Using Offline Mode for Inspections

The mobile inspection application automatically connects to your agency's servers when a network is available, but you can also 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 the Inspector Application, you still can perform many of your inspection-related tasks. When the Internet connection is restored, your data is automatically synchronized with the permit and business license applications in your agency’s system.

The mobile service for Inspector Application 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 Permitting and Licensing 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 application. This way, data in your mobile device browser is synchronized with the permit and business license applications data.

Notifications in the application let you know the offline status of the Inspector Application.

Turn On the Offline Mode

Your agency determines whether you can work offline. If your agency supports offline mode, you can turn it on or off in the mobile application:

Here's how to turn on offline mode when it's available:

In Inspector Application, click the profile avatar to view the menu. Select the Offline Settings menu item.
Turn on the Online Mode switch to download and store inspections for use when an internet connection is disconnected.

Data Is Downloaded to Your Device

When you log in for the first time each day, your inspection data is refreshed on your device. Your inspections for the day including overdue inspections are downloaded and cached on your device, as well as partial data for inspections not assigned to you and future inspections.

Note:

The first time that the Inspector Application syncs for the day with your agency's data for working offline may take several minutes. The length of time depends on the amount of data to download and cache, such as number of scheduled and overdue inspections and final attachments. Subsequently the sync process goes more quickly.

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.

If offline mode is enabled, cached data is refreshed daily. You can manually refresh your data on the Offline Mode page. In the Inspector Application, go to Offline Settings and click the Refresh Data button on the Offline Mode page. Ensure you're online to download data.

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're working offline and try to access inspections before or after today, you'll see partial information. You'll see the inspection details, permit overview or business license activity summary, and applicationconditions but not the checklist, checklist items, comments, attachments, and time recording.

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 or business license application record and details when you’re online to see if a condition has been placed on the application. 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.

Note:

Any features that need to interact with online data, or interact with other applications, are not available offline. These include maps and reports.

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.

Caution:

Wait until synchronization is complete before disabling the offline mode. If you disable the offline mode after performing actions and before synchronizing with the agency’s servers, you’ll lose the work you did offline. Check with your system administrator if you receive persistent errors.

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 on the Offline Sync Status page, which you can access through the mobile application Navigator menu.

Either you or the inspections supervisor can then use a desktop or laptop to go to Navigator > Offline Sync Management to access the Offline Inspection: Conflict and Error Management page 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 an application 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 on the Offline Settings page found in the mobile application Navigator 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. Here's how to turn on logging:

Go to Navigator > Offline Settings.
Turn on the Enable Logging switch.

Check the Log Files grid on the page for the generated log files, which you can view and download to send to your help desk.