The seven criteria, and how to test each one
A vendor will say yes to all seven on a call. The test in each section is what to actually do in the trial so the yes means something.
01Offline capture that never loses work
The places a survey most needs data are the places with the worst signal: the attic, a basement service entrance, a utility room behind two walls, a rural ground-mount site. A solar survey app that needs a connection to save a form, or that silently drops photos when the upload fails, will eventually cost you a return trip.
Test it: put a phone in airplane mode, complete a full survey including 100+ photos, force-close the app, reopen it, then reconnect. Everything should still be there and sync without a technician babysitting it.
02Required fields that block an incomplete submission
Optional fields are how surveys come back without the busbar rating. The fields that trigger redesigns should be impossible to skip: main breaker and busbar ratings, the panel interior photo, rafter or truss size, spacing and span, roofing type and layers, and the location of every obstruction on the array planes.
Just as important, “could not access” must be an explicit answer with a reason, not a blank. An engineer can work with “attic inaccessible, hatch sealed.” They cannot tell a skipped field from a forgotten one. Our residential survey requirements note lists what each downstream reader needs, if you want a starting set.
Test it: ask the vendor to show you the form builder, then try to submit a job with the panel section empty. If it goes through, so will your technicians’ incomplete jobs.
03Photo QA and completeness checks
Photos are the backup for every number on the survey, and they only work if they are the right photos. Good solar site survey software enforces a shot list per job type (the panel label, the meter, each roof plane, the attic framing with a tape in frame) and flags missing or unreadable ones, like a glare-washed panel label, before the technician drives away.
Then look at what happens after upload. Four hundred photos in one camera-roll folder is not a record; someone still has to find the main breaker. Photos should arrive sorted by what they show and tied to where they were taken.
Test it: run a survey and deliberately skip the meter photo and blur the panel label. See whether the app catches either one, and when.
04Measurements that carry a tolerance
Roof pitch, azimuth, plane area and edge lengths drive the layout, the racking bill of materials and the setback geometry. Ask where each number comes from (tape and gauge on the roof, drone capture, aerial imagery or manual tracing) and how accurate it is. A figure with no stated uncertainty invites the designer to trust it exactly, which is how an array ends up six inches too close to a ridge.
Remote measurements are useful for qualifying a roof. They don’t see rafter spacing, a vent stack hidden by the tree canopy, or the bus rating inside the panel.
Test it: survey a roof you already have as-built numbers for and compare. Ask for the tolerance on area and pitch in writing.
05Integrations and export to design tools
A branded PDF is for the homeowner and the file. Your designer needs data: plane geometry, obstruction positions, panel ratings and shade values in a form they can load, not retype. Re-keying is where a 6/12 becomes a 12/6.
Ask what formats come out (CSV, JSON, an API, direct integrations with the design and CRM tools you already run) and whether the export includes the photos with their tags. If your jurisdictions use automated permitting such as NREL’s SolarAPP+, which checks a residential application for code compliance online, check that the survey captures the values that application asks for.
Test it: have your designer, not the vendor, take one exported survey into your design tool and time how long it takes to start a layout.
06Turnaround you can plan around
For an app your own team operates, turnaround is your team’s speed plus any processing step the software adds (a 3D model, a shade report, a desk review). For a survey service, it is the vendor’s commitment. Either way, ask for the number as a commitment with a consequence, not as a typical range. “Usually a few days” is an average with the bad weeks removed.
Batch intake matters here too. If you can’t send a week of addresses at once, someone on your team becomes the survey scheduler.
07Data ownership and client isolation
Survey records outlive the sale. They get pulled for permit corrections, warranty claims, roof leaks and resale. Get in writing that you own the photos and measurements, that you can bulk-export everything in usable formats if you leave, and how long records are retained.
If you use subcontracted crews or a survey partner, ask how the platform separates companies. Your homeowners, addresses and reports should be visible to your people and nobody else.
