How profiles are set up

A profile is a saved set of questions. Build it once for a kind of loss, and every assignment you create from it asks the same things in the same order.

This is the part of the console with the most depth to it, so this page explains the shape of it before the buttons.

Profiles live on a team, under the Profiles tab.

The three layers

Everything is built from three nested pieces. Once you see them, the whole builder makes sense.

Profile            "California Theft Loss"
   └── Entity      "Item"
          └── Field   "Condition"

A field is one question. "What condition is it in?" It has a type, so the app knows whether to show a text box, a date picker, or a list to choose from.

An entity is a group of questions that belong together. "Item" might hold description, condition, age, and replacement cost. "Loss Information" might hold the questions you ask once about the claim itself.

A profile is the whole bundle. All the entities, saved under one name, ready to be used.

The two decisions that define an entity

Each entity answers two questions, and these are what people find confusing. They are worth slowing down for.

Where does it attach?

An entity hooks onto one level of the job. This decides when the field user is asked.

Attaches to	Asked when	Good for
Assignment	Once, for the whole job	Was a police report filed?
Room	Once per room	Room dimensions, flooring type
Group	Once per item bundle	Item description, condition, value
Media	Once per photograph	A note about this specific shot

How many of them are there?

Cardinality	Meaning
Single	Exactly one, like a form filled in once.
Many	A list that grows, like an inventory of items.

Put those together and the behaviour falls out. "Loss Information" attaches to the assignment and is single, so it is asked once at the start. "Item" attaches to the group and is many, so field staff add as many as they find.

The question types available

Type	What the field user sees
Text	A single line box
Long text	A paragraph box
Number	A number, keypad on phones
Currency	A money amount
Boolean	Yes or no
Date	A date picker
Date and time	A date and clock picker
Select	Pick one from your list
Multiselect	Pick several from your list
Phone	A phone number
Email	An email address
Barcode	Scan a barcode or QR code with the camera
File	Attach a document, such as a police report
Media reference	Point at a photograph already captured
Signature	Sign on the screen with a finger

TIP

Prefer select over text wherever you can. Free typing gives you "good", "Good", and "gd" in the same column. A list of choices gives you data you can actually count and export.

Making questions required, and making them appear

Each field can carry rules: required or optional, minimum and maximum values, minimum and maximum length.

More usefully, a field can be set to appear only when another answer matches.

Ask "Do you have the police report to attach?" only when "Have you filed a police report?" was answered yes.

This is how you keep the field experience short. Ten questions where two are relevant beats ten questions asked every time.

Draft and published

A profile is in one of three states.

State	What it means
Draft	You are still working. Nobody can create assignments from it.
Published	Live and usable.
Archived	Retired. Existing work is untouched, but no new assignments.

Work in draft for as long as you like. Publishing is the moment it becomes real.

Published profiles open read only

Once published, opening a profile shows View rather than Edit, and the fields are greyed. That is intentional. It stops somebody quietly reshaping a schema that live assignments were created from.

Versions, and why editing is safe

This is the most important thing on this page.

Every published profile carries a version number. Edit and republish, and the version goes up.

Now, the part that matters: when you create an assignment, it takes a permanent photocopy of the profile as it exists at that moment. The assignment stores that copy for good.

So:

• An assignment already in the field never changes because you edited the profile. Not the questions, not the order, not whether something is required.
• Assignments created after your edit use the new version.
• Two assignments from the same profile, created weeks apart, may legitimately differ. Each one shows the version it was created from.

Why it was built this way

Photographs and answers are evidence. Evidence has to keep the rules it was collected under. If editing a profile could reach backwards and change a job from last March, no documentation from this system would be defensible.

The practical upshot: you can edit a published profile without fear. You are never going to disturb work in progress.

Starting from a ready made profile

You do not have to start from nothing. The builder can copy in a reference profile with one click, including California Theft Loss and Public Storage.

Copy the closest one, then cut what you do not need. Editing something real is much faster than facing an empty screen.

A sensible way to build one

1. Write the questions on paper first. Decide what you want to know before you touch the builder.
2. Group them. Questions about the claim, questions about a room, questions about an item.
3. Place each group. Claim questions attach to the assignment and are single. Item questions attach to the group and are many.
4. Pick types. Choose select over text wherever a list will do.
5. Mark only what is genuinely required. Every required field is a place a field user gets stuck at eleven at night in a burnt out house.
6. Add conditions so rarely relevant questions stay hidden.
7. Publish, then create one test assignment and walk it on a phone yourself.

WARNING

Step seven is not optional. A profile that reads beautifully in the builder can be miserable on a phone in gloves. Ten minutes of testing saves a lot of complaints.

Next: How to create an assignment.