This client is engaged in the sale of insurance to clients in the sports and entertainment industries, including sports facilities, amusement parks, and sport governing bodies. As part of their risk management and reduction efforts (which lead to lower client premiums) the client performs risk assessment inspections of the facilities being insured. The inspector would visit the facility and take video of the facility to demonstrate both positive things being done, as well as negative items that could lead to claims.

After returning to the office, these videos would have to be converted, by hand, into screen captures to build the report. Manipulating these images was all done by hand, as was creating the report. Changes to the category or inspection structure would require someone to rearrange the entire report.

After the report was completed, it was provided to the facility owner. Each issue noted in the report might be for information only or might require a response. The facility owner was asked to provide a response on each issue, but there was no easy way to track compliance with this request, since the responses were sent via e-mail or as markup in the report file.

Solution

We started by creating a flexible structure to support different types of inspections, since certain facilities require more detailed inspections than other types of facilities require. In addition, there are different report templates for each type of facility. We considered building a mobile application to capture images and videos at the point of the inspection, but this was deferred due to the time anticipated required to enter data into a mobile device. Instead, we created a video capture utility that can be installed on a Windows PC. This utility allows office personnel at the client location to watch the videos that were captured and take screen captures of the video at the same time they enter the issue details into the application. The application then processes the screen capture and logs it as an issue, along with the metadata entered by the office personnel.

As the issues are captured from the video files, users may also want to manipulate these issues by sorting, editing the descriptive text, or move issues between categories. Through a ASP.NET MVC/KnockoutJS web application, this manipulation is rapid and responsive. The application also interfaces with a browser-based image editor to allow images to be resized and embellished without the use of a separate image editor for most changes. Office personnel can then generate a Word-based report from the issues that have been created. Regenerating the report only takes minutes instead of the hours previously required if issues are recategorized or edited. The application tracks all the changes so only minor "polishing" items are done directly in the Word document.

Once the report is created, facility owners can log into the web site under their own credentials to response to the issues raised in the inspection. They can also view the final copies of the report (stored as PDFs) and log their responses, which can then be checked by office personnel at the client for compliance.

This project ran from July 2015 - February 2017. 

Tools and Technologies

• Visual Studio 2015
• ASP.NET MVC
• C#
• KnockoutJS