Working without signal

The iPhone app keeps a copy of your workspace on the phone. With no connection you can still read it and carry on working: what you change is saved on the phone and sent when the connection comes back. The web app needs a connection. Without one it says "You're offline. Reconnect to refresh records or save changes."

Sign in and open the app once while you have signal, so the phone has your workspace to keep.

The Android app works offline in the same way, with the same messages: see Get the Android app.

What you see with no signal

• When the connection drops, a message appears at the top of the screen: Offline · your saved work is available. It closes by itself after a few seconds.
• At the foot of Today, a line such as "Updated 9:41 · available offline" gives the time the phone last fetched your workspace.
• Everything fetched by then can be read: visits, addresses, access notes, jobs, customers, quotes and invoices.

What you can do offline

Almost every change saves on the phone and waits for the connection:

• Start or finish a visit, with its notes. A finish keeps the time you tapped, whenever it syncs, and the visit's timer stops at that time straight away.
• Add or change a customer, a contact, a property or a service. A new customer and their first property wait as one change.
• Book a job with its first visit, add a visit to a job, book time off.
• Write a quote or an invoice, record an acceptance, record a payment against an invoice. An acceptance recorded offline on a quote with a deposit has its deposit invoice made when it syncs.
• Send a quote or an invoice. The app says "It will be emailed when you're back online."

After each one a message at the top of the screen counts what is waiting, such as 1 change waiting to sync, with "Saved on this phone." beneath it, or "It will be emailed when you’re back online." for an email. It stays where it is while you move around the app, until the change syncs or you close it. View on it opens Pending changes.

In lists the record reads Waiting to sync. On its own screen, Not synced yet sits under its status.

Three things work differently until the change has synced:

• One change at a time for each record. While a change to a visit, a job or a customer is waiting, its Edit button and its next step wait too.
• A visit you started offline shows its timer from the moment you tapped, and can be finished once the start has synced. If you expect no signal for the whole visit, leave Start visit, tap Finish visit when you are done and set Finished at. Add the hours afterwards under Time entries.
• Something new, such as a customer you add offline, joins your lists once it has synced. Until then you cannot pick it on a quote or a job.

What needs a connection

Your plan, billing, API keys and the AI assistants list are not in the app at all. They are on the web, which needs a connection.

How your changes sync

When the connection returns, the app sends your saved changes in the order you made them and then fetches the latest workspace. It does the same each time you open it, and when you pull down on a list.

After a save, and when you open the app or come back to it with changes still waiting, the message at the top counts them, for example 2 changes waiting to sync. Tap View on it to open Pending changes, which lists each change with when it was saved, such as "Saved 26 Oct at 21:04". The same screen is in Settings, behind the account button: under On this phone, tap Saved on this phone, which has Pending changes, Last updated and Sync now.

When everything has gone, the message reads Your saved changes have synced.

• If the connection drops halfway through a save, the app sends the same change again later and the server applies it once.
• The app keeps trying until 23 hours after the change could first have reached TradeSender. Time with no signal does not count, so a day out of signal uses none of it. After that the change stops retrying and stays in Pending changes for you to check.
• A delete keeps trying however long it takes. If the record has already gone, the delete is done.
• You cannot sign out while changes are waiting. Sync or review them first.

If two people changed the same thing

Every record carries a version number. A change made from an older copy is refused, so one person's edit is never saved over another's without anyone knowing.

While you are online. The form shows an error saying the record was changed, with Refresh latest version. Tap it, look at what they changed, then make your change again and save.

For a change you saved offline. If someone changed the same record before your phone synced, your change is not applied. The message at the top reads 1 change to review, the record's own screen shows Needs review under its status, and Pending changes shows the change with "Someone updated this record. Refresh, review their changes, then save again." Tap View on the message, or Needs review on the record, to open it. From there:

A change the server refuses for any other reason waits in Pending changes the same way, with the reason beside it.

On the web, the same clash reads "This record changed elsewhere. Your edits have not been saved. Close and reopen the record to review the latest version."