Case studies / Field services
Case studyAn offline technician app for a field service firm
A field service firm with hundreds of technicians replaced paper job sheets with a mobile app that works offline, so jobs are recorded on site, billing is faster and disputes fall.
Overview
A heating, ventilation and fire safety service company in Canada maintaining equipment for commercial landlords, retailers, schools and public buildings across several provinces.
Scale. About 300 technicians completing around 6,000 planned maintenance visits and reactive call-outs every month, many in plant rooms, basements and rural sites with little or no mobile signal.
The challenge
Every evening, technicians across the company filled in job sheets in their vans or at their kitchen tables, then posted or dropped them at the nearest branch. Some arrived the next day, some a week later and a few never arrived at all.
Technicians recorded jobs on paper, so billing was slow. Office staff could not invoice a job until the sheet arrived and had been keyed in, and incomplete or illegible sheets went back to the technician for clarification, adding more days.
Customers disputed invoices. Without photos or signatures, the company struggled to prove that work had been done, how long it took or which parts were used, and credit notes were issued to settle arguments.
Parts usage was guesswork. Technicians took parts from van stock and noted them when they remembered, so van stock was rarely accurate and parts were not always billed.
Managers had no live view of progress. They learned about delays, incomplete jobs and follow-up work only when the paperwork caught up.
An earlier attempt at a mobile solution had failed. It relied on a constant connection, and technicians gave up on it after losing completed work in basements and plant rooms.
The solution
Offline job management gives technicians their schedule, job details, site history and equipment records on their phone or tablet. Jobs are downloaded at the start of the day and remain fully usable without signal.
Technicians record work as they go: tasks completed, readings, time on site, follow-up work and notes. Photos of equipment before and after, and customer signatures, are captured in the app and attached to the job.
Parts usage is recorded against each job from the technician's van stock, so parts are billed and van stock is replenished automatically.
Synchronisation happens in the background whenever a connection is available. Completed jobs, photos and signatures are queued safely on the device and uploaded without the technician having to think about it. Conflicts, such as a job changed in the office while the technician was offline, are resolved with clear rules.
Manager dashboards show the status of jobs across each region during the day, highlight jobs at risk and list follow-up work raised by technicians.
Completed jobs flow to billing with the evidence attached, maps help technicians navigate to sites and notifications tell customers when a technician is on the way.
The engagement
- Six months
- Five specialists
- Technician shadowing, design and build of an offline-first mobile app for jobs, photos, signatures and parts, synchronisation, manager dashboards, integrations with scheduling, billing, parts, maps and notifications, a one-team pilot and national rollout.
Integrations
- Scheduling system
- Billing
- Parts system
- Maps
- Notifications
How we delivered it
- 01
Shadow technicians
Four weeks
We shadowed technicians on planned and reactive visits in cities and rural areas, noting where signal dropped, what they needed on site and what they recorded afterwards.
- 02
Build the app
Twelve weeks
We built the app offline-first: every core task works without signal and synchronises when a connection returns. We tested in plant rooms and basements, not just in the office.
- 03
Pilot with one team
Five weeks
One regional team used the app for all its work. We fixed synchronisation edge cases, refined the forms and adjusted the job flow based on what technicians reported.
- 04
Roll out
Five weeks
The app was rolled out region by region, with pilot technicians helping to train their colleagues and paper sheets withdrawn as each region went live.
Results
- Jobs recorded on site with photos and signatures
- Same-day billing of completed work
- Fewer customer disputes
- Accurate parts usage and van stock
Jobs are recorded at the site. Technicians complete the record before they leave, including photos and a signature, and the evening paperwork has gone.
Billing is faster. Completed jobs reach billing the same day with everything needed to invoice, and the backlog of unkeyed job sheets has disappeared.
Disputes have fallen. When a customer questions an invoice, the office can show photos, readings, time on site and a signature, and most queries are resolved in a single conversation.
Parts are billed consistently and van stock is accurate, so technicians arrive with the parts they need more often.
Offline reliability decided adoption. Technicians trusted the app because it never lost their work, even in the basements where the previous solution had failed.
The first week, the technicians tried to break it in the worst basements they knew. When it kept their work every time, they stopped looking for the paper.
What made the difference
Offline reliability decided adoption.
