Surveying a site before you quote

Site Surveys is the third item under Pipeline in the sidebar, between Enquiries and Quotes, which is exactly where it sits in the work: something has come in, you have gone to look at it, and now it needs a price. It is a screen of two halves that live on different devices, and knowing which half you are on saves a lot of hunting.

The register

The page header reads Site Surveys, subtitled "What's been walked, and what's ready to turn into a quote", with one action: New survey. Under it is the same register every other ledger in CleanFlo uses, headed Surveys with a count, a search box, a Filters pill and four status chips.

Subject

Who the survey is for: the client's name if it is linked to a client record, otherwise the prospect name you typed. Never both and never blank, because the database will not accept a survey with neither. The address sits underneath, or "No address on file".

Status

One of three. Draft is walked or being walked and not yet priced. Converted became a quote. Discarded came to nothing and was put away.

Rooms

How many rooms the walk logged. A draft showing 0 has been started and not yet walked.

Started

When the survey was opened, to the minute. It is the only date a survey has.

The Filters panel adds four things the chips cannot: when it was started (a preset or a custom range), which client it belongs to, a sort (Newest first, Oldest first, Most rooms, Subject, A–Z), and an Only show group with four boxes: Turned into a quote, No quote raised, Has rooms logged and Not linked to a client. That last pair is the useful one. Tick No quote raised and Has rooms logged together and you have every building somebody walked and nobody ever priced.

Starting a survey

New survey opens a sheet titled New site survey, subtitled "Who it's for. Rooms are added by walking the site in the cleaner app", which says the whole thing in a line. It asks one question and then a few details.

The walk itself

This happens in the cleaner app, on the phone of whoever is standing in the building. It is a room at a time, and each room is three answers.

What kind of room

Seven types, in this order: Bedroom, Bathroom, Kitchen, Living / dining, Office, Communal area, Other. The type is not decoration: it decides how long CleanFlo assumes that room takes per square metre, and a bathroom is assumed to take roughly three times as long per square metre as an office.

How big it is

Either an exact figure in square metres, or a tier: Small, Medium or Large. A cleaner walking a building rarely has a tape measure, so a tier is a legitimate answer rather than a fallback. Where an exact measurement is given it always wins over the tier.

Anything worth saying, and a photograph

Free-text notes per room, and as many photographs as the room needs. Both come back to the office attached to that room, which is what makes a survey worth more than a number written on a hand.

Reading a finished survey

Any row opens a sheet titled with the subject and subtitled with the address, or "No address on file". Its first line is the reading: when it was started, and the note that was left on it. Under that is every room in the order it was walked, each with its type, its size, its notes and its photographs.

A size reads one of three ways. An exact measurement prints as, for example, 18 m². A tier prints as Medium (approx.), with the word "approx." there deliberately, so nobody reads an assumption as a measurement. A room with neither reads No size recorded, and that room is the reason a conversion can fail.

Turning it into a quote

Convert to quote sits at the foot of the sheet and is the point of the whole exercise. It is available only while the survey is a Draft and only once at least one room has been logged: a survey with no rooms has nothing to price, so the button is there but disabled.

Pressing it builds a draft quote from the walk and takes you straight to it. The survey becomes Converted and keeps a link to the quote, so opening it again offers View quote instead.

The quote it produces is a draft like any other. Nothing has been sent, nothing has been promised, and every line on it can be edited, added to or thrown away before it goes near a client. Treat it as a very well-informed starting point rather than an answer.

If a survey comes to nothing, Discard puts it away. It asks first ("Discard the survey for St Marks Medical Centre? This cannot be undone.") and the survey becomes Discarded rather than being deleted: the walk, the rooms and the photographs all stay on file, out of the way of the drafts that are still live.