Working offline
What happens to what you type in a basement, a lift, or a building with no signal — and how to check it sent.
Both phone apps keep working when the signal does not. Fill in a form, log an expense, close a work order, take a meter reading, clock out — it is saved on the handset and sends itself the moment you are back on a network. You do not have to remember to do anything.
How you know
A strip appears at the top of the app with a count: “3 waiting for signal”. Tap it to see exactly what is queued, in plain language — “Time clock”, “Job costing — Entry”, “Inspection”. When the signal comes back it changes to “Sending 3…” and then disappears. It is not there at all when nothing is waiting.
Nothing is hidden from you: if an item cannot be sent, it stays in the outbox marked, with Retry and Discard beside it. Work is never thrown away quietly.
Why nothing gets entered twice
Each held item carries an identifier made once on your phone. The server records that identifier before it does the work, so if the answer is lost on the way back and your phone sends it again, the second copy is recognised and the work is not repeated. A repair request made in a basement arrives once, not twice.
The time recorded is when you did it, not when it sent. A clock-out taken at 5:02 and delivered at 6:40 is a 5:02 clock-out.
The few things that cannot wait
A small number of actions have to happen while you are connected, and the app tells you so instead of pretending they are queued.
| What | Why it cannot wait |
|---|---|
| Payments and charges | A payment sent hours later lands against a balance, a card and a fee that may all have changed, and you are not there to see the answer. |
| Approving a sign-in, or entering a code | These expire in minutes by design. Queued, they would be refused on arrival — and you would believe you had approved something you had not. |
| Starting or answering a call | A call is only a call at the moment it happens. |
Messages are the exception that looks like a gap: they are queued too, by the messaging screen itself, which keeps them in order within each conversation and shows a failed message in the thread where you wrote it.
What is held, and for how long
Anything you typed. Photographs taken through the app are held with the rest of the record. A very large attachment is the one thing that fails in front of you rather than waiting, because holding it could fill the phone and send a large file over a metered connection you did not choose.
Items stay until they are sent, or until you discard them. Signing out clears them — so send what is waiting first, and the outbox will tell you if anything is.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to do anything to turn this on?
No. It is always on, on both the iPhone and the Android app, for every screen.
What if I close the app before it sends?
The queue is written to the phone, not held in memory. It survives closing the app and restarting the phone, and sends on the next launch with signal.
Will my work be entered twice if I retry?
No. Each item carries an identifier the server records before doing the work, so a repeat is recognised rather than repeated.
Can I see what is waiting?
Yes — tap the strip at the top of the app, or open Outbox from the tools list. Each row says what it is and when you did it.
What happens if something is refused?
A refusal is an answer, so it is not queued — you see the reason straight away, exactly as you would online. Only work that never reached us is held.
Related features and guides
- What the Seayora app can do that the website cannot — Documentation. Working with no signal, photographing a meter or an equipment plate, tapping a tag, measuring a room, and arrival reminders. What each one records, and what it does not.
- AI that runs on your phone — Documentation. Some Seayora features can run on the handset itself — free, offline, and without the text leaving the device. Which ones, which phones, and what happens on every other phone.
- Reporting something, blocking someone, and what happens next — Documentation. How to report abuse, what a block does and does not stop, what we check automatically, and what happens if a limit is put on your own account.