items, review inspection and service history, maintain contacts, view reports and historical data, and update building information and key details.

From the Building Detail Screen, users can navigate through the various tabs to:

• Review and update building information
• Manage all inspection-related items
• Create inspections series
• View reports and historical deficiency details
• Assign and manage building contacts 

🏷️  Building Detail Screen Tabs

The Building Detail Screen uses the various tabs to organize and manage operational information associated with the building. Each tab supports different workflows and actions depending on the operational data associated with the building. 

What you see is based on your subscription and inspection types enabled within your Inspect Point instance, not solely what exists at the specific building.

For example, if fire extinguishers are enabled for the organization, but are not inspected at this building, the Fire Extinguishers tab will still be present on the Building Detail Screen. 

Rather than serving as standalone screens, these tabs work together to support inspection management, service workflows, customer communication, reporting, and technician operations.

As users move throughout Inspect Point it's important to know that customer management tasks will originate from, or reference information stored, within the Building Detail Screen.

For more information on the Building Detail Screen, including a full breakdown of the tabs, check out this article: 👉 Building Detail Screen

📌 Primary Items and Secondary Items

Depending on the inspection types performed at a facility, a building may contain various systems, assets, groups, components, devices, and other inspection-related items. In Inspect Point, these items generally fall into two categories:

• Primary Items - The major systems, assets, or functional areas being inspected. For example, a sprinkler system or fire alarm system would be considered a Primary Item.
• Secondary Items - The individual inspection items associated with a Primary Item. For example, the control valves on a sprinkler system, or smoke detectors, strobes or other devices associated with a fire alarm system. Rather than existing as standalone records, Secondary Items are tied to the Primary Item they belong to.

How and where these items are added differs. Primary Items can be added during initial building creation or later from the Edit Building screen. Once a Primary Item has been added, its associated Secondary Items can be added and managed from the Building Detail Screen.

This structure keeps related inspection items organized and helps ensure the appropriate equipment and questions are included during an inspection.

When an inspection is created, Inspect Point uses these relationships to determine what is available for the technician to inspect. When a Primary Item is added to an inspection or inspection series, its associated Secondary Items are automatically included, helping ensure the complete system or asset is represented in the inspection.

📱 How Building Structure Impacts Technicians in the Field

How a building is structured directly impacts a technician’s inspection workflow. When an inspection is created and dispatched, Inspect Point uses the frequency and items selected to determine the inspection questions. Maintaining accurate building data helps ensure the correct items and questions are included.

Technicians can add both Primary and Secondary Items on the mobile application. Once the inspection is submitted, items added in the field are also added to the building and, when applicable, carried forward to any remaining inspections within the inspection series.

Technicians cannot delete inspection items during an inspection. However, Secondary Items can be marked inactive when they are no longer applicable at the building. For example, a technician may mark a fire extinguisher inactive if it has been removed from service.

📄 Building Structure and Reporting

How a building is structured also impacts how completed inspection reports are formatted. Inspection information is grouped based on the systems, assets, and associated items inspected, making for organized, easy to read reports for your customers. 

In the report example below, the inspection contains a building's two wet sprinkler systems. On the generated report, the inspection results are organized by system, showing the applicable main drain test followed by the valves associated with each system.

✅ Why Building Structure Matters

Building structure directly affects how inspections, reporting, deficiencies, and service workflows function in Inspect Point. The Primary and Secondary Items on a building determine what technicians inspect in the field and what shows up throughout the platform.

As items are added and organized on a building, Inspect Point uses that structure to:

• Generate the right inspection questions for technicians
• Organize inspection workflows
• Maintain accurate historical inspection records over time

Keeping building structure organized correctly helps ensure inspections are configured properly, technicians see the right questions in the field, and customer-facing reports accurately reflect the systems and equipment actually present at the building.