What “works offline” should mean in a workshop inspection app

Four questions to ask

1. 01

   Can I open a job, run a sheet and take photographs with no signal at all?

   The pit, the yard and the back of the unit are dead spots. The question is whether the work happens there or on paper afterwards.

   Workbay

   Yes. The job, its inspection sheet, labour, parts and photographs live on the device. Answers, notes, photographs and the signature are queued and sent when signal returns.

2. 02

   What happens if the app is closed, or the battery dies, halfway through sending?

   A queue that retries naively sends the same labour entry twice, on the one device whose owner never sees the invoice.

   Workbay

   Every change is given a unique key at the moment it is made, and the same key is used for every retry, so the server does the thing once. Force-quitting during a sync loses nothing and duplicates nothing.

3. 03

   If two people change the same job, does somebody's work vanish?

   Silent overwrites are how mechanics learn to go back to paper.

   Workbay

   No change is silently reverted. If the server refuses one (the office has completed the job in the meantime, say) the app shows it with the reason on the job it is about. Changes to one job are sent in the order they were made.

4. 04

   Does a sheet signed in a dead spot still reach the customer?

   A signature captured offline is easy to lose between the device and the report.

   Workbay

   Yes. The signature is queued with the sheet, and the sheet's completion is held back until it has been sent, so the report is rendered with the signature on it and goes to the customer with the invoice.

What does need a signal

Everything that is the work of the day is held on the device. These are the exceptions, because a vendor that cannot name its exceptions has not looked for them:

• Taking a card payment, which is processed by Stripe.
• Looking a vehicle up by registration, which asks an outside lookup service (Premium).
• The diary, estimates and the rota, which are read from the server when you open them.
• Signing in on a device that has not been used before.

One thing to know on a shared tablet

Signing out clears the copy of the workshop on that device, including anything it has not yet sent. On a shared tablet, let it finish sending before somebody else signs in.

Fair questions

Does it work offline on Android as well as iPad and iPhone?

Yes. The iPhone, iPad and Android apps all keep the working set on the device and send queued work when a connection returns.

What happens to photographs and video taken offline?

They queue on the device with the job and upload directly to the media store when signal returns. A video clip can be up to a minute.

What happens if two of us edit the same job?

Nothing is silently reverted. If the server refuses a change, the app shows it with the reason on the job it is about, and changes to one job are sent in the order they were made.

Which parts of the app need a connection?

Taking a card payment, looking a vehicle up by registration, the diary, estimates and the rota, and signing in on a device that has not been used before. Jobs, inspection sheets, labour, parts, photographs, defects, customers and vehicles are held on the device.