The Field app lets a field officer record facts and field work on a phone where there is no signal. Each record is kept on the phone, locked, and sent when the signal comes back. A-REX then checks it exactly as it checks the same form typed online, so a record made in the field is never weaker than one made in the office.
Open it once with signal
Open the field app on the phone (the same page as Field captures) with signal and signed in. The phone then keeps the forms you may fill in, with the plots, lots and products to choose from. The browser can add it to the home screen. Open it with signal now and then: the forms are refreshed each time, and the date they were saved is shown.
Fill in a record on the phone
- Open the Records tab.
- Under What do you record?, choose the fact or the field work.
- Fill in the form: the same fields, conditions and checks as in the console. A missing field is pointed out on the phone, not later.
- Select Save on this phone. Without signal, No signal says the record is kept on this phone and will be sent when there is signal.
The day you choose is the day of the work, in your company's time zone.
Photos and where you are
Take a photo adds a picture to the record. The phone makes it smaller and removes the camera data, including where it was taken, before it leaves the phone. Save where I am keeps the phone's location with the record: it stays encrypted with the record and never goes on the ledger. Both are optional.
Pending sync
Pending sync lists what waits on the phone, each with its state:
- Waiting to send: saved, no signal yet.
- Sending: going out now; Send now tries at once.
- Not sent yet: the signal dropped; it will be tried again.
- Recorded: A-REX made the record, as if typed online.
- Draft to confirm: made as a draft a member confirms in the console, for example when a record of the same kind, subject and day is already there, or the form changed since the phone saved it.
- Refused: nothing was made; the reason is shown and the record stays on the phone to fix or Remove from phone.
A record that arrives more than 24 hours after it was saved is marked Synced late. Dashboards and Queries can count these.
Locked records
After 14 days without reaching A-REX, or after you sign out, the records stay on the phone but locked. Sign in with signal to open and send them; nothing is lost.
A shared or lost phone
Each person signs in with their own account and sees only their own records. Another person's records stay locked and are only counted. If a phone is lost, a member or an admin revokes it in the console: what waited on it can never be opened or sent.
What never happens offline
Approvals, confirming drafts, signing with a passkey, the ledger and permission checks all wait for signal. A record is only a draft on the phone until A-REX has checked it; who approves is the same as online.