Assigning Inspections

Inspection supervisors can assign inspections one at a time or in a batch using the automatic assignment process.

They can assign inspections they are responsible for based on the inspection type and inspection district on the Inspections console page for agency staff and on the Inspections page in the permit or business license application details.

For more information about assigning inspections from the inspections console, see Managing Inspections for an Agency. For more information about assigning inspections in the transaction details, see Managing Inspections for a Permit and Managing Inspections for a Business License Application.

For more information about setting up the inspection supervisor job function and attributes for inspection supervisors to assign inspections, see Setting Up Agency Staff.

Inspection Assignment Considerations

Agencies may configure the system to prevent you from assigning a final inspection when permit fees are due. For more information, see Setting Up Stop Process Actions.

Agencies may also only allow inspections to be performed after prerequisite inspections are completed, but agency staff can override dependency requirements when assigning, reassigning, or scheduling inspections. For information about setting up inspection dependencies, see Setting Up Inspection Groups.

Your agency may also limit the number of daily inspections based on a count of inspections that are scheduled using a date only. The Inspection Count Limit field is the agency setting used to alert inspection supervisors when an inspector's total permit and business license inspections for the day exceeds the maximum defined. All of the inspections assigned to an inspector that aren't in a canceled or completed status are tallied. Inspectors below the limit can be assigned using automatic assignment, however, inspector supervisors can override the maximum number when manually assigning inspections. You must have an inspection supervisor job role to see inspector names and counts when scheduling inspections; an alert icon appears next to the count on the schedule page when an inspector has reached the daily limit. Automatic intspector assignment will not assign to inspectors who have reached their limit. For more information, see Setting Up Inspection Assignment.

For more considerations about requesting or scheduling inspections, see Requesting Inspections.

Assigning an Inspection

1. Click the Assign button to manually assign an inspection to an inspector:

   

   Note: Agency staff can override the requirement to complete prerequisite inspections with a passing or corrected result before assigning the inspection.

   The Scheduling modal page lists the dates that are available for you to schedule the inspection, starting with the date in the From Date field. The default value of this field depends on the scheduling method of the inspection:

   Scheduling Method	From Date Default Value
   Request	The preferred date when it is after the current date, or the current date when the preferred date is on or before the current date.
   Ready	The ready-by date when it is after the current date, or the current date when the ready-by date is on or before the current date.
   Schedule	The current date.

   This example illustrates the Scheduling modal page for an inspections supervisor. Inspections supervisors can see the inspector names and override availability.

   

   This example illustrates the Scheduling modal page for an inspection that has been configured to use the count assignment method. An icon (not shown here) will be displayed next to the Count value for an inspector who has reached the limit. Only inspector supervisors can see the inspector name and count columns.

   

2. Select an available Time from the drop-down list and click Select next to the inspector and date on which you want to schedule the inspection. Depending on the time entry method set up for the scheduling method, you may only be able to select a date or a date and time range.

   Note: A flag icon appears next to preferred inspectors.

   If an inspector is not available for the date and time that you want, inspections supervisors can expand the Override Availability section of the modal page to manually assign an inspector for a specific date and time. Select the Inspector, Date, and Time and click Select to assign the inspection. This is useful when supervisors need to load balance inspectors and ensure that each inspection is assigned to an inspector.

If the Inspection Scheduled communication event is configured, the system can automatically create an email notification to the inspector and inspection contact when the inspection has been scheduled and assigned to the inspector. For more information, see Delivered Communication Events.

Assigning Inspections in Batch

You may be able to assign some inspections in a batch but not others because of inspection dependencies or limitations based on the maximum inspection count. That is, automatic inspector assignment will not assign to inspectors who have reached their limit. Agency staff can override the requirement to complete prerequisite inspections with a passing or corrected result before assigning inspections.

1. Click the Select Multiple button on the Inspections console page for agency staff: .

2. Select the check box next to each inspection that you want to automatically assign.

3. Click Assign to run the automatic batch assignment process. The process assigns inspections based on:

   • Holiday schedules

   • Inspection calendars

   • Inspector availability

   • Inspector qualifications

   • Work schedules

   For more information on these inspection scheduling factors, see Setting Up Inspection Scheduling.

4. On the Assign modal page, you can select individual inspectors to exclude them from the assignment pool. You can also select the Exclude District check box to remove the inspection district from the assignment matching criteria.

5. Click OK to run the assignment process.

Supervisors receive an error message if there are no time slots available for an inspection selected for assignment. This can occur when:

1. The ready by or preferred date is more than 14 days after the day you're running the batch assignment.

2. There are time slots available, but none of them are before the expiration date.

3. No qualified inspectors have availability in the next 14 days.