Checklist: Document a Site Visit in 10 Minutes

Ten minutes that replace the evening

There are two ways to document a site visit. The classic: half-notes during the visit, loose photos, and “writing it up” in the evening — 45 minutes of archaeology between camera roll and notebook. And the other: documenting during the visit, with a method short enough not to get in the way, and leaving the site with the work done.

This is the checklist for the second way. Tested on real visits, built for the phone already in your pocket, printable and stealable. The formal report, if your visit requires one, has its own guide and template — this checklist feeds either path.

Before you leave (2 minutes, office or car)

1. The plan in your pocket. Check your phone carries the current plan of what you’re visiting — and the model, if one exists (opening it without Revit costs nothing).
2. Last visit’s open items at hand. The first thing to check is what was left open: if your previous findings carry a status, the board gives you the list; if not, two minutes of review.
3. A fixed route. Decide the walking order (by floor, by facade — anything, but fixed). The fixed order is what kills “did we check bathroom 2?”.

During the visit (the heart: one gesture per finding)

4. One finding = one pin. Anything worth remembering — defect, progress, doubt, instruction — gets anchored at its point on the plan the moment you see it. Not “I’ll note it later”: later doesn’t exist.
5. Always a photo; a pair if it’s a defect. One wide shot that locates (the room, the axis) and one detail of the condition. Fifteen seconds that save entire arguments.
6. Voice instead of keyboard. With gloves, in the cold, in a hurry: dictate — “crack in partition by the door frame, check before painting” — and automatic transcription turns it into searchable text. Re-read the wording when the matter is sensitive: it’s machine transcription, good but not infallible.
7. Assign on the spot. If the finding needs hands, @mention the owner right there: it lands on their Kanban board as to-do, place and evidence included. Assigning later = assigning never.
8. Record what’s right, too. A “checked, compliant” pin on critical items protects as much as the defect pin — it proves the point was looked at.
9. Close what you see resolved. Last visit’s items that are now fixed: after-photo and resolve — the pin dims on the plan and the living list shortens itself.

After (3 minutes, before starting the car)

10. Route review. Open the plan: today’s pins are the visit summary, ordered by place. Anything you saw but didn’t pin? Now, while memory is fresh.
11. Share. The team — and subcontractors via a guest link, name only, no account, no install — see the findings where they are. There’s no “I’ll send the photos later”: they’re already placed. Multi-site crews get the bonus view: the week’s visits laid out on the project map (the small-team GIS step).
12. Set up the follow-through. What’s assigned has an owner and a status; the next visit starts at step 2 with zero effort. The loop closes itself.

The mistakes that break the method

• Shooting “for later”. The camera roll is where context goes to die — we’ve made that case in full: without place and owner, a photo is a memory.
• Typing on site. Nobody writes well standing in the cold; you abbreviate, and today’s abbreviation is next month’s hieroglyph. That’s what voice is for.
• Assigning “at Monday’s meeting”. Three days of delay per finding, multiplied by the whole project.
• Documenting only what’s wrong. The recorded “compliant” is gold at handover.

FAQ

Is 10 minutes really enough? The 10 minutes are the documentation overhead on the visit you already make: the per-finding gesture takes seconds, the wrap-up three minutes. What disappears is the evening write-up.

Do I need signal on site? Not to capture — pins record and sync when you’re back in coverage. To share in the moment, yes, as with any tool.

Does this replace the site visit report? No — it feeds it. The formal report, if your role requires one, takes minutes to write when every finding already has a place, evidence and description. Template and guide here.

What PinMy is NOT

PinMy is the field-capture layer: pins with voice, photo, video and text on plans, photos and 3D IFC models, with assignment and Kanban. It does not write the report for you — the document and the judgement stay yours — it isn’t a CDE and it doesn’t replace your management tools. The web PDF report is useful today and still maturing.

Print it, steal it, share it

Keep this checklist for tomorrow’s visit — and send it to the colleague who will otherwise be “writing up the visit” at nine tonight.

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