Setting up a home's baseline

1The baseline

1.1Three kinds of reference

A baseline can hold three kinds of reference:

None of the three is required, and more is better. The Baseline card counts which rooms have a reference, so you can see where a home is thin before an inspection is.

1.2The Baseline card

Every property's page has a Baseline card. It shows which of the home's rooms have a reference, each of the three sources with its state, and the rooms themselves. A room with nothing yet reads No reference yet, with a button to add photos straight into it.

A home with no reference at all shows Add a baseline for the home's name instead, with Add a 3D scan, Add photos and Record a video. On a phone the card is a single line, such as 9 of 10 rooms covered; tap it to open the same screens.

On a home with more than one baseline, the card shows one of them at a time. The name of the baseline on screen, such as Guest-ready, sits beside the card's title, with a menu to switch to another (7.3). Every count and source on the card is that baseline's. The rooms are the home's, so every baseline lists the same rooms, each with what that baseline has in it.

On the Properties list, the Baseline column shows the same three sources for every home, and the No baseline filter lists the active homes that have none of them yet. On a home with several baselines, the column counts the photos and 3D scans of all of them, and shows the default baseline's video (7.2).

2A good baseline

A baseline only helps where it shows the home the way your walkthroughs see it. These recommendations follow from how RapidEye compares each inspection with the baseline.

2.1How RapidEye uses it

Every inspection is compared room by room with its baseline's photos and 3D scan, and with the most recent earlier walkthroughs recorded for that same baseline. On a home with one baseline, that is simply the home's baseline and its latest inspections.

Photos and a 3D scan are compared with every inspection until you remove them. The baseline video counts as the first of the earlier walkthroughs, so newer walkthroughs take its place over time. Keep photos or a scan on every baseline.

For each room of today's walkthrough, RapidEye uses the baseline photos and scan views that show that same room. A photo that looks nothing like what the walkthrough shows is not used.

So the best baseline is not the biggest one. It is the one whose photos look like what your cleaners film.

2.2Which source to use when

More than one source is better than one. They add up room by room, and the Baseline card shows which rooms are covered.

2.3Photos: how many, and what they show

• Every room a cleaner films, including hallways, laundry, garage, patios, and pool or hot tub areas. A room with no reference is a room with nothing to compare against.
• Wide views, not details. Stand in the doorway for the whole room, then take one photo of each wall as the walkthrough would show it. A tight close-up of a lamp or a tap rarely matches anything in a walkthrough, so it is seldom used.
• Insides the cleaner opens: fridge, freezer, oven, cabinets, vanities, closets. Without a reference for them, a change inside is harder to flag.
• What guests move, take or break in view: remotes, lamps, art, rugs, cushions, the coffee maker, hot tub covers and latches.
• One photo per wall is enough. More photos of the same view add nothing, so cover each wall once rather than repeating one view.
• Rooms that look alike, such as two matching bedrooms, can be mistaken for each other. Frame each so what sets it apart is in view: the window, the art, the layout.

Both images are the same example room from RapidEye's website, not a customer's home.

2.4Light and angles

• Turn on every light in the room. Daylight or lamps does not matter; dark does.
• Wipe the lens first. A smudged lens blurs every photo.
• Hold the phone at chest height, level and pointed at the room, the way cleaners film. Photos taken from the same height and direction as the walkthrough match it best.

2.5Guest-ready, not photo-ready

Capture the home exactly as a guest should find it after a turnover: beds made, towels out, supplies stocked, trash cans and toilet brushes where they live. Do not dress it for a photo shoot.

RapidEye reports what differs from the baseline, so anything added or hidden for a shoot shows up on every inspection. Flowers placed for the shoot read as missing, and a trash can hidden for the shoot reads as something new. This is why your own photos usually beat a professional shoot.

2.6Walking a baseline video

1. On the home's Baseline card, press Video (on a home with no baseline yet, Record a video), then choose Record now under Add baseline walkthrough. To replace a baseline video, open Video and press Record new baseline. On a home with several baselines, switch to the right one first: the window's title names it, as in Add baseline walkthrough · Owner.
2. Turn on every light and wipe the lens.
3. Walk the home slower and more completely than a normal inspection: every room, every wall, every corner, and every inside, about two seconds per view.
4. Record the whole home as one continuous video. Pause if you are interrupted; do not submit pieces.
5. Keep the page open until the upload finishes.
6. When it has been processed, check the rooms RapidEye marked (6.2).

The route and filming technique are the same as for any inspection: see the recording reference.

