Working without signal
Field forms marked “Works offline” are kept on your phone (encrypted) and sent by themselves when you're back online. Nothing is sent twice.
2 min readLast updated
Applies to: Core (every organisation) · Association admin, Association team member, Providers
On site the signal comes and goes. These forms carry a Works offline mark and keep working when it goes (each one needs its own pack on):
- Inspections: answers, notes and a photo for each item; keep answers so far, or complete.
- Incident and near miss reports, with photos.
- Pre-task plans (Take 5 checks).
- Notes on the site diary (daily log).
- Logging against an asset (a service, an issue or a meter reading), including straight after scanning its label.
- Closing out an issue you were given to fix (in the provider portal), with photos.
- The gate's sign-in and sign-out on its tablet: see The gate without signal.
How it works
- Step 1: Fill the form in as usual and press its button. With no connection it says Saved on this device instead of sending. On a weak signal, after 10 seconds you can choose Keep it on this device.
- Step 2: A bar at the top of every page shows how many are waiting. Saved forms lists each one.
- Step 3: When the connection is back they send by themselves, oldest first (on Android and Chrome even with iComply closed). Sync now sends them straight away.
Opening a form with no signal
If you open a form's page with no signal at all, iComply opens it from what your phone keeps for working offline: your sites, the checklists you run, the site's hazards, the assets you log against and your open issues. That copy refreshes every 30 minutes while you're online, so open iComply once with signal before you head out.
What each saved form shows
- Waiting to send, then Sending…
- Sent: the form is deleted from the device at once; its line stays for a day.
- Needs attention: it reached iComply but couldn't be saved. See How saved forms send.
Common questions
- On an iPhone, they didn't send by themselves. Safari can't send in the background: open iComply when you have signal and they send.
- This browser can't keep forms offline. Use an up-to-date Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox, not a private window.
- Can I change a form after it's kept? Not yet. Remove it and fill it in again.
- What doesn't work offline? Toolbox talk and SWMS sign-on, permits, the worker pass, and uploads bigger than about 3.8 MB wait for signal.
Privacy and limits
- Everything kept offline is encrypted on the device with a key that belongs to your signed-in session. Signing out deletes it all: you're warned first if anything hasn't been sent.
- Someone else signing in on the same device can't read or send your forms.
- Photos are made smaller (and their location and camera details removed) before they're kept, so they send quickly.
- One form can be up to about 3.8 MB after that, a device keeps up to 150 forms, and 60 MB in all.
The encryption protects what's stored on the phone. It doesn't protect a phone someone has unlocked while you're signed in: use your phone's own screen lock.