2018 Spring Subscriber Survey: 5 Most Interesting Trends

2018 Spring Subscriber Survey: 5 Most Interesting Trends

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We’re very excited to begin sharing with you the results from our 2018 Spring Subscriber Survey.

At GoCanvas, we believe that our subscribers should have a voice in everything we do. That’s why we love all the feedback we received this year in our subscriber survey!

We take all the responses captured, create a report, and distribute them throughout the company so that every department is able to benefit from the feedback. We also use the responses to analyze how and why subscribers choose the GoCanvas platform for their business.

This type of insight into our subscriber’s usage and deployment of GoCanvas allows us to better roadmap what types of functionality should be added to the development roadmap. It also allows our team to measure what areas of the platform we should focus more time, and what features deserve higher priority.

As you read through the survey infographic below, you’ll find a number of interesting stats and trends. Here are my top 5 most interesting statistics:

  • Flexible Platform – Aside from Construction, usage is deployed somewhat evenly across 5+ different industries. This illustrates the flexibility of the App Builder, PDF Designer, and the platform’s core features like Dispatch and Workflow.
  • Fast Payback – 7 months is the average time in which a subscriber receives a full return on their investment and deployment of mobile forms.
  • Multiple Forms & Use Cases – Inspections were the only type of form that was selected by more than 50% of subscribers. This illustrates the different amounts of use cases that GoCanvas subscribers deploy!
  • Photo Capture – Still the most popular feature across every industry and demographic, capturing photos gives every type of business the evidence they need to keep the most accurate digital records possible.
  • Multiple Submission Per Day – Over half of all subscribers said that they fill out and submit 2 or more mobile forms per day. This shows the common trend of implementing GoCanvas in operations that are frequent, data-intensive processes.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

5 Tips to Prepare for a Restaurant Health Inspection

5 Tips to Prepare for a Restaurant Health Inspection

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Health inspector at a restaurant

Whether you own a small restaurant or work at a major restaurant chain, health code violations can pose a significant threat to the life of the business and its consumers. Every year the USDA sends auditors to perform semi-annual restaurant inspections. Each inspection is unannounced, so restaurants must always be ready.

Without consistent internal audits and inspection checks, it can be challenging for restaurants to ensure they will be prepared when the inspector arrives. Many of the cleaning tasks done on a regular basis don’t even scratch the surface of what restaurant auditors will be paying close attention to. This is why weekly or even monthly inspections should be carried out internally. You can never overdo restaurant cleanliness.

Here are some common violations restaurants often overlook.

Keeping your food at safe temperatures is a must. The USDA requires that a refrigerator should be at 40 *F or below and freezers should be kept at 0*F or below. Refrigerator temperatures can fluctuate throughout the day which is why, if it is not required where you reside, it is recommended to keep a log of refrigerator temperatures and record the temperature two to three times each day.

When the food is ready to be served, the USDA requires hot food to be held at 140*F or above and cold food to match refrigeration standards at 40*F.

*Note – Refrigerator and freezer thermometer reading should be visible when the doors are open.

Just like what you learned when you got your Food Handlers Permit, cross-contamination is a serious issue. Cross-contamination happens when raw meat or other harmful foods come in contact with other foods. As an example, cross-contamination can occur when a cutting board is used for raw meat and then used again to cut vegetables. Cross-contamination can be avoided by clearly labeling and distinguishing between different cooking utensils used.

Clearly labeled food items are also important. Expiration dates should be visible on all products. For example, items that have thawed have a 48-hour lifecycle or less and therefore should be labeled with a visible expiration date within 48 hours. If an item isn’t marked or some inventory has expired this would be marked as critical on your restaurant audit.

How you clean up (or not) can result in a health violation! Many cleaning chemicals and solutions can be extremely harmful if incorrectly used or ingested. Unmarked or illegible cleaning chemicals can be easily confused and mixing these up is no small mistake. Every unmarked bottle could result in multiple critical marks on your audit. Avoiding this is simple, make sure every cleaning item or other container is clearly labeled and stored in an isolated location away from food handling processes. For example, you must keep red cleaning buckets with a micro-quat next to each station with a clean towel inside.

