Step 7 of 15 · Sign off
Approve and sign from the phone
Approving site work from a phone usually means opening a job, then another job, then a third to find out whether anything is sitting on you, so the iPhone app has one list called Waiting on you that holds every decision across every site. You approve or reject from the row, a rejection carries the reason, and each decision is held back for five seconds so the wrong tap can be taken back before anybody is told. The same app opens the drawings with the snags pinned on them, shows what changed between two issues of a sheet, and takes a signature on RAMS and certificates with no signal at all.
- 01
What is waiting on you, across every job?
One list, and it is the whole point of the screen. Everything on every site that needs a decision from you is in it, each row carrying the job it belongs to, so a manager on a train stops hunting through jobs to find out whether anything is stuck behind them. Approve from the row, or reject with the reason, which is recorded against the record rather than sent as a message somebody has to act on.
- 02
What if you tap the wrong row?
You have five seconds. A decision is held out of the send queue for that long, and Undo cancels it outright, so nothing ever reaches the server. Five is long enough to notice and short enough that the person waiting on the answer never feels it. After that the app says it has already gone rather than offering a button that cannot do anything.
- 03
Can you read a drawing on a phone?
Yes, with the snags pinned on it. A sheet you have opened before is read straight off the phone by revision, so no request is made and it opens with no signal. Dropping a pin raises the snag at that point on the sheet, subject to the same permission as raising one anywhere else.
- 04
What changed between two issues of a sheet?
The app compares them and colours the difference: what has been added in one colour, what has gone in another. The comparison is shading drawn over the real page rather than a picture of it, so the sheet underneath is still the vector PDF and zooming in to read a dimension stays sharp. A pin belongs to the revision it was placed on, so a mark cannot drift onto a reissued sheet where the pipe has moved.
- 05
Can somebody sign with no signal?
Yes, and this is where a lot of site software gives up. Signing a RAMS sign-off or a certificate writes the mark and its time to the phone and puts it in the send queue, the same as any other save, rather than posting it to the server there and then. Nobody on a rural plot is told to walk to the gate before they can sign.
- Inbox
- One list across every job
- Undo
- Five seconds before a decision is sent
- Signing
- RAMS and certificates, with no signal
What this step does not do
- The iPhone app is not on the App Store yet, so there is nothing to install from one. An Android app is being written and does not have these screens.
- Drawing markup is not built. A snag can be pinned to a sheet, and there is nothing to draw on one with yet.
- Daywork sign-off records the client’s name rather than a drawn mark. RAMS sign-off and certificates are the two that take a signature.
- A sheet has to have been opened once with a signal before it is on the phone to read without one. Nothing is downloaded ahead of you.
Questions
Sign off, frequently asked
Can an approval be taken back after it is tapped?
For five seconds. A decision is held out of the send queue for that long, and Undo cancels it outright, so nothing ever reaches the server. After that the app says it has already gone rather than offering a button that cannot do anything.
Does comparing two drawing revisions change the sheet?
No. The comparison is shading drawn over the real page rather than a picture of it, so the sheet underneath is still the vector PDF and zooming in to read a dimension stays sharp.
A site attendance board answers the one question a site cabin needs answered, which is who is on this site right now, and the Site Hub puts that answer on a tablet mounted on the wall.
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