The Site Photo You Forgot to Take

You've finished the job. It's tested, the customer is happy and the team has gone home. Then the office rings: there's no photo of the cable entry. Or the inverter serial number.

The office wasn't on site, so they can only work with what you send them. SEAI's Solar PV Grant Completion Checklist asks for photographs of the installation, so a missing one means a trip back out for something that would have taken seconds on the day.

It happens on a long day, in bad weather...

A step-by-step guide on site

With SolarFlow, installers follow a step-by-step guide on the day. Before you leave site, you go through the steps for the job and check nothing has been missed. The photos and details go into the job for the office team, so the people completing the grant paperwork don't have to chase anyone.

The steps can be edited to suit the way your company works. If you gather extra information on site, ask about it on a demo and we can show you how it can be included. Here is what the standard steps look like.

External installation steps

1. Photo of scaffold mounted
2. Photo of mounting rails (if there is more than one roof direction, the app asks for each, for example south, then west)
3. Photo of cable entry
4. Photo of cable earthing
5. Option to add an optimiser (can be skipped)
6. Photo of the back of a panel showing the data label (optional)
7. Wide-angle photo of all panels
8. Mounting system brand and model, on a page with a free text box for additional installation notes

Internal installation steps

1. Commissioning report: RAMS documents, test results, meter brand and model, isolator brand, model and location, strings, remarks and other information electricians are required to provide
2. Photo of cable entry
3. Photo of fireman switch
4. Photo of cable runs
5. Photo of installed inverter
6. Photo of inverter serial number (the number fills in automatically)
7. Photo of installed battery
8. Photo of installed battery serial number (if there is more than one battery, you are prompted to add every serial number)
9. Photo of battery isolator
10. Photo of hot water diverter
11. Photo of consumer unit, with labels
12. Photo of check meter
13. Photo of any additional consumer units
14. Photo of meter cabinet

Everything saves to the cloud, so if an employee needs to hand off a job, the next person can pick up where they left off. Drafts also save on the phone when coverage is poor and sync once data or wifi returns.