The Android App & Offline Work

In a browser. The web app is laid out for a narrow screen: the desktop sidebar becomes a sticky header with your logo, the chat icon and its unread badge, the notification bell, and a menu button that opens the full navigation. Nothing to install, and it works on any phone or tablet.

The Android app. Free with every account, and worth installing for anybody who works away from a signal. It does three things a browser cannot: keep working with no connection, hold a clock running with the screen off, and report position while the app is closed. Download it here.

It is a direct download from our website rather than a Play Store listing, so the install asks two extra questions: your browser will ask permission to install apps, and Play Protect will warn that the developer is not recognised. Both are normal for a direct download, and the download page walks through them.

Do not uninstall to update. Install the new version over the old one. Uninstalling deletes anything the app has not sent yet, which on a day with poor signal can be a morning's work.

Because it does not update itself, the app tells you when a newer build exists. Usually that is a banner you can dismiss. Occasionally a release changes what the platform accepts and the app will insist on the update before you can carry on — that is rare and deliberate, and it exists so an old build cannot quietly record work in a form the office can no longer read.

Clocking in and out, breaks and travel, job stage changes, notes, photos, signatures, checklists and safety forms. Each one is recorded on the phone and sent when there is a connection again — nobody has to remember to retry, and closing the app does not lose anything.

The job screen also takes documents and voice notes. The voice note exists for the thing nobody stops to type: what the customer said at the door, why the part on order is the wrong one, what to warn the next engineer about. Typing that on a phone while holding a torch is how it ends up not recorded at all, and a photograph cannot carry it.

Today's work is cached before you leave, so the job, its address, its customer and its history are readable underground. Photos are copied into the app's own storage while they wait, so a picture taken in a cellar survives Android clearing its cache.

A strip at the bottom of the screen says how much is waiting. Tapping it opens Waiting to send, which lists every item, and you can also reach that list from Settings when nothing is queued — worth knowing for answering "did that note I wrote in the cellar ever go?" an hour later.

Anything involving money against data that might be stale: raising invoices and estimates, taking payments, and purchase orders. Maps also need a connection — you will see a note rather than a blank square.

If something cannot be sent at all — a permission was withdrawn while you were out, or the office changed the job underneath you — it appears in the waiting list marked as needing attention rather than disappearing. Nothing is dropped silently.

While the clock is running it is on every screen, with the job it belongs to and the time so far, and tapping it goes straight back to that job. Android also shows a notification that cannot be swiped away, so it is still visible with the phone in a pocket.

Clocking out anywhere clears it everywhere: the banner, the notification and the tag on the jobs list all follow the same open time entry, whether it was stopped on the phone or by somebody in the office.

Off until the technician turns it on themselves, in Settings → Location. Turning it on needs Android's "Allow all the time" permission, which Android will only accept from the person holding the phone — an owner cannot enable it for somebody else, and neither can we.

Once on, and only while clocked in, the phone reports its position about once a minute:

• It stops the moment they clock out. That is not a setting.
• It does not run on a day covered by approved time off.
• Android shows a notification for as long as it runs, which cannot be dismissed.
• Only people in the same business with permission to see locations can see it.
• Positions are deleted after 90 days.

There is one exception, and only where a business has switched on automatic clock-on: a shift that starts on arrival needs positions from before the shift, so on a day somebody is scheduled, and inside working hours, the phone may report against the job they are due at until the shift it starts exists. Outside those conditions it reports nothing. See Timesheets & Commission.

It can be switched off at any time from the same screen. See Location & the Live Map for what the office sees.

Settings → Danger zone → Delete account. A technician removes their own login and personal details; the work they recorded stays with the business without their name on it, because timesheets and invoices are the business's records. An owner is asked to hand the business over or to delete it too — that one is scheduled 30 days ahead and can be stopped.

Exporting your data is web-only: sign in on a computer and open Settings → General, where the Danger zone card has a "Download my data" button. Do that before deleting anything — afterwards there is nothing to export.