I have a MSC that has a grocery store audit that is really simple to do once you read the 32 page book the first time and know what they are looking for. They also have an audit form for this shop that is 20 pages long and are repeating exactly the same questions for each of the seperate areas of the store in the most long and drawn out way possible.

I live less than 3-4 miles from three of the store locations and checked the box in the survey that triggers auto re-assignment with this MSC. This is also a survey that is done twice a month. I will check each new shop to make 100% certain they have not modified the survey, but I spent about 15 minutes creating a one page spreadsheet that has every single question on there with a box for the answer. This will save me ink and paper and also make it faster for me to do the shop and get the data entry done when back home. Is anyone else making up their own survey "cheat sheet" for a shop that don't appear to be changing and is an ongoing shop?

As far as printing costs, I have an old Brother black and white laser printer with a built in duplexer. (Duplexer flips the sheet of paper and feeds it back into the printer to print on both sides automatically)
The toner cartridge on this thing lasts for three reams of paper if printing text. The printer driver allows me to put two pages on each page (and even four, if my eyesight was that good) and still read it fine, so I get 4 pages printed to each sheet of paper for shops that I will need to print the full form out. This MSC seems to really be determined for you to print the form, as they have a shopping number that will only show up when you print the form that must be entered before you can start the survey.

This is not a very difficult thing to bypass. I attacked it with the view source code of webpage, being the geek that I am and got the number that way. Then, when I decided to make my one page spreadsheet, I cut and pasted the whole webpage from the browser into notepad to get raw plain text to paste into the header boxes of the spreadsheet. This resulted in revealing the number and was as low tech as humanly possible. Sometimes, I just try too hard to do things the tech way. I was almost disappointed the number was that easy to get. There is no way to stop someone from using a printer driver to print to .pdf or .jpg. This will always work, even if they did obsfucate the number better in the webpage code, if they decided to try making it harder to get without printing the form out.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2014 08:09PM by scanman1.

Someday I'm going to make cheat sheets for some other shops. I have one for the banks I do regularly and for the post office shops but there are others that as I'm printing out the docs, I think, "I really should make a cheat sheet for these someday."

And I was ecstatic when I discovered my shopping printer would duplex automatically. I've saved a lot of paper that way. the other thing I did to save paper was re-use about a ream's worth of old manuscript copies, printing on the backs. I ran out of that but I think somewhere I have a box full of drafts of another book I wrote 20 years ago. I may dig that out someday and recycle those too.

Another, similar, trick is to print just the pages that provide ONE set of the repeditive questions. Then carry the appropriate number of different color pens to enter each department's answers in a different color.

This also works well for routes where you have a very long survey, non-repeditive and multiple shops using that survey, like a whole route of super-detailed Porsche shops.

Walesmaven

I do the same. I only print the top page with the address, make my pertinent notes, the rest of the pages I use as a template when I submit my reports. I find in order to get a 10 is to answer all of the questions in order from the report sheet, add in all of the actual setting and what happened. They tell us to answer all NO answers, not true, they want ALL questions answered.

For audits I normally use their form once. If it looks like it will be something ongoing then I definitely create my own cheat sheet. It's amazing how you can condense 6 to 30 pages down to one simple sheet.

I just print page one of the survey to pdf and copy paste the number over. That's easier to me than getting it out of the source code.

bgriffin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just print page one of the survey to pdf and
> copy paste the number over. That's easier to me
> than getting it out of the source code.

It's even faster to highlight that one sentence in the browser, and hit (cntrl-c) and then open notepad and hit (cntrl-v). Then highlight the number and copy it again back to their website. No need to go through the "print" process at all.

print preview will also give you the code

For the bank ones, I print at work (I don't even own a laptop or a printer of my own!) so work pays for ink, paper, etc.

I print the first page of the survey only.
This gives me the address, phone number (for my phone call), security code without copying it out, etc.
I just use it as a note taking page to write times of phone call and visit to keep track of everything until ready to enter the survey.

scanman1 Wrote:
Is anyone else
> making up their own survey "cheat sheet" for a
> shop that don't appear to be changing and is an
> ongoing shop?
>

I haven't encountered surveys that scream out to me to create a cheat sheet.

What I do is print out a copy of the questionnaire and save it. If it doesn't change for the next shop, great. If it does, maybe it's a small change that I can write in by hand and note my copy was updated to that date. When I do a shop, I print out a cover sheet with the pertinent details for that shop (date, address, phone number, pay, scheduler's contact info, etc.) and after the shop write on it in the answers to the questionnaire. Later, I use those answers to enter the shop. After that, I staple the receipt or other POV to and file it away.

However, you got me thinking that it might be to my advantage to create one for those shops that I do frequently and the guidelines/questionnaires don't change much. Such cheat sheets can streamline the pre-shop preparation and note-taking after the shop.

The Marsh ones screamed to me to be a cheat sheet. They haven't changed as long as I can remember and the survey has long paragraphs of guidelines in them that to me seem to be commonsense. I just created a cheat sheet in Word that I print out when I go shopping so it appears to be a shopping list.

Wow! that all sounds like a lot of additional work at the computer! Does your neck hurt?
speaking of...has anyone tried those spine seats they sell at BBB? They have 2 types there to choose from.

I don't go that far as to writing down every single question in the survey; however, I began doing something similar to save me during my prep time.

Regardless if I know the guidelines haven't changed for a particular assignment, I've made it a habit to save / create PDF versions of the questionnaire and / or guidelines into a folder specifically for that assignment.

I then maintain a database that's pretty fluid and changes whenever I need to make an update or see improvements. The database simple: I just use Excel, but I have wrote up cliff notes of key important things and unique requirements about the guidelines of a particular clients (e.g. timing points, cash only, Geoverify, take picture of building (before and after arrival), etc.) I used to create pictures of these cliff notes I'd load into my phone before an assignment, but found that too time-consuming. Instead, I just copy and paste the cliff notes into an email for my upcoming assignments.

Of course, I do a quick back check to see if there are any changes on new revisions to the guidelines (hence, why I save the questionnaire and guidelines again for every new assignment).

Post Office cheat sheets, I can get five on one page; all others, I never go over one page per job.