Performing Offline Mobile Inspections
You can perform mobile inspections using offline functionality in locations where you don’t have access to the agency's servers.
When you don't have Internet access while using Oracle Inspector, you still can perform many of your inspection-related tasks. When the Internet connection is restored, your data is synchronized with permits in your agency’s system.
The mobile service for Oracle Inspector downloads data to your mobile device for use offline. When your Internet connection is restored, the mobile service sends data about all the performed actions to your agency’s Permits Cloud and updates the data in the server. The actions performed offline are transferred, and the changes you made in the offline mode are updated with the changes in the permit application. This way, data in your mobile device browser is synchronized with the permits data.
Notifications on the Inspection Tasks home page let you know the offline status of Oracle Inspector. These are the icons displayed in the global header when the offline mode is enabled.
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Icon |
Description |
|---|---|
 |
Download in Progress |
 |
Download Error |
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Synchronization in Progress |
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Synchronization Error |
Before You Begin
Your agency determines whether you can work offline. You can also enable or disable the offline mode on your mobile device in Offline Settings found in the application menu.
Data Is Downloaded to Your Device
While you’re working online, your inspections for the day are downloaded and cached to your device. The Download in Progress icon notifies you when the mobile service is downloading the data from the agency’s server to your mobile device. You must wait for the icon to disappear, indicating the download is complete, before performing actions. Keep the application in the foreground while downloading data to ensure all of the data is downloaded. Don’t minimize the application or open another application while data is downloading.
If there’s an interruption in network connectivity, the mobile service automatically restarts downloading the data when the network is available again until the download is complete.
Downloaded data is stored for an amount of time determined by your agency. After this time the data will be refreshed, which means more recent data is downloaded the next time you use the application online. Use the Refresh Data button to refresh your data if the data has changed since it was last downloaded.
Perform Inspections While You’re Offline
You can view, create, and edit inspection records in the offline mode, and then the mobile service will sync them once the network connection is restored. This includes comments, supporting documents, and required signatures.
If you can’t add results, check with your administrator to see if your agency is using a different scoring method. You can also view the permit record and details when you’re online to see if a condition has been placed on the permit. Once any issues are resolved and all of the required results and signatures are complete, you can submit the inspection. All of the actions you perform are sent to the agency’s server when you’re back online.
Offline Updates Are Saved
When you are working offline, you can see all of the data that was saved onto the device while you were online. The changes you make are synchronized to the server when you’re back online.
When the application is in offline mode, you can’t view any updates that were made by other inspectors or the agency to the inspection data since the application changed to offline mode, because of the absence of a network connection. You can view those data updates only after refreshing the data that is cached.
Offline Data Is Synchronized
Your data synchronizes automatically every 5 minutes when the device detects a network connection and goes online. You’ll see the Synchronization in Progress icon during the sync process.
Resolve Synchronization Errors
If there are problems synchronizing the data, the Synchronization Errors icon appears. Tap the icon to view the Sync Errors page. You can also find a list of inspections that have synchronization issues by accessing the mobile menu item Offline Sync Status.
Either you or the inspections supervisor can then go to the Offline Sync Management navigation menu accessed through a desktop or laptop to troubleshoot errors for a particular inspection. The error description indicates the problem, which you can fix while online on your desktop or laptop.
For example, you may need to resolve a condition placed on a permit while you were offline, causing a synchronization error. After you’ve fixed the problem, you can manually synchronize with your mobile device and refresh the data from the error management page.
If you are online and the synchronization is causing errors, you can disable the offline mode on your mobile device in Offline Settings found in the mobile application menu, and continue to work online. You’ll lose any new work you performed if you disable the offline mode while offline. Check with your system administrator if you receive persistent errors.
Enable Logging
If you are experiencing issues with offline inspections, your agency’s help desk may request that you submit a log file with your help ticket. The log files will provide information to aid the help desk in identifying and troubleshooting any potential issues with the offline processing. You can enable logging in Offline Settings. Check the Log Files grid in the Offline Settings for the generated log files, which you can view and download to send to your help desk.