Raising a survey: the New survey form

Jobs lists both surveys and works orders together, and raising one is deliberately quick: only two fields are required, everything else is optional detail you can add now or later.

What it is

+ New survey opens a form where only Property address and Description are marked required. Case-detail fields for the report — tenant contact, report title and type presets, a reference number, and a scope-of-survey box with a smart-builder and an optional AI-drafted starting point — sit behind an Add report details (optional) disclosure. Scheduling a visit or sending straight to a contractor sits behind a separate Assign now (optional) disclosure. Open either only if you need it; the minimal path is address, description, and Create survey.

Raising work with no source survey — a tenant-reported fix, planned maintenance, or making a property safe — uses the separate + New works order (no survey) action instead, which starts the case straight at Works Scheduled.

How to do it

1. Open Jobs from the sidebar and click + New survey.
2. Enter the property address and a description of the work — if the property already has a tenancy on file, its contact is suggested automatically.
3. Optionally expand Add report details for tenant contact, report title/type, reference number and scope of survey.
4. Optionally expand Assign now to schedule a visit or send the job straight to a contractor organisation you hold a grant with — or leave it unassigned and assign later from the job’s drawer.
5. Click Create survey. The job appears in Jobs, and, once assigned, in the assignee’s inbox.

How it integrates

Opening a created job shows a tabbed drawer that stays loaded across tab switches, so a half-written draft survives a tab change:

• Overview — the scope of survey, required rooms, resident intake and, where enabled, the vulnerability/safeguarding triage panel.
• Letters & PDFs — every resident-letter card available for the case’s current stage.
• Timeline — the evidentiary record only: access attempts, appointment outcomes, letters sent and stage transitions, including the Awaab’s Law statutory clock where the case has one.
• Notes — the separate home for internal case notes, never surfaced to the resident.
• Assignment & costs — who the job is assigned to and, where applicable, repair costing.

The Dashboard’s “Needs attention” panel surfaces overdue, unassigned and stalled cases in one place. A case’s row and drawer header carry honest caveat badges where they apply — for example EMERGENCY or No GPS fix recorded — rather than presenting every case as equally routine. See The case lifecycle end to end for how a case’s overall position is tracked once raised.

Common problems

• I don’t want to fill in report details or assign yet. You don’t have to — address and description alone create a valid survey; both disclosures can be opened later from the job’s drawer.
• The suggested tenant contact is wrong. It’s drawn from a matching tenancy record on the property — correct the record under Properties → Tenancies rather than editing it per-job.
• A job I raised isn’t showing in the assignee’s inbox. Confirm the assignment was saved on Assignment & costs, and that the assignee’s app has synced.