How Offline Sync Works
How the mobile app keeps working without a connection, and what still needs one.
Overview
The mobile app is built to keep working in a basement, a rural property, or anywhere else the signal drops. Opening something while you're connected keeps a copy of it on your phone. From then on, every change you make saves to your phone first and is sent to the server the moment a connection is available — you're never blocked waiting for a network.
For the click-by-click version — the Work offline switch, starting an Inspection offline, and signing out safely — see Work Offline in the Mobile App.
What Gets Saved on Your Device
Your phone keeps a working copy of the Orders, Inspections, templates, and rating and comment libraries you've already opened, so you can keep working from them without a connection. The comment library's search works offline too, from that same on-device copy. Photos and video you capture save to your phone the instant you take them, before anything tries to upload.
Open it before you go
The app can only work offline with something it has already seen. If you know you're heading somewhere without signal, open the Orders and templates you'll need first, while you still have a connection.
Two Separate Queues
Most changes — starting an Inspection, filling in a rating, adding a comment — save straight to your phone and sync in the background as soon as you're connected again. They're usually quick and quiet, so they don't get a count in the banner. While any are still waiting, Pending Sync shows a Document Changes card marked Pending; it disappears once they've reached the server.
Photos and video are different. They're bigger, so they travel through their own upload queue with its own progress, retries, and a banner that tells you what's happening. That queue is covered in full in Working with Photos.
What Works Offline
| Works offline | Needs a connection |
|---|---|
| Starting and running an Inspection | Publishing a report |
| Sections, items, ratings, and comments | Viewing or adding documents |
| Rating and comment libraries, including comment search | Notifications |
| Taking photos and video, and annotating a photo already on your phone | The AI assistant |
| Looking up Property details (year built, square footage) | |
| Notes | Marketplace and group templates |
| Annotating a photo you haven't opened on this phone before | |
| Moving an item to another section (mobile app) | |
| Deleting an inspection |
The Work Offline Switch
Beyond a dead signal, you can also turn syncing off on purpose with the Work offline switch — useful for saving your data plan, or for keeping a flaky connection from slowing you down mid-Inspection. It behaves exactly like being offline: everything in the left-hand column above still works, and nothing syncs until you turn the switch back off. See Work Offline in the Mobile App for how to use it.