What software setup are people using on there testing?

[andyb]

This thread has surprised me
I would call myself a historical "Biro user" until these last few years
Since when I have on my computer some sort of programme,it allows me to fill in the spaces and print,save and do all I need to produce a cute certificate courtesy of that "nice" schemes design

My son provided it and it cost zilch pennies,now I am a real Dinosaur computer user and I am amazed that people actually pay money,hundreds even, for something that can cost nothing

What do you get that I don't for all that money?
190 a year would buy me a lot of Biros, I most definitely would not pay that amount for any other alternative,especially where free software is available

Well Des, if you look at previous post you will see that nobody whose replied pays £190 a year. Murdoch pays £75.00 + vat and I pay £60 + vat per year, Although I had to originally buy the software.

Now as for the difference I can't really say unless you give me some more details, reading your post it looks like you have a template that you just fill in the boxes, if that is the case then we are discussing two vastly different products.
For a start my package comes with every cert I need, domestic eicrs, eics, condition reports & fire alarms. Then a shed load of commercial all the above plus every fire alarm cert you could ever need plus emergency lights. Then the ones I don't need like solar.
The certificates are intuitive with drop down menus for ocpds, type of wiring, ref method, conductor size rcd, etc.
The eicr will put an entry onto the observation page when a C number in the inspection schedule.
It is also a data base with client & site addresses, again you use a drop down menu.
It spell checks & verifys the certificate picking up on missed items or entries that do not make sense re the regs.
I know Pirform does all this as well.
Finally it's regularly updated when needed, amnd 3 has been available since February.

Now that's not bad for just over a pound a week, but as I say I don't know what you have. If it does anything like that then I will certainly be interested.

 

[Octopus]

Well Des, if you look at previous post you will see that nobody whose replied pays £190 a year. Murdoch pays £75.00 + vat and I pay £60 + vat per year, Although I had to originally buy the software.

Now as for the difference I can't really say unless you give me some more details, reading your post it looks like you have a template that you just fill in the boxes, if that is the case then we are discussing two vastly different products.
For a start my package comes with every cert I need, domestic eicrs, eics, condition reports & fire alarms. Then a shed load of commercial all the above plus every fire alarm cert you could ever need plus emergency lights. Then the ones I don't need like solar.
The certificates are intuitive with drop down menus for ocpds, type of wiring, ref method, conductor size rcd, etc.
The eicr will put an entry onto the observation page when a C number in the inspection schedule.
It is also a data base with client & site addresses, again you use a drop down menu.
It spell checks & verifys the certificate picking up on missed items or entries that do not make sense re the regs.
I know Pirform does all this as well.
Finally it's regularly updated when needed, amnd 3 has been available since February.

Now that's not bad for just over a pound a week, but as I say I don't know what you have. If it does anything like that then I will certainly be interested.

AND these packages produce PDF certs which you can email to your clients AND with PIRform, if you've done a EIC or an EICR you can create MWC's easily - saving time, every time.

 

[midgetman]

I just use the online one at elecsa. I used to use a pen but this is a lot smarter looking. It emails pdf to client and yourself. They have most general certs. It costs £1 a cert. You can also get them to post by letter a printed cert on quality paper for £1.50. It stores all your certs online. You can also notify at same time if required. Works for me.

 

[Robert Turnbull]

Thanks for that
To be fair to them you can get the price from their site but you have to start an account, which is how I found out. But I wasn't sure if that is a one off price with a reduced care package after that.

I only asked because my customer care package is up for renewal with EasyCert so I thought I'd look around. Shineform looks very good, but the cost is too much for me. My annual package with Easycert is £59.95 + vat per year, and you only need to pay that if you need the updates. It will work fine without it. So when a serious amendment comes out like amd 3 you need to pay it.

EasyCert have done an amd 3 update but until I need it I'll put off purchasing it. The price is unchanged.

There are only a few updates for the amd 3 on easycert, the biggest the the EIC now has a tick page like the EICR for checking earthing etc.

 

[Resu]

Hi guys just wondered what you guys are using setup wise for testing, i have been using easycert but not sure I'm that keen on it to be honest, had a play with Certifi and i like the EICR layout and the fact you can add in images to reports?

