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  • 1.  Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Posted 28 days ago

    Hi Community folks!

    As part of a new feature we're working on, I wanted to ask your opinions on what makes a good summary for a field technician's use.

    • Length: Should it be less than 100 words? Greater than 100 words? 
    • Subject matter variability: Does the length requirement vary by what's being summarized?
      • Referencing a manual or other material (Resource Documents/Images)
      • Summarizing the work done on a jobsite (Filled or partly-filled form submissions)
      • What changes about what needs to be highlighted between the above two use cases for summarization?
    • Format: Do your field techs like bullet points, or just a sentence or two of text? Or is there another format you prefer?
    • Device: If your techs work on multiple devices with different form factors, does this affect the length requirement? Where should summaries be cut off, if they are at all?

    Let me know what you think!



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    Erin Longhurst
    Product Manager
    TrueContext
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  • 2.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Adopter
    Posted 24 days ago

    Hi Erin. Here are my thoughts:

    • Length - Yes, definitely under 100 words. Anything more than that defeats the purpose of a summary. 
    • Subject matter variability - In our experience, I would not change the length requirement based on the topic to be summarized. Either the technician gets what he needs from a 100-word or less summary, or he should be referencing a full manual. We tend to find that summaries are effective when they are written for a technician with at least 6 months of job experience. Full manuals and in-field training support (buddy system) are in place for technicians in their first 6 months on the job. Once people know the basics, I think the summaries should be brief and focus on reminders for experienced technicians to ensure they follow procedures in order, capture the right documentation at the right time, etc. 
    • Format - Bullet points strongly preferred. Helps the reader skip information they already know and find what they need quickly
    • Device - Most of our field guys are working on tablets. We tend to format for their benefit with the understanding that occasionally the experience for phone users will not be as rich. My preference would be for summaries to have a 100-word character limit so that they could not be written longer than that in the first place. Phone users should be able to scroll to see the full summary if needed, and I believe 100 words would fit comfortably on all of the tablets we have in the field with proper text size formatting in place.



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    Matt Lambert
    Vice President of Operations
    PrimeLine Utility Services
    mlambert@primelineus.com
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Adopter
    Posted 23 days ago

    Hi Erin! I'm going to second Matt's thoughts. Our techs are on iPads the majority of time, but we also have 3rd party tech's who prefer the ease of the phone app, so we have to take that into consideration when designing forms. I would also agree that a summary has to be pretty short for it to not be skipped over, and if possible, to use bullet points. I've noticed with our group that if the bullet points call out the most important pieces of information, then people seem to be keener on reading those over a paragraph. 



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    Lisa Zido
    Technical Systems Administrator
    GOJO Industries Inc.
    OH
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Posted 23 days ago
    Edited by Erin Longhurst 23 days ago

    Hi @Lisa Zido and Matt,

    This is exactly the type of feedback I need. Summaries play a critical role in keeping field techs informed and getting the information they need for decision-making quickly, so getting this right is vital. 

    "Either the technician gets what he needs from a 100-word or less summary, or he should be referencing a full manual. We tend to find that summaries are effective when they are written for a technician with at least 6 months of job experience."

    @Matt Lambert While this whole paragraph is really interesting as it's a glimpse into how you manage onboarding new technicians, these sentences popped out at me. How do you think the summary should provide access to the full manual? For example, should there be jump points based on keywords (model numbers, parts, or specific procedures?) or simply a link? Would you ever want to summarize just a particular section of a manual that you might've attached to a form? 



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    Erin Longhurst
    Product Manager
    TrueContext
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Adopter
    Posted 22 days ago

    I'll just chime in to add that bullet points are key. I think 100 words is a good benchmark, but I'd be frustrated if a feature cut me off at that point if I just need a few more... Being able to link to multiple places within a document or multiple hyperlinks within a single block of text would be nice. I find that the "help hyperlink" option isn't always the most intuitive for users to locate, so I usually have to say in the text box "click the three dots for X..." etc.



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    Mark Warwick
    Gas Engineer
    PG&E
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Adopter
    Posted 22 days ago

    I think a simple hyperlink to the manual works best. We would probably put it at the end of the written summary. There could be instances where we paste a specific paragraph from a manual into a form, but I think most of our use cases fall cleanly into either of these two categories: holistic process summary (less than 100 words) or manual reference. Trying to do something in between would create too much effort for the form builder and not enough value for the field technician. 



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    Matt Lambert
    Vice President of Operations
    PrimeLine Utility Services
    mlambert@primelineus.com
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Adopter
    Posted 22 days ago
    Edited by Alicia Rico 22 days ago

    Hello,

    from my point of view, the best summary is the one a technician does not have to do anything. What I mean is:

    If the tech has to add a list of jobs done, it is not a summary, it is a list of jobs done and need to be as long as necessary. Sometimes, very long. Sometimes with attachments or pictures.

    If the tech has to add a list of suggestions or improvements, then, again, it is a list.

    Usually, when you do an inspection or maintenance job, what the customer wants to see is a summary of all the non-ok checks, so that he/she does not have to go through the whole document which could be 100 pages or more.

    If I understand correctly, here a "summary" is a user guide for the technicians on how to perform a job?



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    Alicia Rico
    CI
    Johnson Controls
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Summaries, Documentation, and the Field User: What makes a good summary?

    Posted 21 days ago

    Hi Alicia!

    Thanks for your feedback on this! We're mostly talking -- in this case -- about a summary of a Form Resource such as a bigger manual or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that the technician can use at a glance to:

    • identify what the manual is for
    • tell whether it's something they need or want to read
    • answer quick questions

    This isn't the entire use case, but the one being actively discussed. The idea is to gather a set of criteria for what makes a good summary for field technicians, and see what variables there are between customers and use cases. It's not something the field tech/engineer would generate themselves, but more as another tool for them to get information.

    Please let me know if you have any more questions.



    ------------------------------
    Erin Longhurst
    Product Manager
    TrueContext
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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