Companies using chemical solutions for dishwashing must be sensitive to PH levels and solution temperatures. Chemical solutions outside of these standards can be ineffective or potentially dangerous. To maintain proper chemical standards have staff perform a daily PH test and frequently replace solution water.

Employee cleanliness is another crucial component of this. Every employee should be sure to wash their hands thoroughly before handling food. When returning from the restroom even if they are not handling food hands need to be washed. Depending on the state you live in each restroom is required to display a sign mandating that “All Employees Must Wash Their Hands.” Inspectors have found creative ways to make sure this is being followed through with, and failure to do so can fail your inspection.

Employee accessories are also necessary to highlight. Things such as jewelry, nail length, and hair care are all stuff an auditor will take note of. Hair should be pulled back, nails should be kept short and preferably in gloves, and jewelry should be avoided. Each of these things is something managers should be diligent to enforce and wary of with their employees.

Bathrooms should be stocked with paper towels (or hand dryers), toilet paper, and hand soap at all times. To ensure that bathrooms are replenished it is recommended to have staff check once every 3 – 4 hours depending on the traffic. Other things to keep in mind is toilet cleanliness, issues such as a loose toilet seat are considered violations as well.

*Note – No trashcan in the restaurant can be full. There should be about 3 inches from the top of the trash to the top of the container.

Restaurant inspections don’t have to be intimidating. GoCanvas offers tons of free resources for small and large restaurants to improve their internal inspection process. To get started, check out a few of our popular restaurant inspection templates.

Find these and other restaurant apps in the GoCanvas Application Store. Use these templates or create your own to ensure your team is always prepared for your next audit. Sign up for GoCanvas for free today, or schedule a demo with our experts to learn more! Be prepared for your next restaurant health inspection with the help of GoCanvas!


Whether you are making the switch from paper or looking to improve your internal processes, we hope you consider GoCanvas as your data collection tool. Sign up for GoCanvas free and give our platform a try today!

Interested in learning more? Check out our how Cerveza Patagonia uses GoCanvas for restaurant and bar audits.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Man inputting digital work order into a tablet from a work site.

How Digital Work Orders Impact Your Key Business Outcomes

Is your company still using paper sheets to manage work orders? The drawbacks of using paper forms are often hidden, making it difficult to understand the true impact of paper forms on a business…

Woman reviewing data via her mobile phone.

See How Centurion Got Amazing ROI from GoCanvas

Centurion is the largest heavy haulage provider in Australia. They deliver national supply chain solutions to the resources, energy, construction & retail sectors throughout Western Australia, Queensland & the Northern Territory…

A man reviewing data on tablet collected by GoCanvas solutions.

5 Tips to Improve How Your Business Collects Data

Companies rely on collecting data in order to operate. In a fast-changing world, companies that focus on streamlining and improving their data collection processes will be able to do more. The good news is that it’s become easier than ever for businesses of all… 

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Collect, Sign and Share: Complete Documents Faster with GoCanvas + SignNow

Collect, Sign and Share: Complete Documents Faster with GoCanvas + SignNow

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The GoCanvas platform is constantly being updated, as you can see in our most recent release notes, but the most exciting updates are coming from our integrations department.

Our Professional Services team has been hard at work creating time-saving backend connections and custom tools to help your business increase productivity.

The newest of these high impact tools is our new connection to SignNow. SignNow is an industry leader in E-sign technology. They allow companies to take typical static PDFs and add live text/signature fields to the document. These documents are then retrieved, stored and filed for easy access.

The addition of SignNow to your typical GoCanvas process will help any company to improve the speed of documentation and data analysis.

You’re probably already familiar with the many ways that GoCanvas interacts and connects with Zapier, and this is just another amazing extension of that integration.

By connecting SignNow via Zapier, you’re able to leverage your existing GoCanvas PDFs and turn them into dynamic documents that your customers/staff can interact with via email or browser.

Below is an illustration of how the process works across GoCanvas and SignNow.

1) In GoCanvas, fill out a mobile form that requires a third-party signature

2) Indicate in GoCanvas who should receive the PDF and press “Submit”

3) An email is sent to the recipient, indicating that a document is available for them to review

4) Click “Open Document” and the GoCanvas PDF (now hosted by SignNow) indicates which “live fields” can be filled in by the recipient without the need for any downloads or login credentials

5) Once all required fields have been filled in, the recipient presses “Done” and both parties receive a final PDF version of the document instantly

Collecting signatures is sometimes trickier then it sounds.