Thoughts?

Cheers

You can add pictures to Easycert forms too.

 

[Robert Turnbull]

You can add pictures to Easycert forms too.

How do you add them?

 

[Resu]

Well on iPad app you go to options > attachments can't remember specifics off the top of my head for PC.

 

[Robert Turnbull]

i'll have a look i'm been lazy as i'm using my laptop to type this, how do you find it with an iPad i did it a could of times years ago and found it mainly slow. i'm dealing with 20-30 certificates a week, so found it easier to type.

 

[Resu]

i'll have a look i'm been lazy as i'm using my laptop to type this, how do you find it with an iPad i did it a could of times years ago and found it mainly slow. i'm dealing with 20-30 certificates a week, so found it easier to type.

Fairly quickly. We predominantly use the iPads as it's quicker (suppose it takes practice like anything else) also probably helps being younger (a bit more tech savvy maybe?) lol.

 

[sparkymalarky]

Amtech Fasttest for our guys, I have 4 licences and have used amtech for about 9 years now. Lots of good features.

 

[Jamie198]

Amtech Fasttest for our guys, I have 4 licences and have used amtech for about 9 years now. Lots of good features.

alright sparkymalarky ive just started using the amtech software and im finding it hard to get my head round it. ive been tasked with getting it rolled out to all the guys we have guys who do periodics and guys who do new installations. im finding it hard to get remote access sorted with the office and also filling out the sheets. could you tell me how to make the date come up at the signatures it says to be hand written the now ive looked through all the fastest basic course sheets I have but not luck so far. also how would you add a fire detection certificate to a electrical installation cert

 

[Eco Chap]

Apologies for dragging up a post from the past but thought it may be beneficial to have info on one thread;

Rapidly going of EasyCert unfortunately. We've had an influx of commercial EICR's recently and I'm struggling to get EasyCert to keep up. I think it's fine if your doing 1 cert but if you've got a number of D.B's to write up the template feature just seems clunky.

One instance that frustrates the hell out of me is the auto fill feature for the observations - You code an observation on the schedule list and it copies itself over to the observation section however if you then alter the code or delete the observation it has no effect on the other section of the report. I find myself forever double/triple checking our reports for consistencies something I don't expect to do having forked out in the first place!

Also the autofill feature on the test results section seems to intermittently work when your pulling up a template. Call me lazy but I get bored of filling a B in 24 diff columns of a report, cant help but feel a push of a button should do this all for me.

Rant over, in short we're debating taking the leap to Amtech. Any thoughts?

 

[Flanders]

Apologies for dragging up a post from the past but thought it may be beneficial to have info on one thread;

Rapidly going of EasyCert unfortunately. We've had an influx of commercial EICR's recently and I'm struggling to get EasyCert to keep up. I think it's fine if your doing 1 cert but if you've got a number of D.B's to write up the template feature just seems clunky.

One instance that frustrates the hell out of me is the auto fill feature for the observations - You code an observation on the schedule list and it copies itself over to the observation section however if you then alter the code or delete the observation it has no effect on the other section of the report. I find myself forever double/triple checking our reports for consistencies something I don't expect to do having forked out in the first place!

Also the autofill feature on the test results section seems to intermittently work when your pulling up a template. Call me lazy but I get bored of filling a B in 24 diff columns of a report, cant help but feel a push of a button should do this all for me.

Rant over, in short we're debating taking the leap to Amtech. Any thoughts?

you can set up in setting not to auto fill onto the observations i think its on the general tab in settings as a tick box you can also right click on any colum to copy up and copy down , so enter type B in the top column and any other circuits with dicription wrote in them will auto fill B when you copy down , note i don't enter "SPARE" into any circuit untill after i copy down, you can enter a lot of defaults for cicuits dicriptions and observation aswell so you don't have to keep writing in all the common ones , i use easy cert for industrial and don't have any problems with it

 

[bigspark17]

I use easycert. Very happy with it and have never had problems adding photos apart from when many photos have been added to the one cert +12 i think ish.

 

[Risteard]

I used to use Megger PowerSuite (still do for PAT Testing), but as it now can't print NICEIC certificates/reports I now use the NICEIC Certification Software for installation work.