This week we're taking time to appreciate Ready Room features that are instrumental to successful inspections.  Today, we consider our Scribe Notes tools. Last week I spent about eight hours over the course of a week as a mock inspection scribe, which gave me a new respect for these features. 

First, autosave, which helps alleviate that feeling of panic that occurs when you realize you've been typing at 95 wpm for 10 minutes straight. What a relief to see that little "Saved" icon whirring away in the corner!

Second, multiple scribe feeds. Most of our customers use a separate scribe feed for each day or each scribe, but I found them useful for maintaining a separate list of attendees that could be exported and provided to the inspector; a separate list of "lessons learned" that I could add to as points occurred to me; and separate notes for our debriefs.

Third, date and time stamps, which are applied by typing (am) or (pm). These stamps were useful to indicate the passage of time for the backroom.  For example, if the inspector was quietly reviewing documents, I would periodically add a time stamp and then a note to that effect, so the back room understood that no discussion was occurring (as opposed to thinking that the Scribe wasn't doing her job). 

Fourth, names of attendees.  It was helpful to type "@Su...."  and have Ready Room complete "Susan Smith" so I didn't have to type it or use initials, which can get confusing for the back room. Note that Scribe Notes are the only place in Ready Room where "at-mentions" don't trigger notifications to users.

I also spent a lot of time in the back room during this recent mock inspection, and I appreciated the autoscroll toggle, which allowed me to look at the top of a scribe feed while the scribe was adding to the bottom.  This was also the first time I used the Scribe Notes view on the main board, which I really liked, because sometimes you're just too busy to move back and forth between tabs or screens.