Whether you are dealing with a remote field staff or serving a wide territory of clients, getting the final signature on a document can sometimes take hours or days when distance separates you.  But now with GoCanvas and SignNow, you can send GoCanvas PDFs to anyone, regardless if they are a subscriber or not, and have them add their information to the document instantly!

This new type of GoCanvas workflow is perfect for companies completing:

  • Proposals
  • Invoices
  • Estimates
  • Purchases Orders
  • Quote Sheets
  • Daily reports

And this is just the beginning!

So if you’re interested in learning more or how you can get this setup on your GoCanvas account, send an email to our Professional Services team at IntegrationTeam@gocanvas.com.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Three Mobile Forms That Every Commercial Paving Company Needs to Have

Three Mobile Forms That Every Commercial Paving Company Needs to Have

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Whether it be commercial, private or infrastructure based – the construction industry continues to grow along with the size of projects. And as the scale and complexity of construction projects continue to increase, the need for efficient document/data management has become critical to the success of any given construction project.

This is the primary reason today that you see many of the top tier construction companies ($100M+ revenue) moving towards ‘enterprise’ construction software, and removing paper-based documentation from their project sites.

But, what about the small and mid-sized firms? And what about the contractors who support these firms and their projects? In many cases, this group is the lifeblood of the Construction industry.

The issue? The majority of these firms are still collecting and sharing data the same way they did it 50+ years ago.

The reason? They feel like they can’t see the ROI in the multi-thousand dollar investment in an enterprise level solution. And this is the reason why GoCanvas was created.

With GoCanvas, you can now create a mobile form platform that fits your budget and data collection needs. This type of flexibility is perfect for people like Sandee Pierce,  Admin Director at Sierra National Asphalt, who was looking to streamline her crew’s daily reports and time sheets.



Since fully ditching their paperwork for GoCanvas, Sandee stated that Sierra National Asphalt loves GoCanvas because “Supervisors do not have to go to job sites to track down and collect time sheets (anymore). The reference data and validation tables have reduced the errors that previously caused corrections by the supervisors and office staff”. 

For small to mid-size construction contractors like Sandee Pierce, GoCanvas has become the go-to solution for companies looking to replace their outdated paper processes without blowing the budget.

If your exploring going paperless with your daily operations process, we have the perfect forms for you!

The specific mobile forms below are handpicked for the Asphalt/Paving industry and are as simple as “Click and Submit” to use. But also keep in mind that all our mobile forms are completely customizable using the GoCanvas App Builder, and can easily be tweaked to fit your existing data collection processes! You can even change the entire look and feel of the output PDF report using the PDF Designer. 

None of these Paving mobile forms a perfect fit? No worries! We have over 20,000 mobile forms in our App Store to fit any use case and/or industry!

For some businesses, their operations are so complex that starting from a mobile form template wouldn’t make sense.

In instances like this, GoCanvas has a special ‘white glove’ program called ‘Send Us Your Form’. This service allows you to scan and email a copy of the current form that you are using today, and we will convert it into a mobile version!

That means that you won’t have to search through our Application Store to find a mobile form that matches your existing process, or take the time to build it out from scratch using the App Builder. We take on the work of digitizing your current paper-based process for you!

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Three inspection workers on job site.

The Ultimate Guide to Quality Control Inspections

Managing a construction project is a complex and stressful process. Among other things, you have to coordinate project team members, materials, and equipment and ensure that contractors are not afflicted by the potential risks and hazards present at the construction site. That said, quality means different things to different people which is why you should…

A man using GoCanvas for the digital transformation of his workflow.

Constructions Digital Transformation

Your competition is finding faster ways to capture data and get critical insights from the field into their existing systems. In short, they’re not going bigger, they’re getting smarter. In this 15-minute broadcast on the construction industry’s digital transformation, find out why the trend is to modernize workflows – and how you can stay ahead of the curve…

A electrician inspecting equipment.

