Book, dispatch and approve pre-quote and production surveys

A survey's team is, in order: the team set on the survey, the team of its request, the default team for that kind of survey in Survey Settings, or none. The people who may be given a survey are the active users holding the Survey User right or marked as field surveyors, in the survey's company. Only a team somebody actually chose — on the survey or on its request — narrows that list to the team's members and leader; the default team from the settings does not, and neither does a team whose members and leader include nobody who could do the survey.

Deciding who does a survey is a dispatcher's job. Survey managers and system administrators dispatch every survey; a team leader dispatches the surveys of the teams they lead; the technical manager named in the settings dispatches the surveys whose team has no leader or that have no team. Anybody else may still take an unassigned survey for themselves — by choosing themselves as Surveyor, or with Take this job in the Field Portal — and may give back one of their own.

With Assignment Mode set to Assign when booking only, the pool is switched off: an unassigned survey is simply not booked yet, nobody is reminded or escalated, and the Field Portal shows no open jobs, so surveyors cannot take work.

Site Surveys › Surveys › Dispatch lists every draft survey without a surveyor, oldest first, in one flat list — group by Team from the search when there are several crews. Columns: Survey Reference, Survey Type, Customer, Team, Scheduled Start and Waiting since, with the technical task, the sale order and the item count behind the column toggle. Each row has an Assign button, shown only when you may dispatch that survey, and an Open button.

Assign opens the Assign Surveyor dialog: the survey type (read-only) and, for a production measurement, its order, Scheduled Start, Team, Surveyor — only eligible people are offered, and when there is only one they are filled in — and a Note for the surveyor. Changing the team changes who is offered. Press Assign; the note is posted on the survey. When the board is empty it says so: every booked survey has somebody to do it.

In All Surveys, Pre-Quote Surveys, Production Surveys and Pending Approval, tick one or more rows and the buttons Assign Surveyor, Approve, Reject and Cancel appear above the list; Approve and Reject only for survey managers. The Dispatch board shows Assign Surveyor and Cancel. The Actions menu adds Reset to Draft.

Each survey goes through the same step as its form button, on its own: one refusal does not undo the others. The result is reported in a notification that stays on screen when some surveys were left unchanged and names them with the reason; when every survey is refused, nothing changes and the error "Nothing was changed." lists why. The approval rule is enforced in the software itself, not only by hiding the buttons.

The survey lists have no New button: a survey typed in there would belong to no request and appear on no tab. The search offers Not Cancelled, Pre-Quote, Production; Waiting for a Surveyor and My Surveys; To Do (draft or in progress) and Late (still draft after its scheduled start); one filter per state from Draft to Cancelled; Has Not-Ready Items on production surveys; and the dates Scheduled Start, Completed Date, Approved Date and Created on. Group by Survey Type, State, Surveyor, Team, Customer, Technical Task, Scheduled Start or Created on; search by reference, technical task, customer, address, surveyor, team, or sale order with sales rights.

Six states: Draft › In Progress › Completed › Pending Approval › Approved, with Cancelled to the side. The header buttons enforce it strictly:

When is approval required?

Two rules, both from Configuration › Site Surveys › Survey Settings: every production survey requires approval while Require Production Approval is on (the shipped default), and any survey requires approval when its total surveyed area differs from the quoted area by more than the Approval Threshold (%) (default 5).

What approving a production survey does

Approval is not a formality. For each completed line linked to an order line it adds the Measured Qty to the order line's surveyed quantity, and writes the surveyed floor, location and sill height back onto it. The write-back runs exactly once per survey — a survey that has already posted its quantities will not post them again, even if the workflow is replayed. This is why re-opening approved surveys is not offered: corrections go through a new revision survey instead.

How the request follows its surveys

The request moves forward on its own, as mapped in Survey Settings: to Stage when Surveyor Assigned when a survey gets a surveyor, to Stage when Survey Started when it is started, and — once the survey is finished — to Office Processing or Completed. A pre-quote survey is finished when it is completed without needing approval, or approved. A production survey is finished for this purpose only when nothing on the order lines its order's surveys cover is still to be measured, so an order measured in batches keeps its request open until the last batch. A request already further along is never pulled back.

