Report Writer lets you design your own forms for test reports and records, and fill them in inside WeldTrace instead of on paper or in a spreadsheet. A form is a template: a radiography report, a hardness record, a daily welding record or anything else your projects need. Once a template is approved, every project in the account can use it. A report filled in from it is submitted and approved on screen, printed to PDF with the project's header and footer, and listed with the project's test reports. An NDE report can also write its results back to the welds it covers, and a visual inspection report records each weld's final visual inspection.

Templates for every account. Every account starts with twelve starter templates from WeldTrace, laid out from the sample reports of our customers:

The Radiographic, Ultrasonic, Magnetic Particle, Penetrant, Hardness, PMI and Ferrite starters fill their tables from an NDE request of their own method and write Passed or Failed back to the welds. The Pressure Test Report and PWHT Record fill theirs from a pack and write back to it; PWHT results are Acceptable or Rejected. The Visual Inspection Report's rows are welds picked on the report, completed and not visually inspected yet; approving it records each weld's final visual inspection as Passed or Failed, as the weld's Inspection page does.

The starters arrive as drafts. Review them, change what does not suit your procedures and approve the ones you want (see the article "Report Writer: adapt a starter template"). You can also design a template of your own from a blank page (see the article "Report Writer: create a new template").

How a template is used. A template moves from Draft to Submitted for approval, then Approved. Only approved templates can be used in projects. A change to an approved template is made as a new revision, which is approved in turn, while the reports already filled keep the revision they were made from. In a project, a report is made from an approved template, filled in, submitted for approval and approved.

Report Writer is available on the Projects, Projects +, Projects ++ and Enterprise plans. Super users and account administrators can always design and approve templates. Other users need Read/Write access to Reports to change templates; with Read access the templates are read-only. Only super users and account administrators approve templates.

Step 1 - The Report Writer templates

Open "Reports" in the main menu and click "Report Writer".

1. Choose a category to see only its templates, for example NDT;
2. "Restore starter templates" adds back any WeldTrace starter template that has been deleted, as a draft. The templates you already have are not changed;
3. Click "New template" to design a template from a blank page;
4. The banner counts the starter templates that are still drafts. Review, adjust and approve the ones you want;
5. Click a template's name to open it in the template designer;
6. "Starter" marks a template that came from WeldTrace's starter layouts;
7. The status of the latest revision: Draft, Submitted, Approved, Rejected or Superseded;
8. "In use" shows the approved revision that projects use. "Not yet" means no revision has been approved;
9. Download the template file: a spreadsheet to fill in outside WeldTrace, one line per table row, and import in a project's Report Writer;
10. Copy the template as a new draft, for example to make a version for another code or client.

Step 2 - An approved template and its history

Click a template's name to open it. An approved template is locked.

1. The template's name, revision and status;
2. "History" shows the approval history of every revision;
3. "Preview" shows or hides the form as it will be filled in;
4. Click "Revise" to start a new revision. The new revision is a draft to change and approve, while this revision stays in use until the new one is approved;
5. Reports already filled keep the revision they were made from;
6. The approval history lists each revision with who created, revised, submitted, approved or rejected it, when, and the comment given.

Step 3 - Report Writer in a project's Test Reports

Open a project and click "Test Reports".

1. "In Report Writer" lists the project's Report Writer reports that are not approved yet, with their status and who last changed them;
2. Click "Open" to continue a report;
3. Click "Report Writer" to open the project's Report Writer page (see Step 4);
4. An approved report is listed with the project's other test reports, with a "Report Writer" badge. It can be cited when NDE and test results are entered, like any test report.

Step 4 - The project's Report Writer page

The project's Report Writer page lists every report made in the project from a template.

1. Search by report number, title or template;
2. Choose an approved template for a new report;
3. Click "New report". The report opens as a draft, numbered from the template's prefix, for example RT-0008;
4. "Import" fills many reports at once from the template file (see Step 1);
5. Click a report number to open it;
6. The status: Draft, Submitted or Approved;
7. Click the PDF icon to download an approved report;
8. "Templates in this project" lists the templates the project uses and which revision;
9. "Override for this project" makes a project copy of an account template, for example to match a client's own form. The override is approved on its own, and while it is approved this project uses it instead of the account template.

Step 5 - An approved report

A report is approved by a project user with edit access, once it has been submitted for approval. Before approving, the approver can click "Edit" to correct the report; after "Save changes" it stays submitted, ready for approval.

1. The report number, revision and status, with the report's type, method, template revision, test date and, for a table filled from an NDE request, the request it came from;
2. Click "PDF" to download the report, printed with the project's header and footer;
3. "Print again" prints the PDF again, for example after the project's header has changed;
4. Click "Revise" to start a new revision of the report. The approved revision stays until the new one is approved, and then it is superseded;
5. When the template writes results back, approving the report adds them to the welds: passed or failed, the test date and this report as the test reference. A weld whose result is left blank is treated as not tested, and nothing is written to it. A repair weld is created for a failed weld when the project allows repairs. A visual inspection report records the welds' visual inspection instead: the result, the date inspected, this report as the VI Report and its number as the Inspection Report Ref, and for a failed weld its defects, with the penalty assigned to the welder on the row. Click "Show welds" to see each weld.
6. When the template has a signature block, the PDF ends with an Approval section: the stamp and signature of the person who submitted the report (Prepared by) and of the person who approved it (Approved by), with their names, the dates and the company name.

Read the next article: "Report Writer: adapt a starter template".