See how VIP Lighting optimized efficiency with GoCanvas

VIP Lighting is a retail lighting and electrical maintenance business that services over 10,000 retail locations all over Australia and New Zealand. Before GoCanvas, VIP Lighting had two separate systems that were impossible to integrate, leading to inefficiencies. GoCanvas made it easy to integrate their systems into single, centralized platform…

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Easy to Manage Billing with Team Licenses

GoCanvas

Easy to Manage Billing with Team Licenses

There are numerous benefits in choosing GoCanvas Team Licenses over the old “per-user” subscription plan, but one of the biggest advantages is the ease of billing.

With the GoCanvas Team License model, your organization is now free to add and remove users from your account without the headache of having to calculate what the new charges will be every month.

Team Licenses allow you to:

  • Streamline and predict billing on a monthly or annual basis
  • Establish a single monthly or annual billing date for your account (no more juggling multiple renewal dates for each individual user)
  • Add, subtract, and transfer licenses without any hassle or impact on billing

Whether you select a monthly or annually billed Team License plan, the example below illustrates how easy billing becomes as your company begins to add users to your account.

No longer will your account balance vary from month to month due to the addition of new users. With GoCanvas Team Licenses, your account balance always remains the same, so there are no surprises!

Need more users that are available in your current plan?

Just reach out to Sales@gocanvas.com and we’ll get you set up with a plan that works for you.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Say Hello to the NEW GoCanvas Online Community!

Say Hello to the NEW GoCanvas Online Community!

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We are super excited about the release of the GoCanvas Community.

Why are we so excited? Because the Community is a great way to view and share the information that matters the most to you. The GoCanvas Community is where tips, tricks, best practices, and advice live. You’ll be able to get real-world solutions from other users, submit feature requests, and keep up-to-date with the latest releases!

The Community will soon become the hub for all things GoCanvas.

The Help Center is a static database of information pertaining to the many different aspects of the GoCanvas platform. By being static, the information is presented to you in a way that is meant to be quickly digested and comprehended. While useful in many situations, it doesn’t always apply to more complex situations within the GoCanvas platform. Whereas the Community is dynamic; with users creating posts, and anyone (including GoCanvas staff) having the ability to respond to feedback or insight.

The Help Center will continue to house documentation about our features and how to use the product, while the Community will cater more to creative problem solving, specific use cases, and collaborative troubleshooting, as well as giving ways for users to give feedback and to make feature requests.

When you’re having a problem or are trying something new, chances are someone can point you toward a solution. Think of the Community as a sounding board for your specific questions and issues.

The Community will truly thrive when everyone, new and experienced GoCanvas users alike, see it as a place to post problems and find creative solutions. The more input from you the better!

It’s super simple! Just click here to access the GoCanvas Community. Once there, you’ll be able to view, post, and comment on a variety of different GoCanvas topics. Can’t find what you’re looking for? Create your own post and get the conversation started!

We look forward to ‘seeing’ you in the Community soon!

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

business people discussing project

Gown Your Business with GoCanvas Partner Program

Join our Partner Program and gain instant access to our global network of thought leaders and industry experts enjoying shared collaboration and collective success.

Forte Supply Chain Solutions Partner Video

Partner Snapshot: Forte Supply Chain Solutions

Explore how Forte Supply Chain Solutions partnered with GoCanvas, combining in-house industry expertise with our white-label mobile forms to revolutionize their processes.

Closeup of a handshake.

GoCanvas Integrations: Streamline your Workflow

Integrate with over 1,000 software applications. Enhance your GoCanvas experience by syncing real-time data to one or all of your business tools.

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Running on Empty? Learn How Fuel Costs Are Killing Your Bottom Line

Running on Empty? Learn How Fuel Costs Are Killing Your Bottom Line

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Yellow Hummer When you try to think of items that burn up a lot of gasoline, what first comes to mind?

SUVs. Lawnmowers. Generators. My yellow H2 Hummer (kidding). But seriously, all these things tend to burn more gas (and money) than their actual value to you.

But what about paper? It doesn’t really sound like something that would cause you to suddenly grab your wallet. But indeed, similar to my yellow H2 Hummer (still kidding), paper forms are actually one item that can significantly cost your business both time and money.

Read on below to learn how a single paper-based process can cost your business not only 100s of hours in lost efficiency, but also cause leakage on your bottom line.