Both forms share the same skeleton: a guidance strip that always names the next sensible action ("Add the first survey item", "Continue measuring 3 of 5", "Waiting for approval"…), the Survey Details and Assignment groups, a Time Tracking group filled by Start/Complete, and a row of live tiles — items done, completion %, surveyed area, plus quotations (pre-quote) or quoted area, area difference and not-ready count (production). The tabs follow the fields below.

Header utilities on both types: Print PDF, Export Excel, Export CSV, Email Report (a dialog pre-addressed to the customer, with an optional Excel attachment), plus a Duplicate smart button that copies the survey back to Draft without times, signatures or approvals.

A pre-quote line is deliberately lean: code, description, floor, location, Width and Height (mm), quantity, computed area, a Done toggle and the result badge. A production line adds the ordered reference — Quoted W/H and Quoted Qty — next to the measured values, a computed Diff %, the Not Ready toggle, and a scissors button to split multi-unit items.

Opening a line (the external-link button) reaches the full item form: three aperture width and three height measurements — the surveyed dimension is set to the minimum of what you enter — two diagonals, sill height, tangent points, the site-condition dropdowns (window position, drainage face, the four aperture finishes, opening section, threshold, scaffolding), the exhaust cut-out block, the fittings and finishes boxes, two photos, a voice note, freehand and CAD sketches, remarks, and the measurement provenance (typed, laser, or inherited from the quote, with device and timestamp).

Rules the lines enforce:

The production form carries the manufacturing hand-off. Copy from Pre-Quote (Draft, no items yet) pulls the pre-quote's measurements and site conditions as a starting point — never its photos or done flags. A read-only Profile and Glass group shows the order's profile, colours, glass and accessories. Each line shows the Production Design thumbnail and, for design-capable products, buttons to Create/Edit the production design in the designer and to view its Design Analysis. Compare to Order opens a read-only side-by-side of every item — ordered width, height, area and sill against surveyed — with totals and difference percentages.

Once the survey is Completed or Approved, Create Production Order builds a production order from the completed items: measured quantities, the item's production design and analysis (falling back to the sale-order line's design when the survey line has none — each fallback is noted in the production order's log). Items that are completed but did not Pass are still copied, with a chatter warning naming them so they can be removed by hand. A Production smart button counts the linked orders afterwards. When every finished measurement of the request has its production order, a request waiting in Office Processing is completed.

"Cannot start a Production Survey without any survey items." — the linked order has nothing left to survey (all quantities delivered) or the survey was created without an order; add items, or use Copy from Pre-Quote.

"Survey already has items. Please delete the existing items before copying." — Copy from Pre-Quote only fills an empty survey.

"No completed pre-quote survey found for this task." — the pre-quote is still in Draft or was cancelled; it must have been started to be a source.

"The survey must be Completed or Approved before creating a quotation." — finish the survey first; the Create Quotation button follows the same rule.

"No product found for: … configure the Color & Material mapping…" — the quotation wizard found no product for the chosen profile and colour on those items; complete the Color & Material mapping or set each line's product by hand in the wizard.

"No production survey found for comparison. Please create and complete it first." — Compare to Order was pressed from a pre-quote whose order has no started production survey yet.

"Only a survey manager or the team's leader can assign this survey." / "Only a survey manager or the team's leader can decide who does …" — you are not a dispatcher for that survey. You may still take an unassigned survey yourself or hand back one of your own.

"… is not a survey user of this survey's team." — the person is not eligible for the survey's team; change the team first or choose someone offered in the list.

"Only a survey that has not been submitted can be assigned." — completed, pending or approved surveys keep their surveyor.

"… does not belong to … or its opportunity, so this survey cannot measure it." / "This survey's items come from …" — the Sale Order you chose is not one of the project's, or the survey's items already belong to another order; book a new measurement for that order instead.

A surveyor cannot find a colleague's survey — survey users only see their own surveys and the unassigned pool; a survey manager sees everything.

"That survey is not available to claim." in the Field Portal — somebody else took the job first, or the company switched to Assign when booking only after the page was loaded. Reload the page.

An approved survey needs correcting — approved surveys are closed on purpose (their quantities are posted). Have the surveyor raise a re-visit request from the portal, or duplicate the survey; the duplicate starts in Draft with quantities unposted.

The survey went to Completed although you expected an approval step — the area difference is within the threshold and it is not a production survey with Require Production Approval on; check the Settings.