Organization best practices

With a modest volume, Lumos remains navigable without any particular ritual. Beyond a few dozen active projects or several hundred archives, a few practices help keep the inventory usable. This page gathers the ones that prove useful in practice.

Project naming

At creation, Lumos suggests a default name based on the address (“Project 3669 Rue Orléans”). This automatic naming has two advantages:

Consistency across all your projects.
Reliable search by address.

It has one drawback: if you manage many projects, visual identification by address alone takes effort. A few customization options:

Prefix with the client name (“Mercier — 3669 Rue Orléans”) to facilitate search by client.
Suffix with the type (“3669 Rue Orléans — Pre-purchase”) when you mix pre-purchase and pre-handover at the same address.
Prefix with an internal code if you have your own numbering.

To avoid: radically changing convention midway — consistency beats local optimization.

Archiving rhythm

Some inspectors archive each project as soon as the invoice is paid. Others keep everything in Active until end of fiscal year and then do an archiving wave. Both approaches are valid; choose based on your style:

Continuous archiving — the Active list stays short and readable, sort by recent date truly reflects current activity.
Wave archiving — fewer daily gestures, but the Active list swells.

Continuous archiving is generally more comfortable beyond 50 simultaneous active projects.

Address duplicate management

Lumos does not automatically detect duplicate addresses. If you create a project for “3669 Rue Orléans” and six months later another client buys the same property, Lumos creates a second distinct project with no warning.

This is intentional: the same property can legitimately be the subject of multiple projects (successive buyers, pre-purchase then pre-handover, etc.). It is up to you to use the address search before creating to verify what already exists.

If you want to consolidate multiple inspections on the same address for the same client, add inspections to the same project (the project page supports multiple inspections via the New Inspection button).

Custom photo vs Streetview

Lumos defaults to a Google Streetview image for each project. Advantages:

No effort on your part.
Immediate visual identification in the grid.

Limits:

Streetview is not always up to date (the house may have changed).
Some rural addresses or new developments have no Streetview.
The angle may not showcase the property well.

When your first visit prompts you to take a facade photo, get into the habit of uploading it as the project’s cover image (edit the project → custom photo). The grid becomes much more recognizable.

Search before action

Before creating a new project for an existing client, search their name in the search bar. You will avoid:

Duplicates when the client returns for a new inspection.
History fragmentation — the same client with two unlinked contact records.

Before archiving or deleting, open the project to verify its state (inspections, unpaid invoices). Archiving is risk-free; deletion is not.

Local backups

Beyond native retention, periodically download a .zip of all your projects (or by yearly slice), via Export. See 12.6 Backup and restore.

Store the .zip in a safe place (encrypted disk, cloud with strong authentication). It is your safety net independent of Lumos.

Synthesis of golden rules

Archive rather than delete whenever you hesitate.
Search before creating a new project for an existing client.
Customize the photo from the first visit if Streetview is not representative.
Back up locally at least once a quarter.
Stay consistent in your naming convention.