CorollaMost common people are conscious about their mileage, how much they spend on gas and the fuel economy of the vehicle they purchase. This is probably why the economically designed Toyota Corolla is still the top-selling car of all-time.

But when it comes to running a business, the majority of people can’t haul loads or supplies in the backseat of their leather interior Corolla. This doesn’t mean though that we should simply throw all economic sense out of the window when it comes to managing a fleet of vehicles.

Most companies within the Field Service or Construction industries are, due to their work, forced into purchasing less fuel-efficient vans and trucks. This is the point at which most companies feel resigned to the fact that they will have to spend a ton to fill up those vehicles, because “that’s just what everyone else does”.  But this is just the point in time when companies should instead say, “What CAN we do to cut down on our costs, and where CAN we streamline our process?”.

So this begs the important question, how and where is money being lost in transit?

Remember that work vehicles are used for two primary purposes, driving to and from job sites. Every time they are on the road burning fuel, the company is slowly losing money.

Why are they on the road? 50% of the time it’s because they need to return paper forms back to the office, hauling their gas-guzzling fenders miles across town to do so. This is the critical correlation between paper forms and fuel dollars, and where a business hemorrhages money without truly realizing it.

But how much is it really costing your business? Let’s calculate below exactly how much a single paper form can cost your organization.

So, we’ve talked about how fuel inefficiency can increase costs within your business, but how does a single paper form effect those costs? By using paper forms you’re forcing each field tech and/or supervisor to manually fill out each report and return the contents back to HQ for processing. This means if your field tech is sent to a site 15 miles away, they’re going to be burning cash all the way back to the office in order to return those forms.

But we can break it down even further.

For example, say a field supervisor has 4 job sites to inspect every single day. At each of those job sites, he/she has to complete a detailed Job Safety Analysis (JSA) report, with the average distance from the main office to each site being 15 miles.

MoneyNow take into consideration the average mile per gallon range for a standard pickup or van is 15 to 20 mpg, with an average cost of a gallon of gas being $2.30. With a total of 50 standard work weeks in a year(accounting for vacation), that field supervisor will waste around 300 gallons of fuel traveling between the worksites and the main office. That alone will account for close to $700 in fuel dollars lost annually,  and that’s just for a single field supervisor!

But what about the actual process of filling out and collecting all the data on paper forms, how much time and money does that waste the field supervisors?

Take into consideration that the average paper report can take between 15 and 30 minutes to fully complete by hand. Why so long? Think about it. When it comes to a safety-related form like a JSA, or even something as simple as a timecard, detail is everything. And with paper, nothing can be pre-filled or auto-populated like it can with a mobile form.

Crumpled Paper You have to capture photos, signatures and even GPS coordinates for the report to be verified as accurate. When you use a platform like GoCanvas, all these features are built right into the mobile form. With paper, you are forced to bring extra pieces of equipment to capture these readings, and then take the time to compile them all together for a final report. This extra 30 minutes a day, across 4 sites, for 50 business weeks can cause that single field supervisor to waste between 200-300 hours every year! 

Not impressed by hours lost?

Add into the equation how much they are being paid, let’s say $17 per hour, and that equates to between $3,400 – $5,100 in lost productivity every year. Now multiply that number across all your supervisors and watch as the losses pile up!

Now that we’ve talked about the doom and gloom that paper forms can bring upon your business, it’s only right that we show you how to solve the issue!

A mobile form platform like GoCanvas is essentially built to negate all the negative traits that come with paper-based data collection.

GoCanvas Mobile With GoCanvas, your employees (including field supervisors) can reduce their drive time by 50% or more because of real-time data sharing. As soon as a report is completed onsite, all of the contents including GPS, Photos, Signatures, Barcodes, and more will be automatically sent to the GoCanvas cloud and available for immediate review by the main office.

Employees, like field supervisors, can also cut down on trips between sites by setting up safety inspection approvals with the GoCanvas Workflow feature. This allows for employees from other sites to complete inspections with detailed photos, and transmit that data directly to the field supervisor’s GoCanvas device for final review and approval. If any mistakes or issues are found, the field supervisor can reject the report and send a note back to the original submitter. This type of process can further cut down on unneeded mileage, and improve daily efficiency across multiple job sites!