2.7When to refresh it

Refresh the baseline when what "correct" looks like has changed:

• when a home is onboarded, once setup is finished;
• after a renovation, refurnishing or restaging;
• when furniture, art, appliances or décor change for good.

Refreshing means replacing what is out of date, not only adding. Photos and a 3D scan are used on every inspection until you remove them, so an old photo of a sofa that is gone reads as a difference every time. Remove outdated photos (4.6), replace the scan (5.2), and record a new baseline video (6.1).

2.8A home with no baseline

RapidEye still inspects a home with no baseline. It finds damage and mess it can see in today's walkthrough, and from the second inspection on it compares with the home's recent inspections.

What it cannot do without a baseline is know how the home is supposed to look. An item missing since before the first inspection, or a lamp nobody ever filmed, cannot be flagged as missing, and the first inspection has nothing to compare against at all. To find these homes, filter the Properties list by No baseline.

2.9Owner stays and guest stays

If a home switches between how its owner keeps it and how guests find it, give it two baselines: one for each setup. Each walkthrough is then recorded for one of them and compared only with that one, so an owner-arrival walkthrough is judged against the owner's setup and a turnover against the guest setup.

A setup that works: rename the home's first baseline, Main, to Guest-ready, and add one named Owner (7.2). Guest-ready is then the home's default, which suits most homes: your company's inspection link records for the default, and photos from tasks in your ops software count as its visits (7.2). Record each baseline's walkthrough with the home in that setup, then send each cleaner the recording link for the walkthrough they are doing (7.5). Because Owner is not the default, owner walkthroughs also report items moved from where the owner keeps them (7.6). Turnovers, recorded for Guest-ready, do not.

A home with one setup needs one baseline. If an owner's stay changes the home for good, such as new furniture or art moved to another room, refresh the baselines it affects (2.7) so the change is not flagged on every turnover.

3Rooms

3.1Where rooms come from

You do not type the room list in. RapidEye suggests it from what the home already has: the rooms your baseline video walks through, in the order you walked them. Without a video, it uses your Airbnb photo tour, then your Breezeway rooms, then the rooms it finds in your photos.

3.2Suggestions and your changes

Open any room from the card to see the room view: every room on the left, and that room's photos, 3D views and video clips on the right. Anything RapidEye placed for you carries a Suggested badge. Press Looks right to confirm it, or select it and use Move to room.

Your changes are never overwritten. Once you confirm or move something, later suggestions leave it where you put it. Anything RapidEye could not place, and anything you move to Not in a room yourself, sits there. RapidEye does not suggest a room again for anything you moved there.

3.3Editing rooms

Use + Add room at the bottom of the room list. Each room's menu has Rename, Merge into… and Delete. Merging moves everything into the other room. Deleting a room moves its photos, views and clips to Not in a room, so nothing is lost, and RapidEye then suggests another room for them. Room names are unique within a home.

4Adding photos

Press Add photos in the room view, or on a room the card lists as No reference yet so the new photos land in that room. There are up to four places to add photos from, and a fifth, From another baseline, on a home with several baselines (7.4). New photos join the baseline on screen.

4.1Upload photos

Upload from your computer or phone: JPEG, PNG, WebP or iPhone HEIC, up to 15 MB each. Each file shows Saved, Already here or the reason it was refused. A file that is refused never stops the others.

Photos of the home as guests leave it catch more than staged listing photos.

4.2From your Airbnb listing

Paste the listing link, which looks like airbnb.com/rooms/12345. RapidEye copies the listing's photos, and uses Airbnb's own photo tour titles ("Full kitchen", "Bedroom 2") to place them in rooms.

4.3From a Google Drive folder

Paste the folder link. The folder must be shared as Anyone with the link. Photos in its subfolders are included. Videos and other files are skipped. If the folder has no photos RapidEye can use, the message says how many files it skipped.

4.4Pull from your PMS

For a Breezeway home the card reads Pull from Breezeway. It refreshes the home's Breezeway listing photos, adding only the ones RapidEye does not already have.

The card is always there. When RapidEye can't pull photos for a home, it is greyed out with the reason, for example This home isn't linked to a Breezeway property., and a Contact support link. Upload, Airbnb and Drive still work for that home.

4.5What an import reports

Airbnb, Drive and Breezeway imports run in the background, one at a time per home. You can close the baseline while one runs, and its progress stays on screen while you work elsewhere in the app. When the import finishes, you see how many photos were added, how many were placed in rooms, how many need a room, how many were already here, and any that could not be saved. An import that adds nothing says why.

The same photo is only ever kept once per home, whatever it came from, so importing again is safe.

