Your First Visit to a Site

The first visit at a site is the one where you can leave the most behind. By the end of this walkthrough the site has a photo on file that shows the whole place, every unit you found is on its equipment list with a nameplate photo, anything the next tech needs to know is written where the office can move it onto the site, and the visit itself is checked out the same way as every other visit.

This article is about what to do when you arrive. The wizard itself — water test, dose plan, tasks, retest, and Skip Today — is covered step by step in Complete a Visit.

Before you start

• You are signed in on the Operator tab and, if your company requires it, you have tapped Clock In.
• The visit is on Jobs → Today. If it is not, it has not been assigned to you for today — check Find Jobs for unassigned work you can pick up, or ask the office.
• The office has the site on file with an address. Without map coordinates or a street address, the Directions button is replaced by Add map coordinates or a street address on the site to enable directions. — that is an office fix, not yours.

What you can leave on the site

Everything you type or photograph lands in one of two places: on the site, where every future visit sees it, or on this job, where only this visit and the office see it. Know which is which before you start.

1. 1

   Open the job and read the top card

   Tap Jobs, then the stop. The top card is the customer's name, a Site block with the street address and a Directions button that opens Google Maps, the scheduled time, and the customer's phone numbers. If the office named an On-site contact — a superintendent, a property manager — it is here with a tappable phone number. On a commercial site, call before you walk in.

   Under the big Start Job button is a utility row: Report Issue, Equipment (only when your company tracks site equipment and the job has a site), and Skip Today. If you cannot do the visit at all, use Skip Today — Complete a Visit explains what it does and does not do.

2. 2

   Tap Start Job and look before you touch anything

   Start Job opens the wizard for that work type. The first step is labeled Arrive (pool service, lawn treatment, and general work types), Start Visit (pond and lake treatments), Service Tasks (Equipment Service), or Diagnose (Equipment Repair). Whatever it is called, everything the office knows about this site is on it:

   • Confirm job site — Match the image and address before starting work. Site name, address, Directions, and the site photo. On a first visit it usually reads No job site image on file — Take one now so the next crew has a visual reference. That is your cue for step 3.
   • On-site contact and an amber Internal Site Warning card (Internal only — not visible to customers). Both only appear when the office filled them in. Gate codes, dogs on the property, "shut the pump off before treating" — this is where the office puts them. Read it every time.
   • Site Description — the description the customer can also see, and edit, on their portal.
   • Site History — on a first visit it reads No prior visit on file. From the second visit on, it shows the last visit of this work type here, Visits in this year, and a Recurring Issues banner when the same problem keeps coming back.
   • Field conditions — the weather for the scheduled date, saved to this job for you.
   • Scan a Tag (pool, pond/lake, lawn, and general work types, when your company tracks equipment) and Report Issue.

   Nothing on this step writes to the site except the site photo. On a lake treatment you can also type the Water temperature under Field conditions, and on pond and lake treatments the Site button in the header opens Site Details, where you can size what you are treating this visit — both save to this job, not the site. That is deliberate: the site record belongs to the office, and the wizard shows you what they wrote.

3. 3

   Take the site photo — the whole site

   On Confirm job site, tap Take Photo to use the camera or Attach Photo to pick one from your library. Once a photo exists, the camera button becomes Replace site image.

   The photo's job is to let the next tech confirm they are at the right place in two seconds, so frame it for them, not for you:

   • Stand back far enough to get the entire pool, pond, fountain, shoreline, or property in one frame. If it will not fit, shoot from the spot the next tech will stand when they walk up — the gate, the equipment pad, the launch.
   • Hold the phone landscape and keep a landmark in the shot: the house, the dock, the tree line, the pad. A close-up of water is not a site photo.
   • It is one photo per site, not a gallery. Close-ups of the skimmer, the weed line, the controller, or anything you want the office to see about today belong in Before Photos (the next step on most work types) or on the job screen's Photos tab.

   No signal? The card reads Saving — will upload automatically… and the photo goes up when you have a connection again. If an attempt fails, you see Waiting to upload with Retry upload and Discard — the app keeps trying on its own whenever signal returns.

   This becomes the site's photo. The office sees it as Site photo on the site page, the Map tab shows it on the stop's pin, and every tech after you sees it on this card. You can replace it from the app; only the office can remove it.

   When the office requires a site photo

   If the work type has Site picture required ticked under SettingsWork Types (Field visit photos), this card's subtitle adds This work type requires a site photo on file. and Start Visit — Start Job on pond and lake treatments — refuses with This work type requires a site photo on file. Add or confirm the site image before starting. (general work types shorten it to This work type requires a site photo on file before starting.). Checkout is refused the same way. A photo that is still queued offline does not count until it has uploaded — take it before you lose signal.

4. 4

   Put every unit on the site's equipment list

   Go back to the job screen — from inside the wizard, the header's back button returns you to Jobs, so tap the stop again. The Equipment button is on the job screen before, during, and after the visit. Tap it. The Add Equipment screen is one unit at a time:

   • Category — chips for your industry; the first one is already selected, so tap the right one. Pool: Pump, Filter, Heater, Salt Cell / SWG, Automation, Cleaner, Light, Other. Aquatic: Fountain, Aerator, Pump, Diffuser, Other. Lawn care: Irrigation Controller, Irrigation System, Backflow Preventer, Other.
   • Label — How the crew refers to it, e.g. "Main pump". It fills itself in from make and model until you type your own.
   • Make (e.g. Pentair) and Model (e.g. IntelliFlo3).
   • Serial Number (optional) — From the nameplate.