Whether it be a timesheet, work order or site inspection – paper anywhere is dysfunction everywhere. By simply implementing the few simple changes outlined above, you could end up saving your business close to $4,000 per employee annually! 

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

A person sits at a desk holding their phone showing a graph, while their laptop sits on the desk showing more charts and graphs.

How TE3CO Leverages Data Analytics to Unlock Business Potential

TE3CO provides mission-critical pressure relief technology and services to customers across the oil and gas industry. They employ a highly trained and capable workforce of field technicians and engineers. Before working with GoCanvas, TE3CO relied on spreadsheets and emails to manage their ticketing process but found the system time-consuming and difficult to track.

Two men in hard hats look onto a tablet.

VIP Lighting Gains Business Efficiencies with GoCanvas

VIP Lighting is a retail lighting and electrical maintenance company that services retail chains across Australia and New Zealand. The business has been operating for 25 years and now services 10,000 retail sites across both countries. Prior to joining GoCanvas in 2018, the business had multiple systems running different aspects of their technician and contractor network.

Man in a hard hat inspecting HVAC vents.

Three HVAC Maintenance Checklists that will Reduce Errors and Grow Your Bottom Line

For HVAC technicians, so many errors within their daily tasks come from using outdated paper forms while completing a job. Using these HVAC inspection checklists will prevent issues before they happen, so your technicians can collect comprehensive and consistent data at every job.

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

Breaking Down OSHA’s Top 10 Most Cited Violations of 2017

Breaking Down OSHA’s Top 10 Most Cited Violations of 2017

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2017: OSHA Safety in Review

Where did all the time go? It seems like just yesterday we were posting the results of OSHA’s 2016 data findings, but here we are again.

The reason why it feels like déjà vu is likely because the top 5 most cited violations of 2017 are the same as those from 2016.  Fall Protection – General Requirments, Hazard Communication, Scaffolding, Respiratory Protection, and Lockout/Tagout all come in at the top of the list for the 2nd consecutive year. All combined, the top 5 most cited categories through September of 2017 have accounted for approximately 21,748 violations.

The bottom 5 categories consist of Ladders, Powered Industrial Trucks, Machine Guarding, Fall Protection – Training Requirements, and Electrical Wiring Methods. In total, these have accounted for 10,279 violations, which combined equals 32,027 total violations reported in 2017 thus far.

This amount of violations seems like a lot (which it is), but the good news is that it’s a dramatic decrease from 2016. Last year 36,531 violations were reported in total, which accounts for an overall decrease of 12%! This decrease can be attributed to many things, but overall it shows that companies are finally starting to become serious about the safety of their employees and investing in the right methods/technologies to protect them.

But all the news isn’t positive.

Within the OSHA top 10 violation list, there was one new addition from 2016 to 2017, Fall Protection – Training Requirements. This type of violation revolves around the lack of proper safety training programs in high risk and dangerous environments. This is a common issue in today’s building construction environment as the pressure to complete projects faster increases and proper safety procedures get put by the wayside. Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, puts it into perspective by telling Safety+Health Magazine that “Many of these violations were specifically related to training requirements and ensuring that a training program for each employee who may be exposed to fall hazards is established. Often, these violations occurred in the roofing, framing and residential modeling industries.

While progress is being made, there is still much work left to do. If you’re looking to become smarter about the way you collect, report, and track safety information on your project sites, GoCanavs can help! Our Application Store has over 100 different OSHA specific mobile form templates available to download and use in seconds. Toolbox Talks, JSAs, Accident Reports, and much more can be customized to fit your exact business needs.

Click here to request a quick demo!

Top 10 OSHA Violations of 2017

OSHA Infographic

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Three people in hard hats looking at a tablet.

Smarter, Faster, Safer: Improving Safety Compliance with Mobile Technology

Compliance, there are many ways we talk about it. A necessary evil, a chore, a struggle, or a critically important part of business. We all know how crucial it is, helping save…

Woman reviewing information on a tablet.

Your Guide to Waiver Forms — Examples and Templates

Waiver forms are a type of legal protection used by businesses to reduce their liability and risk. This type of agreement between a business and its customers is used…

Closeup of a handshake.

