While we have some built in generic templates for you to use and pre-made options for third parties such as Network Rail, it's common for companies to want to have their own PDF templates adding to the system as well.

These can have company branding on, and contain just the fields that are relevant to your particular needs. With manholes in particular, there are a huge number of data points that can be recorded, and individual firms tend to only be interested in sub-set of those.

Unless there's something particularly unusual, we should be able to recreate anything you currently use. Most designs we see comprise of:

Many are built in Microsoft Excel or Word as well so if that's how you're currently set up, we'll be able produce the same thing.

If you'd like a new layout or more things adding in then we can help you come up with a new design as well.

Anything that can be recorded with one of our apps basically. Data is mainly text or images so all of those can be inserted into the template at any size or position.

Templates can span multiple page as well so you could have text on page 1 and images on page 2 etc.

As well as just adding text into the PDF, there are certain tools that can be used to give more customisation and time-saving options.

• Maths Operations - the templates can perform basic maths on the data that is stored as numbers in the system e.g. calculation of invert levels for pipes in a manhole or converting a measurement from metres to millimetres

• Joins - if there are separate fields for data in the app but they need to be laid out together, then the template can place them next to each other. A common example of this is where the app will record separate width and length dimensions. If required these can be placed together with another character in the middle and a suffix at the end e.g. 300 x 500mm

• Conditions - the template can check to see if a certain field contains a certain value, then do something based on whether the condition is true or false. A lot of templates we see are optimised for being completed on-site with pen and paper so contain tick boxes and abbreviations. The template can check what's recorded for cover material for example and put an 'X" in the right box, or see if the cover material is set to "Cast Iron" in the app and put "CI" into the PDF.

If custom PDF templates are something you'd like to explore, see this article to learn about the customisation process and next steps or feel free to get in touch.