   Tap Add to Site. The unit is saved right then — there is no offline queue here, so do this with signal. The next screen asks for a Photo: Take Photo, Attach Photo, or Done — Skip Photo. Take the photo now, because you cannot add it later from the app. Aim it at the nameplate, not the housing: make, model, serial, and horsepower or BTU on one sticker is how the office confirms a part order or a warranty claim without calling you.

   Do this for every unit you would expect to be asked about later: on a pool, the pump, filter, heater, and salt cell; on a pond, the fountain, aerator, and diffuser; on a property, the controller and the backflow.

   Two things Add Equipment does not do. It does not attach the unit to this visit — the routine wizards never link a unit; Equipment Repair and Equipment Service pick the unit inside the wizard, and a job the office starts from a unit on the web arrives already linked. And it is not how you report a problem; that is Report Issue. Each unit gets a tag the office can print (for example PUMP-0007); on later visits, Scan a Tag on the first step reads it and shows Equipment Found with View Service History — as the app says, Tag scan looks up equipment — it doesn't attach it to the visit.

   You cannot edit or remove a unit from the app. The office does that on the site page's Equipment tab.

   Add to Site needs Directories access

   The Equipment button shows for every role, but saving needs Directories access, which by default is office roles and field managers — not field crew. If the Category chips are empty, or Add to Site fails with This feature bundle is not enabled for your role: directory, ask the office to grant your role Directories under SettingsRoles — or hand them the make, model, and serial to add on the site's Equipment tab.

5. 5

   Write down what the next tech needs — in the right place

   You cannot write the site's Internal Site Warning, Site Description, or On-site contact from the job; those are office fields on the web (and the customer can edit Site Description on their portal). So use the two places you do have:

   • Notes tab on the job screen — type into Add field notes... and tap Save Notes. Gate code, which dog is friendly, where the pad is behind the shed, that the customer wants a text before you arrive. Then tell the office. They move it onto the site's Internal Site Warning, and from then on it is on the first wizard step at every visit. The app says Saved right away and has no offline queue for notes, so save them while you have a connection.
   • Report Issue for anything broken or wrong: pick the Equipment if it is one unit (Which unit has the problem? Skip if it isn’t one specific unit. — that card only appears once the site has units on file, another reason to add them first), tick Symptoms, describe it under Details (What did you see? Anything the office needs to know to price the repair.), switch on I could fix this today if approved if that is true, add Photos, and tap Send Report. The app confirms Issue Reported. If the office already has an open issue for that unit, your report is added to it instead of opening a second one.

   Keep the customer-facing notes at the end of the wizard for the customer. Visit notes for customer (optional) — called Completion Notes on lawn treatment and general work types — goes to the customer by default, on the portal and in the visit summary. A gate code does not belong there.

   Pool only: put the volume on file

   If the pool has no volume on record, the Water Test step shows a Shape row — Rectangle, Round, Oval, Kidney, or Enter gallons — with dimension fields and a Calculated Volume preview (pick Enter gallons to type Volume (gallons) directly). Save Pool Volume writes it to the site so every future dose plan sizes correctly, and the form disappears once it is saved. Saving needs Directories access for your role, which by default is office roles and field managers — if the save comes back Access denied, ask the office to enter it on the site or to grant your role Directories under SettingsRoles.

6. 6

   Run the visit wizard

   Tap Start Visit — on pond and lake treatments the button reads Start Job. If your phone's GPS is far from the site's pin, a Confirm job site alert asks you to Cancel or Continue; continuing is allowed and noted on the job. The same check runs again at checkout. (The office can turn it off with Warn when GPS is far from site.)

   From there the step rail across the top walks you through the work type. You can tap back to any step you have already reached.

   Work type	Steps
   Pool routine or specialty service	Arrive → Before Photos → Water Test → Dose Plan → Parts Used → Tasks → Photos → Complete
   Pond, lake, or specialty treatment	Start Visit → Symptoms → Plan & Sign → Apply → Complete. Before Photos and After Photos join the rail only when the office requires them.
   Lawn treatment	Arrive → Before Photos → Symptoms → Plan → Parts Used → After Photos → Complete
   Equipment Service (fountain)	Service Tasks → Parts Used → Before Photos → After Photos → Complete
   Equipment Repair	Diagnose → Before Photos → Parts & Labor → After Photos → Complete
   General work types (lawn maintenance, service call, special project, estimate visit…)	Arrive → Before Photos → the steps the office turned on for that type (Details, Quote & Approval, Tasks, Materials) → After Photos → Sign-off (if on) → Complete. An estimate visit calls Before Photos Site Media and has no After Photos step unless the office requires it.

   Parts Used only appears when your company has Inventory, and the pool Tasks step only when the office shows a checklist for that work type. Before and After photos are required when the office ticked Require Before Photos or Require After Job Photos for the work type — that is on by default for most work types, and off by default for pond, lake, and specialty treatments and estimate visits.

   The Complete step shows Time on site — pre-filled from when you started the visit, or from the work type's default visit length if the office set it up that way, and editable (on some work types changing it asks for a short note) — the customer notes field, and Complete & Check Out. That button checks you out, sends any queued photos, and marks the job Completed. Everything in between — readings, dose plan, tasks, retest — is in Complete a Visit.

Verify it worked

• Ask the office to open the site from DirectoriesSites. Site photo on the Overview is the one you took, and the Equipment tab lists each unit with its photo, make, and model — expand a unit to see the serial.
• The job reads Completed on Jobs. In the app it has moved from Open to the Completed segment of Jobs.
• The next visit of the same work type at this site opens with your photo on Confirm job site and today's visit under Site History.

If something does not look right