What's New at Roof Express

Roof Express Going Agile to Deliver Ongoing Value
The Roof Express Development Team is now embracing state-of-the-art agile techniques for the development and management of our entire product line. What this means for you, as our customer, is an emphasis on innovation, responsiveness, and versatility. We anticipate rapid advancement and new features rolling out on a monthly basis, all aimed at making your company more competitive and profitable in today’s roofing industry. Many of these new features come directly from your requests (we are listening to you)!

 

Updates for May/June 2008

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Printing like a Pro

Many of you have been asking for the ability to print the interactive roof map (outside of our standard reports). Well, in this release of Roof Express we let you do just that. But, we've gone beyond a mere screenshot - you can print a CAD-style drawing complete with border, legends, a title block, and proportionally-scaled lines and symbols. You can print to various sizes of paper (including letter, legal, and 11x17).

You can print all sections together or one at a time. The 11x17 size is particularly useful for adding to the printed reports (as tri-fold pullouts). At Roof Express we remain committed to delivering top-quality presentations to ensure you maximize your chances at winning your proposals and bids.

Sync'ing at the Speed of Light

As Roof Express has steadily evolved and can do more and more for you, the data we need to move back and forth from the PDA has grown in size and scope (in proportion to the new features). The bad news is the HotSync times have been getting longer.

We know that's a small annoyance, but we thought we'd fix it for you anyway. Starting with our May/June release, Roof Express dramatically speeds up the HotSync process (by detecting when specific data needs to be refreshed). You'll notice it immediately… we wanted you to know so you won't think something is wrong! You will soon appreciate the extra speed.

Virtual Earth Improvements

To our popular Virtual Earth functionality we've added some truly useful new features - first, you can now "undo" points while you're mapping a building (so you don't have to restart a section if you make a mistake).

We also let you turn off the locator "push-pin" on the map (because it sometimes obstructs the building's perimeter).

A Picture's worth a Thousand Words

Sometimes you need pull a picture of the Roof Express roof map into a presentation, brochure, or custom document. To make that easy for you, we've implemented an "Export to Image" feature on our website. You size and configure the map as desired, then simply select "Export to Image" from the Tools menu. Roof Express saves you image on your PC in the industry standard PNG format.

Updates for April 2008

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Expanded Roof Map Editing and Control

We've significantly enhanced your ability to work with different objects - defects, in particular - on the Roof Express Interactive Roof Map. You can now, for example, attach defects to inventory items from the comfort of your chair. You can even attach defects to segments, and then manipulate those defects (as well as view them in the Defects tab and print them on reports).
You can also add roof assembly layers, change layer order, and add/modify defects on the layers, right on the roof map. You've been asking for this expanded control - and we deliver this month.

We made some changes to the user interface too… we moved some options (to make the tool bar less cluttered) and we modified the cursor to pop-up more information when hovering over objects (and added links to the pop-up windows for quick access to details). Play with the new tools… we think you'll like what you see!

Running up the "Score"

The "Roof Condition Score," that is. This score is automatically generated for each section you inspect by simply answering a bank of yes/no questions on the PDA.

The beauty of Roof Condition Scoring is it gives your clients a definitive, easily understood assessment of their roofs and is a remarkably effective up-sell tool.

The score on the website is "color coded" in green, yellow, or red to give a quick visual assessment of the condition of the roof. Roof condition scoring delivers a standard approach to prioritizing which roof sections are in good shape (green), which sections need pro-active attention in order to avoid an emergency down the road (yellow) and which sections need to be replaced or refurbished immediately (red).

The U.S. Air Force, along with many federal agencies, rely on condition scoring to plan and budget for their roof projects. Large private companies with multiple facilities are also embracing.

Roofing contractors who offer condition scoring can make a compelling case for repairs to extend the life of a yellow section, showing how a certain project will remediate the issues that result in the yellow score and turn it back to green. As with other Roof Express innovations, you can add the RCS to your professional, automatically generated reports.

 

Under a Magnifying Glass…

Last month we introduced a cool new way to map the perimeter of a rooftop by zooming in on the aerial view of the building using our interface to Microsoft's Virtual Earth. We were amazed at the excitement and energy this new feature generated - so much so that this month we're making it even better! The Virtual Earth interface lets you "zoom in" on your building (up to the limits of the building's resolution). Sometimes, however, it's hard to accurately map the building (especially if you're using a laptop with a small screen). So we've added our own magnification to the image. You can increase the zoom up to 400% (and get very close indeed).

We've also improved the interface by launching a "full screen" window when the Virtual Earth site is launched (so you have more area to work with). You can even pan the screen while you're mapping a section (so you can handle even really big buildings at very close range).

 

Looking back (and moving forward)

Have you ever found you need to refer to a previous inspection or record of a building? Sometimes you need to look back several inspections to develop a true "history" of the wear and maintenance of a building's roof. It's during these moments you'll really appreciate a new feature on the Roof Express website. We now expose all the inspections you create or upload, including all photographs and notes.

