When you are viewing documents, reviewing reports, etc within Omnant, we provide a state-of-the-art viewer to allow you to see the document without download and cluttering up your desktop. This sometimes becomes a bottleneck though since you need to see the PDF but also move on with other things in the system. There is a new icon available with the viewer to do just that. This new icon will open the PDF onto a new tab, so you can go back to the original and access other parts of Omnant. 

This allow for you to multi-task and get more done with Omnant.

Behind the scenes, we have been working on improving the compression process used when reports are finalized and sent out from Omnant. The goal is to retain the look and feel of the PDFs but to reduce the footprint of the file on storage - both for your clients and yourself. This process runs automatically in the background for all new reports that are approved within the system. 

Nothing you need to do on your end, the system will automatically compress the final PDFs.

We have continued to expand our lab testing and reporting offering. We are excited to introduce the ability to combine various samples into one page reports to summary and graph multiple samples for the same project. This fast and convenient reporting produces easy to read reports that your customers will love. There is a built-in wizard within Omnant that will help you find and select reports to be included. The initial tests/reports that can be combined are:

• Particle/Grain Size (USCS or USDA)
• Atterberg Limits
• Proctors

The first step is to decide which project you will want to create a combined report for:

After selecting the project, you will be able to see and filter by all of the samples available for that project:

With these reports selected, you will then be able to see what types of reports that available for the selected samples. This step also allows you to decide which samples should be included in the final report.

The last step is to give the report a name so that you can quickly reference it is the future:

Now you can print the report and see how the samples compare - all within Omnant.

Do you find yourself editing a project and would like to quickly start a dispatch or write a report? We have added a feature that will allow for you to jump to these items while directly working with a project. You will see the new button in the upper right corner of the "Project Details" section that will allow you to do just that.

Additionally, if you are working with a field report - you will see a new icon that will allow you to quickly jump to the edit page for the project. This icon is restricted based on permissions so only users that have access to edit the associated project will see it. 

We have extended the ability to annotate directly within Omnant for photos that you uploaded for reports. This works on attachments for both field and break reports. This can be done both while you are adding photos or after the photos are included on that attachment. To look at annotating while selecting photos - you will see an icon to the left of the selected photo - such as shown below.

Click on this icon will allow you to start annotating the photo. Similar as the PDF annotation tool, you will see photo and the various tools that you can utilize. Select from the toolbar above the image and start annotating!

If you do not want to annotate the photos right away, you can also use the "Edit" icon once the photos are added to the attachment. Click on the icon shown below, and it will show you the edit window for that particular image.

Once you are on the edit window, use the annotation button highlighted below to enter the annotation tool. 

It is easy as that! All of the annotations can later be revised if necessary.

The system has the ability for you to create standardized paragraphes for you techs to use when creating their field reports. This works in a "mad lib" style that can also be adjusted once added to the field report. There are permissions built into the system to restrict who can create and edit the wording. If you are not seeing the buttons shown below, this means that you do not have permissions to manage these paragraphs or that there are no existing paragraphs created within your system. If you would like more details on how to enable these for your system - please feel free to reach out.

First, the following button labeled "Standard Paragraphs" is what you are looking for. This can be found on the create or edit page for field reports. 

If you click on this button, the following window will be shown. If the permission is enabled for you account, you will also see a button labeled "Manage". This "Manage" button will allow you to create, edit and delete paragraphs that are available to other users within the system. Note: these paragraphs are available "globally" within your system and all users will have access to them.

Once you have created paragraphs - the other users will be able to select as many as they want (or even add the same one multiple times). The user will be able to see which are selected and even re-order the selected ones to control how the report will be initialized. 

You may have already started to notice a new "badge" next to the project when viewing the schedule or the My Schedule page. This new badge - colored in brown - will be included if there are any proctors that are stored in the project's settings. This new feature pushes the data directly to the scheduling page so that you and your techs can quickly see what proctors are stored without needing to go somewhere else. Allowing the tech to have this information at their fingertips when reviewing their schedule or when they are arriving on the jobsite.

