In announcing their newest partnership with Quire, Nova Consulting took time to interview Quire Founder and CEO, Kelly L. Stratton, for a more in-depth look at the platform’s technology and impact on Nova’s processes.
Q: What are the biggest improvements in report development that Quire will bring to Nova and our clients?
KS: Out of the gate, the three most impactful improvements will be to speed, accuracy, and consistency. The platform allows the entire process to be streamlined, while at the same time ensuring that the content reflects Nova’s professional approach. Nova’s clients are demanding all three of these things, and Quire helps Nova deliver on them. In the longer term, Quire will store Nova’s reports in a structured database, thus allowing for “big data” mining that could provide game-changing value to Nova’s process and their clients.
Q: By using the field applications that Quire brings into play, what advantages and efficiencies should Nova anticipate as we continue to improve our entire assessment process from start to delivery?
KS: You’ll be seeing photos, documents, and on-site information uploaded into your individual reports immediately from the field. The entire process of data collection and sharing in the report will be orders of magnitude faster. And when there are problems, they can be resolved in real time, while Nova’s staff is right there on site. Also, since Quire is a collaborative workspace allowing teams to work together on the same document, aspects of the report can be worked on in parallel instead of with the “passing the baton” approach common to Word.
Q: How does Quire streamline the management of multi-site portfolio assessment deals?
KS: From start to finish, it’s a major change to this process. At the beginning, Quire will allow report set up in minutes, not hours, with full accuracy of data uploaded directly from client-supplied materials. That gets Nova’s staff out into the field faster. Field data is uploaded via phone or tablet, and any outliers or oddities encountered in the field are uploaded directly to the portfolio for immediate resolution. And if a global change is needed, such as updating reliance language, Quire’s export tool will enable Nova to push individual edits across all the reports in seconds – a task that would take hours to do in Word.
Best of all, as the reports are written, a customized matrix for the portfolio can be generated that will provide portfolio roll-up data, customized for that client’s use. You want to see totals of reserve costs for the entire portfolio? Table breakdowns? ESA REC’s encountered? That information can be provided to Nova’s end user client daily, or as often as they like. They aren’t waiting until the portfolio is completed to get the data, it’s all there as it comes in. That is hugely valuable to a portfolio client. Time is money and knowledge is power.
Q: Can you explain how using Quire will improve consistency across report types and efficiency of the revision process?
KS: For starters, Quire utilizes “Report Tags”, which allow for insertion of salient and repeated facts inside of any Quire report. These Tags can also be shared across reports or imported from Nova’s internal project management system, thus ensuring that the data in a Property Condition Report is consistent with an Environmental Site Assessment for the same property, so fewer revisions are requested.
Should data change later in the process (a common situation is a new survey, resulting in new acreage data), that data only needs to be changed in one place, one time, and it will populate throughout, saving a great deal of time, ensuring accuracy, and further, allowing administrative staff to take care of non-technical revisions. Additionally, Quire automates the formatting and assembly of the report deliverable, which can save 20-30 minutes per report. The net result: Nova’s end user clients get their revised reports sooner.
Quire also allows Nova to offer its writers selections of suggested language that is preferred by Nova. There are many ways to say “replace the roof” and Nova is now offering multiple, pre-vetted selections to the writers. This creates consistent report language and Nova’s clients can come to rely on a consistent professional approach across all Nova offices.
Q: In what ways will our partnership with Quire better assure that specific client scope requirements are consistently addressed?
KS: Nova’s client’s scope requirements can be “hard-written” into report templates, ensuring that every time a report is generated for that client, their specific reliance, language, or scope requirements are fulfilled. Since these templates can be revised at any time, they can evolve and respond to each client’s evolving needs.
Q: Can you speak to the continuing education/training aspects of working through Quire?
KS: That’s a great question because Quire, as a platform, is constantly evolving and improving. To keep Nova’s staff up to date, the Quire team provides a full scope of support, from instantaneous support chat, to email support, to on-line articles and videos, to bi-monthly general training webinars and specialized Nova training for individual silos of Nova’s professional services. The information shared between Nova and Quire allows Nova the full use of Quire’s efficiencies, and allows Quire to continuously evolve in response to our user’s experiences and needs.
Q: What can we expect in the future from Quire?
KS: There is so much in the pipeline! Just to name a very few: enhanced field data collection app capabilities, in-table calculation and formula support, a portal for Nova’s clients to comment on or read reports, the ability for Nova to mine their Quire data… there are just so many things! And of course, we always continue to offer more speed, more accuracy, more ease of use in report writing. It’s an exciting time for us and for Nova!
