Save a draft and publish an inspection report
An inspection report is a Draft while you fill it out. Save Draft saves your answers without finishing it (enabled once you have unsaved changes). When it's ready, Publish finalizes it - shown as Save and Publish when you have unsaved changes to save first.
If you try to leave after editing, Essential asks whether you want to discard your unsaved changes. Opening a report and leaving without making any edits does not show this warning.
Essential may calculate service-related values automatically when a submitted report opens. This does not count as your edit and does not show a discard warning. When those calculated values make the on-screen report newer than its published data, Publish becomes available and Download PDF stays unavailable until you publish, so a newly generated PDF cannot disagree with the preview.
Publishing moves the report to Submitted: it records the deficiencies (they become follow-up items) and the service completions (which reset the recurring-service schedule), and generates the PDF; it needs the required fields filled in and the asset group active.
In the web app, if an older submitted report has required answers missing, you can still correct or update it and publish again. Existing gaps may remain or be filled, but Save and Publish stays disabled if the edit introduces any newly missing required answer. The mobile app retains its complete-report requirement.
Publishing itself finishes right away. On a long report the PDF keeps generating for a little while afterwards and Essential shows you its progress - see While your report's PDF is generating.
If your role has inspection-report write access and Email inspection reports is on in Settings -> Work Management -> Tasks -> Task Documents, publishing opens a Publish and Email Inspection Report step. You can email the report as you publish it with Publish and send, or finish without emailing with Publish without emailing. The same setting controls Send Report after the PDF is generated, and is separate from Job Summaries. If the email step is missing but you need it, ask your administrator to check both your role and that setting.
A report you don't want can be removed with Delete: type DELETE in the confirmation window to enable the final Delete button. Draft deletion requires inspection-report write access. Submitted deletion is available only in the web app to roles with Delete Submitted Inspection Report permission and has important limits; see Delete an inspection report.
Where to find it: On the open report, the action bar: Save Draft, then Publish (shown as Save and Publish when there are unsaved changes); Delete removes a draft or, with separate permission, a submitted report
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