Why This Change Matters:

• Quick Data Access – No longer will users need to click around to other pages to get this information
• Improved accuracy – Techs will not have to guess at what proctors might be revelant
• Universal access – This information is now accessible from the schedule, my schedule and the display on the user's dashboard

Were you aware that not all dispatches for a project end up going to the same place? While we have had ways to handle this - specifically by using a custom address when scheduling - now you have a way to store addresses to be reused later. This will allow for you to not have to re-type addresses for regular / recurring locations for a projects. This is accomplished in two ways:

1. Add an alternative address for the project
2. Create a fabrication shop (or equivalent) that can be used across multple projects

For the first example, this allows you to store a secondary address for the project. You can also optionally apply a name for each of the addresses, or allow the system to set the names as "Default" and "Dispatch". Just go to the edit page for the project and you will see additional fields for the project to store this secondary address. Below is a screenshot that shows where you can find these fields on the edit page:

The second option, requires a bit of setup - but once you get this shops added, they can be reused as much as needed. Also if you do not see the options as shown below, please contact us to adjust your permissions within your system. 

The first step is to use the "gear" icon in the upper right corner of the system. You will be looking for an option labeled "Fabrication Shops". Once you locate this option, simply click on the link to navigate to the maintenance page for this feature.

This listing will allow you to maintain which shops are available for scheduling within the system. Simply use the "Create New" button to start adding new shops. For each shop, you can add as many addresses / locations that the shop has. This way when you are scheduling and sending a tech to a shop, it will be as simply as selecting the address from the drop down. Below is an example of a shop being created within the system. Once you have the information entered, simply click on the "Create" button to add the shop to the system.

Now, on to using these two options while scheduling a project! The entry screen will look pretty familiar but there are some new buttons available to use these new addresses. If you did not give the project's secondary address a name - the name shown will be "Dispatch". To access the shops stored within the system, you will need to select button labeled "Shop". In both cases, the system will then use these addresses to be shown from the dispatch so that the tech knows where to go. Also, you do not need to worry about mistyping or having the wrong address.

Selecting the secondary address:

Using the shops to schedule a dispatch:

Why This Change Matters:

• Time savings – Quickly reuse addresses for projects rather than having to type in a custom address
• Improved accuracy – No second guessing if you entered the address correctly
• One-time setup – Once you set up the addresses, the data is available for reuse by simply clicking

No longer will you need to download attachments that you have on field reports to reuse them on Break Reports! Now you can transfer any PDFs or images from the field report to the break reports with a few simple clicks. This is possible from the scheduling view when you creating the break reports, or anywhere you can see the break report's attachments - such as the daily breaks or the edit page for the break report. 

From the scheduling page, you will see a new "attachment" icon after the break report is created within the system. This will be your starting point for accessing the existing field report attachments to copy them over to the break report. The screenshot below show this new icon, and to start the process simply click on the icon.

The next window you will see allow you to edit the attachments for this break report. You can upload new PDFs or images, but we are here to reuse other existing attachments! To continue that process, you will see a button in the upper left corner of the window labeled "Import Field Forms". Please click on this button, and the system will load the PDFs and image attachments for the associated Field Report.

The following is an example of how the attachments are presented based on what the associated Field Report has. In this case there are several PDF and image attachments avialable for copying. The "Copy" toggle for each attachment will allow the user to control which attachments should be transferred and copied to the break report.

Why This Change Matters:

• Significant time savings – No longer do you need to download the file and re-upload it, with this copying feature you can be done quickly and move onto other things.
• Simplified workflow – With only a few clicks, the attachments are ready to be reused on the break report

Another time saver added to help expedite the field report writing process. Your users can now drag and drop PDF or Word files from their local machines on to the "Add" section of attachments for Field Reports. This can be one file or multiple files. The system will handle uploading each of the files and creating a new attachment for each. No longer will the users need to go one file at a time but can add many document attachments at once. 

Once these files are uploaded and processed by the system, the same level of control is available for each. The user can later edit the document and crop or apply annotations. As well, if the resulting attachment order is not preferred, the user still has the control to drag the attachments to control the ordering.

Why This Change Matters:

• Time savings – Processing one file at a time takes several steps, where this new feature will process as many files as needed in one step
• Multiple files at once – Users can now upload several documents rather than having to do one at a time