A report template is an empty form. On site it gets filled in and signed; the finished report stays stored on the project.
The point is not beauty but that the same things are always asked. A daywork report without a number of hours is not a report but an argument; a handover report without a signature is a scrap of paper.
Start with a standard template, not with a blank one
Settings → Report templates tab → Create report template. Zirko offers eleven starting points; ten of them already bring a structure with them: handover report, measurement, site inspection, site diary, notice of concerns, apprentice logbook, meeting minutes, checklist, job report, daywork report — and Blank.
Take the standard template that fits. It is fully changeable afterwards. Starting with a blank one costs half an hour and rarely delivers more.
Four templates carry the Billable mark: handover report, site diary, job report and daywork report. The mark hangs on the template type and cannot be set by hand. A line item on an invoice does not come out of them on its own. You bring the measurement of a completed report into the document editor as line items via Search → Reports.
Three levels
- Sections are the parts — they become headings in the report.
- Blocks are the fields inside them: date, free text, number, image, signature.
- Columns put blocks side by side.
The order in the editor is the order in the report; you move things with the up and down arrow keys.
Some sections fetch their content themselves and do not have to be rebuilt: General information (client, project, place of work and service period from the project), Employees, Services and Materials, Measurement, Table, Selection list and Signatures.
Services and Materials are filled in on the phone via From project document — from the project's issued quotes, cost estimates, order confirmations and delivery notes, without prices —, via From master data or by hand. The quantity is entered on site; the planned quantity from the document is shown next to it. More on this under Project and report on site.
Fixed texts
A text field can be set to not editable. That is how you fix wording that has to stand exactly as it is. The notice of concerns lives off this: “Hiermit zeigen wir Bedenken hinsichtlich der Ausführung der Arbeiten gemäß VOB/B § 4 Abs. 3 an” — a formal notice of concerns under VOB/B § 4 Abs. 3, the German construction contract procedures — is a legally effective declaration and must not be reworded on site. The wording is the German one; in other countries name the legal basis that applies there.
Active, inactive, copy
Only active templates can be chosen when a report is created. A template under construction stays inactive. One you do not need in winter you set to inactive instead of deleting it.
Before larger changes to a much-used template: create a copy, work on the copy, activate the copy, deactivate the old one. Otherwise the template changes underneath somebody who is in the middle of a report.
Apprentice logbook: ask the chamber first
Not every vocational school and chamber of trades accepts a digital apprentice logbook in any format. Clear that up before an apprentice works with it for a year. In Switzerland the equivalent is called the Lerndokumentation and is governed by the relevant professional body for the trade. In other countries, ask the training authority responsible there.
When a notice says it is saved locally only
Then your changes apply only in this session and are gone after a reload. That is not an operating error and cannot be fixed by saving again — the database is missing a preparation step. Do not build a large template in this state.