Case study
Making 30,000+ valuation reports searchable by postcode
McDowalls Surveyors completes over 6,500 valuations a year, and most new instructions are for properties it has valued before. The earlier reports sit across laptops, a file server, inboxes and old drives. We are bringing 30,000+ of them into one database any surveyor can search by postcode.
2026
- 30,000+
- historical valuation reports to bring into one place2026
- 6,500+
- valuations completed a year2026
- 70–80%
- of new instructions are for properties already valued2026
- 9,000+
- emails a month through the shared inbox2026
The challenge
Between 70 and 80% of McDowalls' new instructions are for properties the firm has already valued, but the original reports are scattered across personal laptops, a shared file server, email inboxes and archived drives. A search takes five to ten minutes and often comes up empty, so surveyors start again from scratch. The shared inbox handles over 9,000 emails a month and its search reaches back only a few weeks, and the file server is only as complete as each surveyor's habits. When two reports for neighbouring properties come out tens of thousands of pounds apart, clients notice: that is professional risk as well as lost time.
What we did
- Phase 1: a PDF-to-Word converter that turns old valuation PDFs back into editable reports, so the team gets value from day one
- Phase 1: a workflow audit with each surveyor to map where their reports actually live
- Phase 2: every report found moved into one structured, backed-up OneDrive environment
- Phase 2: the Valuation Search database built and the archive indexed by postcode, address, housing association, surveyor and date
- Later phases: AI-assisted comparable analysis, automated report templates, client portal access and portfolio-wide analytics
What we built
- Search by postcode, address or housing association
- Filter by surveyor and date
- Every prior valuation in a postcode at instruction
- PDF-to-Word converter for old reports
- One structured, backed-up OneDrive archive
- Management dashboard of growth and team activity
The result
The platform is being built in phases, starting with the converter and the file audit. Once the archive is indexed, a repeat instruction starts from the last report instead of a blank page: the difference between a 30-minute update and a full day's work. Seeing every earlier valuation in a postcode at the point of instruction also makes peer review sharper, and each new valuation added makes the next one faster to find.
- Microsoft OneDrive
- PDF-to-Word conversion
- Searchable report index