Duotank Transforms Business Processes with GoCanvas

Duotank is a bag-in-tank alternative to the traditional keg beer system. The aseptic tank environment enables breweries to maintain the quality of their beer after it leaves…

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

3 Easy Ways to Create the Perfect Mobile Punch List

3 Easy Ways to Create the Perfect Mobile Punch List

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Paper forms are used today as a quick way to collect information on a project site but don’t give much flexibility in the types of information that can be collected.

A Construction Punch List is often meant to be a run through of outstanding items to be completed on a project, but these forms can be found in different formats depending on the size and scope of the particular project.

The issue with paper Punch Lists is that they offer ZERO flexibility in the way they are filled out and completed. You’re restricted to staying between the lines on the piece of paper and aren’t able to deviate or add anything outside of that paper rectangle. This runs in complete conflict with the Construction industry where data is constantly changing and personnel is in need of real-time information. This is why mobile forms, especially mobile Punch Lists, make sense.

Creating the perfect mobile form or app is about incorporating the right features that fit your data collection goals.

When filling out a Punch List the primary goal is to inspect a list of outstanding construction items, update their current status and add current or estimated completion dates. But for companies looking to dive even deeper into their data, solutions like GoCanvas allow them to enhance their Punch Lists with three important features.

Check out the three features below that you can incorporate into your GoCanvas mobile Punch Lists to increase your data quality and efficiency!

Attach Site Photos with Image Capture – Punch Lists are useful for the person who is physically filling them out onsite, but what about the employees in the back-office? The ability to collect and attach site photos allow Punch Lists to become instantly more valuable and give supervisors real-time insight into the progress of project sites. The annotation feature of GoCanvas also allows users who capture photos to highlight and draw on top of the images that they capture with their mobile device. This makes it possible for them to point out aspects of each line item and ensure that nothing is mistakenly forgotten during the follow-up tasks.

Editing Images on GoCanvas

We suggest using the Image Capture feature along with Conditional Logic. This allows you to have an Image Capture field show up only if a particular value is selected. For example, if a line item in the Punch List is marked “Finished”, an Image Capture field would then appear for the user to snap a photo of the completed item for verification. This is an easy way of ensuring you collect the data you need without making the form dramatically longer or more complicated to complete.

Auto-populating Items with Reference Data –  One of the most time-consuming parts of filling out a paper Punch List is having to manually write in each item you are reviewing. Not only are you trying to rush to inspect each item in a timely fashion, but you’re also attempting to be thorough in your inspection as well. Usually, this type of pace leads to horrible handwriting and less than thorough note-taking.

Punchlist on GoCanvas

With GoCanvas and the Reference Data functionality, you can pre-load into your Punch List rows of items that are in need of review. It’s simple as creating an Excel spreadsheet, uploading that into your GoCanvas account, and connecting it to your mobile Punch List form. Now you’ll have every item you need to inspect right in front of you and can even add items on the spot if need be. Each item you load with Reference Data can also be loaded with corresponding “Due Dates”, so that when the user is filling out the Punch List app they will know if the item they are inspecting in on track or past due for completion.  This auto-filling of data in the mobile form will easily save you 10 – 20 minutes per report completed.

Automating Reviews & Approvals with Workflow – The biggest complaint with using paper, across the board, is the time it takes to receive the reports from the field. This delay often makes the data out-dated by the time it finally reaches the back office for analysis. With Punch Lists, in particular, it’s important that the data be collected and REVIEWED in a timely manner so that real-time decisions can be made to keep the project on track.

Workflow on GoCanvas

The Workflow feature of GoCanvas is perfect for Punch Lists because it allows for the user filling out the report to instantly send the data to his or her supervisor’s device for immediate review. The supervisor can review all of the data and photos that the employee captured previously with GoCanvas and then even add notes to the report before submitting the record to the cloud for final review. If the supervisor were to find something that didn’t look right, he or she would have the ability to reject the Punch List and send it back to the original submitter with the reason why it was rejected. The great thing is that this Workflow process can be customized to fit your organization’s process. So if you want the Punch List to not go to a supervisor but instead go to a general contractor who will review and complete any outstanding items, you can!

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Three inspection workers on job site.

