The field app

Field users, the shoppers, complete their visits in the Steve app. This page describes what they see, so you can brief them and answer their questions.

Screenshots of the field app will be added after testing on a phone. The steps below describe the current app.

Finding a visit

Assigned visits appear in the Visits group on Today, up to four at a time, with open visits first. All workflows on Today opens the Workflows screen, which lists every visit.

Each visit shows the store (or the survey name when there is no store), the survey and the visit window, and its state: Not started, In progress, Received by Steve, not accepted yet or Accepted.

A field user who works for several of your companies sees the visits of all of them. Today shows Working for with the company they picked; a visit for one of their other companies also shows that company's name.

The visit page

Tapping a visit opens its page with:

• the store, its address and the survey name,
• the visit window, with a plain note such as "Open until 5 Nov, 18:00",
• how many questions there are and how many photos to take,
• your Brief, if you wrote one.

Start visit begins the visit. Starting needs a connection once; after that the field user can answer offline. A started visit shows Continue visit instead, with how many questions are answered, and opens at the section where they left off.

Answering

The questions come in short sections. A bar at the top shows the current section and the overall progress, for example "Purchase · 4 of 5" and "9 of 14 answered". Tapping it opens Sections, a list of every section marked Done, In progress, Not started or Needs attention, plus Review and send. Jumping between sections never loses an answer.

At the bottom, Continue to the next section, or Review the visit after the last one. Questions that don't need an answer are marked Optional. Questions hidden by a rule simply don't appear.

Dates are typed as DD.MM.YYYY with a Today shortcut, times as HH:MM with Now. Amounts accept a decimal comma, such as 128,40.

Save states

Every answer is saved on the phone first. The save state under the section title says where the answers are:

Received by Steve doesn't mean accepted. Only a verifier accepts a visit.

Photos and receipts

A photo or receipt question offers Add a photo of the receipt or Add a photo. It opens the camera, or the photo library on a device without one. The field user can add more photos with Add another receipt or Add another photo, up to the number the question allows.

Each photo then shows its own state:

Remove receipt or Remove photo takes a photo off the question before the visit is sent.

AI suggestions and recording

When the survey suggests answers, a question can show Steve's suggestion with its source, such as "From your recording at 4:32" or "Read from your receipt: Total 129,99 zł". The field user taps Confirm or Change for each one; nothing is accepted for them. A suggestion that arrives after they answered never changes the answer, it only adds a note such as "Your recording suggests: No".

When the survey records visits, Start visit starts the recording, which continues with the phone locked until the field user taps End visit. See AI suggestions and visit recording for the recording screen, permissions, lost parts and what happens if the app closes.

Review and send

Review and send lists only what is left, such as "Answer needed", "Receipt needed" or "Photo still uploading". On a survey that records visits, it also lists a recording that is still running, until the field user taps End visit. With Required recording, it lists a missing recording too, or says the recording is still uploading once it has ended. Tapping an item opens its question.

Send visit to Steve is available once nothing is left, every answer and photo has reached Steve, and the phone is online. After sending, the answers can no longer change, and the app shows Received by Steve: "Your visit is with the verification team. It is not accepted yet; their decision shows on Today."

If the app is closed

Answers, the field user's position and the survey itself are stored on the phone, and photos are kept until they have uploaded. If the app is closed or the phone restarts, Continue visit opens the visit where they left off and unfinished uploads carry on.

When a visit goes away

If you cancel a visit or turn Surveys off, the visit disappears from the field user's list. A visit that is open on the screen shows that it is not available. Answers already on the phone stay there and are not reported as received.

In the demo app

The demo app shows the same visits to an operator acting as a field user: Visits on Today and on Workflows, the visit page, the sections, the save states, review and send. A few things work differently because it runs in a browser:

• Photos and receipts come from a file chooser, which opens the camera on a phone. Only JPEG, PNG and WebP images are offered.
• Answers and the field user's position are kept in this browser, separately for each field user and deployment. They survive a page reload and End demo, and come back the next time the operator acts as the same field user here.
• A photo is uploaded from the open tab only. If the page is reloaded while a photo is still uploading, its slot says This photo did not finish uploading: remove it and add it again. The visit can't be sent until then.
• Use one tab per field user. Two tabs acting as the same field user can overwrite each other's unsent answers.
• The demo needs the page to be loaded. Answers saved without a connection go to Steve as soon as it returns, whichever screen is open, but only while the page stays open.
• If the browser refuses to store an answer (storage full or turned off), the app says "This answer was not saved in this browser. Try again." and nothing is sent.

The demo app also shows suggestions with Confirm and Change, and records visits while the tab stays open, or takes a recording file instead. See In the demo app.