Just look for the "Select" link working with a building's inspections:

You can open any previous inspection with ease… and still actively work on the inspection and reprint any and all reports.

 

Pictures, pictures, everywhere!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are two pictures worth? Or three, or four? How about as many as you want?

Many of you have told us you wanted to easily take multiple photographs of a building, a section, segments, assemblies, inventory items, or defects. Well now you can - and these pictures will be associated with the building selected item all the way from the PDA to the finished, printed reports!

Everywhere you could take a single picture before, you'll now have the option to take as many photos as you like. You can even take more than you need and sort them out on the website - so you'll be sure and get just the right angle and just the right detail.

Dispatches with a purpose (and a perimeter) -

Now, for the first time, you can define a building on our website, map its perimeter using our exclusive Visual Earth interface, and then dispatch that building to a PDA for completion on-site. This is a tremendous timesaver as you will no longer need to map the perimeter of the building before starting an inspection or work order. You'll still be able to use our GPS technology to precisely locate inventory items and defects (or you could use our new "non-GPS" functionality discussed below). In either case you'll start with the perimeter already mapped and on your PDA!

You can also re-dispatch previously inspected buildings for a follow-up or for routine maintenance. The original perimeter will be pushed back to the PDA to save you time and effort. Learn more about this function below in the "Looking back" section.

 

No GPS? No Problem!

Sometimes using the GPS isn't practical, such as when the line-of-sight to one or more satellites is obstructed by taller buildings. There are also times when mapping the perimeter isn't necessary for the work at hand. For those cases, and for crews who have a PDA but not a GPS, Roof Express now offers a fully-functional "non-GPS" mode when you start a building inspection.

Checking the "Non GPS" box tells the PDA to skip the location of segments, inventory items, and defects. You'll be able to count items, take notes, and take photos, but you won't have to spend time mapping a perimeter or dealing with difficult line-of-sight angles.

The best news is you can enter a new "non-GPS" building on the PDA, collect your data (including multiple photos), and then use our Virtual Earth interface to map the perimeter after you upload the inspection to the RE Website!

Updates without the Headaches

Now that Roof Express is committed to agile development and will be releasing new (and very cool) functionality on a month by month basis, we recognize that some of you, as our customers, may be wary of continually having to upgrade your systems. No need to worry… one of our "very cool" features for this month is a new "smart" upgrade process that will simplify the procedure down to a single click!

For the April release all you will have to do is run this RE Updater program from the "Downloads" page on our website. That program will automatically update all the required files on your PC. What's even cooler is the next time you won't even have to visit our website (the Roof Express application will check for updates each time it is run). We'll let you know when new features are ready and install them at the click of the mouse. Even the update to your PDAs will be painless.

The bottom line? New, exciting features + very easy updates = higher productivity and profits!

 

Updates for March 2008

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A “Birds-Eye” View: Create Sections from Virtual Earth Satellite Images
Perhaps the most interesting (and genuinely cool) new feature this month can be found on our “Building Details” page. In the Section tab we’ve added an “Add Section” button. With this utility you can define a new section (without ever visiting the actual rooftop) and “map” it through our interface to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth satellite imagery website. You can zoom in on an aerial photo of the actual building and map it (with surprising accuracy).

Once mapped, you can manipulate the new section (just like any other section in a Roof Express building map), which means you can add difficult to access ancillary roof sections, mansard roofs and penthouses, without having to walk the roof, to create a complete roof plan. Look for expanded Roof Express functionality with Virtual Earth in the next couple of months (exciting things are coming)…

Moving Sections
We’ve added some useful features to the interactive roof map (the “Map View” of a building on the Roof Express website). You can now grab an entire section of a defined roof and move it to a new location (to let you adjust for minor GPS differences between two adjacent sections). You can even rotate sections for better fit and more aesthetic reports. We’ve added additional tools for dealing with segments as well, including the ability to split a segment into multiple pieces or to combine multiple segments into one.

Ready for CAD
Another exciting (and often asked for) feature is our new “export to CAD” function. In the Map View you’ll see a new “Export” button. Clicking the button will cause Roof Express to generate a standard “Drawing Exchange Format” (or “DXF”) file that is suitable for import into virtually any CAD package. This is a “simple” export meant to give you a head-start on more complex drawings.

Better Defect Detail
Hopefully you’ve noticed that defects now appear two per page in your reports, allowing for larger photos that will help you present deficiencies to your customers.

Wrapping it Up
We’ve added new tools to let you manage roof assembly layers and segments with greater flexibility than ever before. You’ll find these expanded tools in both the “Building Details” and the “Map View” pages of the Roof Express website. We’ve also added the ability for a user to set their own address for reports on the Website by going to the Admin section and the Users tab, and then opening up the user details and going to the Address Info tab.