4.6Removing photos

In the room view, select photos and press Delete. They are gone from every inspection from then on. An import that is running while you delete will not bring them back, but importing the same source again later adds them again. Only photos can be deleted: 3D views and video stretches can be moved to another room, not deleted. On a home with several baselines, the button reads Remove and takes the photos out of the baseline on screen only (7.4).

To take out every photo from one source, open Photos on the card, find the source (your uploads, Airbnb, Google Drive or Breezeway), and press Remove. It asks first, then removes all of that source's photos. When a source can be fetched again, it also has Re-import (Airbnb and Drive) or Pull again (Breezeway). Your uploads have Add more.

53D scan

5.1Importing a scan

Open 3D scan on the card, paste the Matterport link, and press Import scan. The space must be Public or Unlisted in Matterport. An import takes about 30 seconds to 2 minutes. RapidEye then suggests a room for each scan position's views, the same way it does for photos.

5.2Replacing or removing it

A baseline has one 3D scan, or none. Replace with a new link imports the new scan, and RapidEye keeps using the old one until the new one has imported.

While a home's first scan imports, Cancel import stops it. A replacement cannot be cancelled once it starts; RapidEye keeps using the scan you had until the new one has imported.

Remove scan deletes the scan's views, and RapidEye stops using them from the next inspection. Photos and video are not affected. On a home with several baselines, a scan another baseline also uses is only taken out of the baseline on screen (7.4).

6Baseline video

6.1Which video is the baseline

A baseline's video is its newest finished baseline walkthrough. The first walkthrough recorded for a baseline that has none yet becomes its baseline video, however it was started: Record a video on the card, a recording link, or New inspection. Every later walkthrough is a normal inspection. To replace the video, open Video on the card and press Record new baseline. How to record a good one is in the recording reference.

6.2Rooms in the walk

Once a baseline video is processed, RapidEye marks which room each stretch of the walk is in, and asks: RapidEye marked 7 rooms in this walk. Look right? Press Looks right to confirm, or Fix something to edit. A room you walk through twice gets two stretches. Each stretch in a room is one of that room's clips: open the room and they are listed under Video clips, and until any stretch has a room the Video source counts clips instead of rooms.

In the editor, select a stretch and Give it a room, or mark it Not in a room for hallways and stairs. Split at playhead cuts a stretch in two, and Merge with next joins it to the one after. Drag a boundary to move it. Undo steps back one edit. These edits change nothing until you press Save; Discard drops them. Reset to suggested is different: it asks first, then puts every stretch back to RapidEye's cut straight away, dropping the rooms you set, and takes a minute or two.

On a computer, Space plays, the arrow keys move one frame, S splits, and ⌘Z undoes.

7Several baselines for one home

A home can have up to four baselines. Each one has a name and its own set of reference: photos, a 3D scan and a baseline walkthrough. Every inspection is recorded for one baseline and compared only with that one. A home starts with one baseline, named Main, and a home kept one way all year never needs another.

The rooms are the home's: every baseline uses the same room list (3).

7.1When to use more than one

Add a baseline when the same home is meant to look different at different times, and each walkthrough should be judged against the right look. The usual case is a home its owner stays in between guests:

A turnover walkthrough recorded for Guest-ready is compared with Guest-ready's photos and scan and with recent Guest-ready walkthroughs, and an owner walkthrough with Owner's. Neither setup is read as a change from the other.

On every baseline except the home's default, where things are placed is part of the setup. A walkthrough recorded for one of those baselines also reports an item that is still there but clearly in a different place than that baseline shows it (7.6).

Do not add a baseline to refresh the same setup. Replace that baseline's photos, scan or video instead (2.7).

7.2Adding a baseline

1. Open the home. Press + Add baseline beside the Baseline card's title, or at the bottom of the Baseline window's side list, under the sources.Only owners and admins see it. On the card it shows once the home's first baseline has something in it.
2. Type a name in the box that opens, such as Owner, and press Add baseline.A name is 1 to 40 characters, and no two baselines of a home share one. The new baseline opens empty: the card reads Add to the Owner baseline, with Add a 3D scan, Add photos and Record a video.
3. Add its photos and scan (7.4), and record its first walkthrough (7.5).

At four baselines, Add baseline is greyed out, and pointing at it reads A home can have up to 4 baselines.

The home's first baseline is its default, and the menu marks it Default. You can rename it, but not delete it. Your company's inspection link records for the default baseline (7.5), and photos from tasks in your ops software count as visits of the default baseline, so make the default the setup most visits should match.

