Takeoffs Help Centre ← Back to Takeoffs

Tutorial: a fire and safety survey on a tablet

A surveyor's first visit to a site: walk the building once, mark each fire asset on the floor plan as you reach it, then create them all in Simpro in one go.

Trade
Fire and safety
For
Surveyors and service techs
On
Tablet or phone, on site
Length
2 min 30 s
2 min 30 s · captions available · narrated by Nadir Merchant

Chapters

What you'll learn

  • Open a site's map and add its building and floor plan
  • Walk the floor once, marking each asset as you reach it
  • Switch asset type in two taps, with your recent types at the top
  • Create every asset in Simpro at once, then fill in a door's details

Each step below has a ▶ time: it plays the video from that step.

The steps

  1. On the Projects page tap Open a site map and search for the site. With no maps yet, name the building and add its floor plan, then Save without AI. The map opens in Assets mode.
  2. Start at the main entry. Tap + Asset, then + Create new asset at the top of its list, pick Fire Door and tap the door on the plan. Then the next thing you see: + Asset, + Create new asset, Exit Sign, tap above the door; the fire indicator panel beside it; a smoke detector and the sprinklers on the reception ceiling. Each type you use gets its own button in the row under the toolbar.
  3. Into the corridor: its fire door and the extinguisher beside it. A type that's already on the map is one tap: its button in the row (here Fire Door), then the plan. The buttons stay in the order you first used them, so each one is always in the same place. Cross the open office the same way: its door, then each detector and sprinkler as you pass under it.
  4. Work back along the corridor room by room: each meeting room's detector and sprinklers, the corridor's own sprinkler, detector and extinguisher as you pass them, then the manager's office.
  5. In the kitchen, mark the extinguisher by the door, the sprinkler and detector, and the fire blanket by the cooktop. Then the store and the bathrooms.
  6. At the comms room, mark its fire door, then its fire-rated walls. A wall is a line, not a point: pick Fire Wall, tap along the wall, then Finish. Then the room's detector and sprinklers.
  7. Finish at the rear exit: the extinguisher, the hose reel, the exit sign over the door and the fire door itself.
  8. Tap Create 42 in Simpro (the number is how many new assets there are): every one is created on the site at once and keeps its place on the map. With no signal they wait and go when you're back in range.
  9. Tap an asset to see its Simpro fields in Selection. Location on Site is already filled in from where you placed it. Type its tag in Barcode (or use Scan tag), and its fire rating under More details.
One tap per typeOn a phone the type buttons are in a strip above Place: swipe it sideways for more. The highlighted one is what the next tap places.
Follow the walkPan the plan to the room you're standing in as you go: it's easier to tap the right spot, and nothing gets missed between rooms.
A clearer planHide the text labels (Visible menu, Measurements and labels) on a busy floor: each asset type has its own symbol.

More to watch

Every tradeEstimators and service teamsDesktop, tablet and phone

Takeoffs in three minutes

A takeoff from plans to a Simpro quote, then a site asset map on a phone. Start here if you're new.

ElectricalEstimatorsDesktop

Price a house's electrical

A whole house, from an empty floor plan to a priced takeoff that says how many devices and how many feet of cable the job needs.

SecurityEstimatorsDesktop

A commercial security install

Cameras, intrusion detection, access control and the panels in an office, with all the low-voltage cabling in its own cost centre.

Every tradeEstimatorsDesktop

A revised drawing arrives

Rev B of the lighting plan lands after you've priced Rev A. Swap it in under your takeoff, see exactly what changed, and fix only that.

ElectricalEstimatorsDesktop

Count a fit-out by symbol

Box one downlight and one power point and every match on the plan is counted for you to check, then place banks of switches with one click each.

Fire and safetyEstimatorsDesktop

Price a fire alarm installation

A two-storey unit's fire alarm, counted zone by zone from the designer's layout, with the cable loop and its drops, then handed out as a marked-up PDF with a legend.

ElectricalEstimators and pricing editorsDesktop

Review and price a takeoff

A small lighting and power job priced step by step: labour, a fit time, your company's cable rules, markup, discount, fee and a Simpro price tier.

Every tradeEstimatorsDesktop

Plans from the quote's attachments

The builder's drawings are already attached to the quote in Simpro. Take them straight from there, choose the pages, and add more pages later from the plan library.

Interiors and liningsEstimatorsDesktop

Wall linings under different ceilings

Plasterboard and paint by wall area in a fit-out with three ceilings: a 2.7 m office, a double-height foyer and a raked meeting room, with the doors and windows taken out.

Fire and safetyProject managers and service teamsDesktop

As-Built and assets on a job

The install is done: record what went in on an As-Built, then tie every detector, extinguisher and exit sign to an asset on the customer's site in Simpro.

All tutorials, and which one is for your trade