With the release of Home Inspector Pro Desktop version 6.9, templates can now be shared using the cloud functionality of Home Inspector Pro.
Note: The use of the Cloud Template Sharing requires an active HIP Office or HIP Office Lite subscription. If a subscription is not active on your account, the Cloud Sync button will be greyed out.
Purpose: The Cloud Template Sharing is intended to allow for templates uploaded to the HIP Cloud to be downloaded to the HIP Mobile app, and to download templates to other computers running Home Inspector Pro desktop. The templates can be shared to other devices used by a single inspector or can be shared to groups of other inspectors associated with your Home Inspector Pro account.
Templates shared through the Cloud Sync include the template and all files related to the template, including any PDF stationery, linked images and diagrams, documents, PDF forms, and everything that is used by your template. There is no need to load any additional files outside the template.
Before following the steps below, make sure you have updated your Home Inspector Pro installation on your Windows or macOS computer to version 6.9 or later. Each machine that will be using the shared templates must be updated to the most recent version for the template sharing to function properly. The most recent version can be found here: https://hipoffice.homeinspectorpro.com/download.html
Sharing Templates as an Individual Inspector
To share your template with other computers and the HIP Mobile app, the process is essentially the same as uploading your existing template to the cloud.
On the computer that contains the most recent version of your template, open the Home Inspector Pro desktop application.
Click on the Cloud Sync button in the toolbar.
Click Upload Template, then select your template to upload to the cloud.
Your template will then upload to the cloud. If your intention is to share this only with computers and mobile devices associated with only your account, no additional settings are required. Instructions on downloading the template to your computers can be found below.
Sharing Templates with Multiple Inspectors
Sharing of templates with other users is intended to use the HIP Office / HIP Office Lite assigned inspectors as the basis of users who can have templates shared with them. This allows for the sharing of templates with your assigned inspectors as defined in HIP Office system, not for sharing templates from one inspector to another within a company. For instructions on managing inspectors in HIP Office, see the article here.
For users who are sole inspectors, or who have no associated inspectors that they manage, the Share button will not be visible on the Manage Templates screen. Your template can still be accessed on your other devices without sharing the template.
Follow the steps above to upload the template to the cloud.
Click on the Manage Templates button on the Cloud Sync screen.
For the template you would like to share with other users, click on the Share button. If the Share button is greyed-out, this indicates this is a template that was shared before the release of this update.
Click on the button at the top of the screen labeled Add Inspectors/Groups to Share.
A list of all the inspectors associated with your account will be listed. To share the template with the inspectors, click the Add button on the far-right for each of inspector. Once complete, click Add Selected Inspectors.
To complete, click Close at the bottom of the screen.
Downloading Inspections to your Home Inspector Pro Desktop
To download the templates to your Home Inspector Pro Desktop installation (on Windows or macOS), the user must have Home Inspector Pro version 6.9 or later for this functionality to operate.
On your (or your inspectors) target computers, go to the Cloud Sync button in the toolbar.
Click on Manage Templates.
For the shared template, click on the Download button.
The user will be prompted to save the template bundle to their computer. This will default to the TemplateDistributions folder in the Home Inspector Pro Data directory. Click Save to save the file to this location.
Click Close.
Go to the File menu and select Load Template Bundle.
Choose the saved file from the TemplateDistribution folder and click Open.
The template bundle and all related files will begin to load. If there are existing files that exist (such as linked images, PDFs, etc) on the users computer, you will be prompted that existing files exist. Select the option to Replace the file... and check the box for Do you wish to save the setting for all files in this bundle. This will allow for all existing files in the bundle to overwrite the existing files.
Note: Some files used by your shared template may be used by other templates used by the inspector, or these files may exist from a previous version of your template. If these files are the same files used by other templates, overwriting the files will cause no issues.
The user can now go to Open Template, the shared template will now be in the list.