7.3Switching, renaming and deleting

Once a home has two baselines, + Add baseline turns into the name of the baseline on screen, with a menu. It sits beside the card's title and at the top of the room list in the Baseline window. The menu lists the home's baselines, then:

• Copy recording link for the baseline's name: a link that records for this baseline (7.5). Link copied appears beside the menu.
• Add baseline (7.2).
• Rename and the baseline's name.
• Delete and the baseline's name, on any baseline but the default.

A baseline with nothing in it, that no inspection or checklist names, is deleted straight away. Otherwise RapidEye first says what will happen, then Delete baseline goes ahead and Keep it stops:

• Photos that are only in this baseline are deleted. Photos other baselines also use stay with them.
• Its 3D scan is deleted, unless another baseline uses it.
• A baseline that inspections were recorded for, or that has its own checklist, is archived rather than deleted. It leaves every list, and its reports keep its name.

7.4Photos, 3D scan and video in each baseline

Whatever you add while a baseline is on screen joins that baseline: uploads and imports (4), a 3D scan (5) and a recorded walkthrough (6). Switch to the right baseline first.

A photo, a scan or a walkthrough can be in more than one baseline without being added twice. Nothing is copied:

• Photos. Add photos has a fifth choice, From another baseline. If more than one other baseline has photos, first pick the one to take them from. Then press Use all 19 photos from Guest-ready (the count is that baseline's). When that baseline's photos come from more than one source, there is also a button for each source, such as Uploaded · 12.
• 3D scan. A baseline with no scan, on a home where another baseline has one, reads Not used beside 3D scan in the Baseline window, and on the card's 3D scan tile once it holds anything. Open it to use the other baseline's scan, for example Use Guest-ready's 3D scan, or press Add a new scan for Owner. A new scan belongs to that baseline alone: baselines that shared the old one keep it.
• Walkthrough. A baseline with no video can use another baseline's from its Video screen, for example Use Guest-ready's walkthrough. The walkthrough's rooms and clips are shared with it.

Removing works on the baseline on screen. In the room view the button reads Remove, and asks, for example, Remove 3 photos from Owner? Photos that are in no other baseline are deleted. Remove scan keeps a scan another baseline still uses. A walkthrough's Remove from Owner never deletes the walk or its report, and the baseline's next newest walkthrough, if it has one, becomes its video.

7.5Recording a walkthrough for a baseline

Every walkthrough is recorded for one baseline. On a home with one baseline nobody is asked anything. On a home with several, the baseline is chosen like this:

To give a cleaner a link that skips the question, switch the card to the baseline, open its menu, and press Copy recording link for Owner. The link looks like app.rapideyeinspections.com/record/…?baseline=…: the part after ?baseline= names the baseline. It works for as long as the baseline exists. If the baseline is deleted, the link asks Which walkthrough is this? instead, or records for the default once the home is back to one baseline. Send each cleaner the link for the walkthrough they are doing.

The first walkthrough recorded for a baseline that has no walkthrough yet becomes its baseline video (6.1). Every later one is a normal inspection, compared with that baseline. So record a new baseline's first walkthrough with the home in that setup, walked slowly and completely (2.6).

7.6Checklists and reports

On a home with several baselines, the checklist page has Applies to: All baselines, or one baseline, such as Owner only. A baseline's own checklist wins over the one for all baselines, and a baseline without one uses the all-baselines checklist, then your company's. Editing checklists is in the property reference.

A report on a home with several baselines names the baseline its walkthrough was compared with, in a line under the report's title, for example Compared with the Guest-ready baseline: 12 photos and walkthroughs of Oct 8, Oct 6 and Oct 2.

A walkthrough recorded for a baseline other than the default also looks for moved items. An item that is still in the home, but clearly in a different place than that baseline's photos, scan or earlier walkthroughs show it, is reported as a finding:

• It is a lost-item finding, so the report's Lost items filter includes it (filtering by type).
• Its description starts with Moved: and says where the item was and where it is now, for example Moved: the reading lamp was on the left nightstand and is now on the dresser.
• It is usually Minor, and rated higher when where the item is now causes a problem.
• A view filmed from another angle does not count as a move: the item itself has to have changed place.

Walkthroughs recorded for the default baseline do not report moved items this way.

8Who can change a baseline

Owners and admins can add, move and remove anything in a baseline, and add, rename and delete a home's baselines. Members see the same card, rooms and video, with nothing on them that changes anything. On a home with several baselines, members can switch between them and copy a baseline's recording link. Anyone on your account can still record a baseline walkthrough when they add a home, or re-record one from the home's inspection history. Roles are explained in adding people to your account.

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