The Ultimate Guide to Quality Control Inspections

Managing a construction project is a complex and stressful process. Among other things, you have to coordinate project team members, materials, and equipment and ensure that contractors are not afflicted by the potential risks and hazards present at the construction site. That said, quality means different things to different people which is why you should…

A man using GoCanvas for the digital transformation of his workflow.

Constructions Digital Transformation

Your competition is finding faster ways to capture data and get critical insights from the field into their existing systems. In short, they’re not going bigger, they’re getting smarter. In this 15-minute broadcast on the construction industry’s digital transformation, find out why the trend is to modernize workflows – and how you can stay ahead of the curve…

A electrician inspecting equipment.

See how VIP Lighting optimized efficiency with GoCanvas

VIP Lighting is a retail lighting and electrical maintenance business that services over 10,000 retail locations all over Australia and New Zealand. Before GoCanvas, VIP Lighting had two separate systems that were impossible to integrate, leading to inefficiencies. GoCanvas made it easy to integrate their systems into single, centralized platform…

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We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

5 Mobile Forms Every QA/QC Inspector Should Be Using

5 Mobile Forms Every QA/QC Inspector Should Be Using

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The act of performing inspections is almost always a tedious task, especially when paper forms are involved.

For Quality Assurance and Quality Control inspectors in various industries, but especially in construction, the process of completing their project reports can be a daunting task. This multi-form, multi-step process can quickly become disorganized and unmanageable if the proper processes are not in place. The negative effects of not properly completing these reports include delays in project development and major decreases in worker productivity.

So how can these issues be avoided? By using a single platform for the collection, sharing, and reporting of all QA/QC forms. This is what GoCanvas provides.

A typical QA/QC engineer or inspector will typically have to carry and fill out 5 to 10 different types of paper forms for a typical project. This doesn’t include all the additional documents like drawings and photos that the inspector will need to print out and attach separately. Add this to the pain of having to carry around these paper reports and transporting them all the way back to the office for reporting, this can add up to 100’s of hours being wasted every month due to paperwork inefficiencies.

With a platform like GoCanvas, these inefficiencies are entirely eliminated. All the forms an inspector needs can be found directly on their mobile device, and are accessible whether offline or online. These mobile forms can be customized to include easy to use drop-down menus and check boxes, as well as more specialized fields like GPS, Image Capture, Sketching, Time Stamps, Signature Capture, and more! You can also easily organize your forms on your mobile device into convenient folders for easy retrieval based on project and/or location.

But the best part is that as soon a report is completed, the data is synced to the cloud and available for the office staff to begin reviewing in real-time. This can instantly save hours that were previously lost to manual data re-entry and lost paperwork.

Now it’s time to see which mobile forms could begin saving your business hundreds of hours in lost efficiency!

GoCanvas doesn’t just give you a code-free form builder to create and customize your very own mobile forms and documents, but it also provides you with over 20,000 pre-built mobile form templates to choose from and download in seconds.

Below are 5 mobile form templates that every Quality Assurance/Quality Control inspector and engineer should download and customize to fit their particular needs. Click on any of the templates below to get started!

RFI mobile form
Material Order Form Mobile App
Engineer inspection request mobile form
Daily construction project report mobile form
Subcontractor agreement

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas® is on a mission to simplify inspections and maximize compliance. Our intuitive platform takes care of the administrative tasks, freeing our customers to focus on what truly matters – safeguarding their people, protecting their equipment, and delivering exceptional quality to their customers. 

Since 2008, thousands of companies have chosen GoCanvas as their go-to partner for seamless field operations.

Check out even more resources

Three people in hard hats looking at a tablet.

Smarter, Faster, Safer: Improving Safety Compliance with Mobile Technology

Compliance, there are many ways we talk about it. A necessary evil, a chore, a struggle, or a critically important part of business. We all know how crucial it is, helping save…

Woman reviewing information on a tablet.

Your Guide to Waiver Forms — Examples and Templates

Waiver forms are a type of legal protection used by businesses to reduce their liability and risk. This type of agreement between a business and its customers is used…

Closeup of a handshake.

Duotank Transforms Business Processes with GoCanvas

Duotank is a bag-in-tank alternative to the traditional keg beer system. The aseptic tank environment enables breweries to maintain the quality of their beer after it leaves…

Connect with an Expert Today.

We’ll help you put together the right solution for your needs.

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