I've been mystery shopping for about two and half years now and occasionally lurk in this forum to see what other shoppers have been going through, get some ideas, have a few laughs, etc. I discovered a new problem today with the way I save my reports of completed mystery shops due to recent changes to Market Force's website design and was looking for other ideas or feedback on how to save digital copies of my reports (hard copies take up space, printing costs money, etc.).

If the company uses the Sassie system, there is usually a link to download a PDF of the report. I love those! Some companies (such as Market Force) do not offer that solution on their reporting websites. After I finish filling out and reviewing the report, I right click on the web page and select 'Save As' to save a copy of the web page as an HTML Document on my hard drive. Sometimes the formatting of the saved webpage will be a little awkward (I'm looking at you, NSS), but I can still find everything I submitted if I need to look back at an old report.

I tried to pull up an old Market Force report today. The report flashes on the screen for a split second before going to a blank webpage. I can open HTML Documents from old shops I've done for other companies, just not ones for Market Force. I've been able to open my old Market Force reports in the past, before the most recent website remodel. I tried to open reports that I saved before the update as well as ones that I saved last week, but none of them will open. If I can't open the old report, it's not a big issue. I was just curious whether the server at a restaurant I shopped today also helped me during a previous visit.

It looks like my method of saving reports has some flaws, so I'd like to know some better ideas of how to save my reports. Thank you beforehand for your feedback!

I haven't found a way with their new site. I've never saved the reports for MF or any others except the huge hotel stay reports. I only looked because peeps were asking about how to save them. I just save all the collateral for all the other shops.

I mostly just hit the Submit button and forget about it. I don't save reports because I can't see when I would ever need one. I do save narratives in case something goes awry with the report. I write them in Word, and I just click the save button and use the default name, usually the first few words of the first narrative. If I ever need to retrieve it I go by the file date.

For the Marketforce summary, you might try selecting the entire page with Ctrl-A, copying the text to the clipboard, and then pasting it into a word processor such as Word.

You can save the report as a print to PDF if you want and this can be from any site. I do this also to save a copy of Maritz's invoices.

@mystery2me wrote:

I mostly just hit the Submit button and forget about it. I don't save reports because I can't see when I would ever need one.

Same here

SASSIE allows you to save as pdf most of the time, and that makes it simple. For the others, including the old MF site, I just copy the review summary page before submitting. Then I paste the review summary into a blank Word doc. Instead of saving, I "save as", and then select "pdf." This doesn't work as well with the new FM site, and my solution is just to not do as many of their shops until they design a simple website that works.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/2017 04:41AM by AZwolfman.

The easiest way is to ctrl/p for print, choose print to pdf as the printer, then click print. It will ask you where you want print to (save). Give it the location you want to save it to pdf and click save.

Can't do that with MF, the screen scrolls. I think they programmed it that way on purpose.

My first choice is to print/save as a PDF. I can do that even with the current MF report summaries. My second choice is to save as HTM(L), either as a single HTML page or the complete files (in a folder). (I don't see how changes to the MF website would have any effect on anyone's saved HTM(L) files stored on local drives.)

If both of these attempts fail, I try to copy and paste to either a word processing file or to email, or I try to print screen(s).

Thanks for all of the feedback/ideas!

When I try to open my saved Market Force HTML documents, it automatically redirects from the original link to a modified link with '/login' at the end of the link, resulting in a blank screen. I'll try some of the other ideas (copy/paste to Word, print to PDF, etc.) to see if I can get those to work instead.

I rarely need to go back to my reports, but have had a couple of times where the Help Desk has requested additional information a few weeks after a report was submitted. I take short notes on my phone and fill out the details online in the report. After a couple of weeks, I'm usually unable to refresh my memory of the shop details from my phone notes alone but remember a lot more when I review the report.

I save my notes, receipts and photos until the shop has been approved and I have been paid. I don't save the report at all.

I save my long narratives as word documents. I do not save my reports. My receipt and all pictures are saved on my Google Photo drive automatically. I have been keeping my original receipts, not sure why.

I tested the method of printing a Market Force report as a PDF. The print preview shows a several page document of nothing - all blank pages. The copy and paste method with Word worked. The formatting isn't as nice as the actual webpage, but it will suffice. Thanks again for the suggestions!

Yes, the formatting is mostly a waste of space now. It used to save in a more readable format. You might try pasting it into notepad first; then copy and paste that into Word. That might work better, but of course it's an extra step. Notepad removes the formatting

I agree. I avoid any MSC that does not have a user friendly web site.