Offline Mode
Cell signal is unreliable on many job sites — inside metal buildings, in rural areas, or in basements and crawl spaces. ContractorScope AI is designed to keep working when connectivity drops, and to sync automatically as soon as you are back online.
Changes made offline are queued and synced when you reconnect. If you are working offline for an extended period, avoid making the same edit on two devices simultaneously. The last sync to reach the server wins, which can overwrite earlier changes.
What Works Offline
The following features are fully available without an internet connection, as long as the data was loaded before you lost signal:
Viewing and Editing
- My Jobs — View your full assigned job list, open job details, read dispatcher notes, and review the linked estimate.
- Estimates — Open any estimate that was previously loaded on your device. View all line items, quantities, and pricing.
- Catalog — Browse your full material and labor catalog (see Pre-Loading the Catalog below).
- Contacts — View contact details, phone numbers, and addresses for contacts you have recently accessed.
- Notes — Read existing notes on any record you previously opened. Create new notes — they queue and sync when you reconnect.
- Files — View photos and documents that were already downloaded to your device.
Actions That Queue for Sync
These actions work offline, but the changes are held locally and sent to the server when connectivity returns:
- Updating a job status (e.g., En Route → Arrived → Completed)
- Adding text notes to a job, contact, or project
- Recording voice memos
- Attaching photos taken from the field
What Requires an Internet Connection
Some features rely on real-time server processing and cannot function offline:
| Feature | Why it needs internet |
|---|---|
| AI estimate generation | The AI processes your input on Anthropic's servers — not on your device. |
| Sending proposals | Email delivery requires server access. |
| Accepting payments | Payment processing goes through Stripe in real time. |
| Syncing new data | New jobs dispatched after you went offline will not appear until you reconnect. |
| Photo analysis | AI document processing requires server connectivity. |
| QuickBooks sync | Requires a live connection to the QuickBooks API. |
Features that use AI processing — including photo-based estimates, AI visualization, and voice assistant — require an active internet connection. These features cannot be used offline. Plan your AI-powered work for when you have reliable connectivity.
If you try to use one of these features while offline, the app will show a message explaining that an internet connection is required and offer to queue the action for later where possible.
The Offline Indicator
When ContractorScope AI detects that your device has lost internet connectivity, a small banner appears at the top of the screen:
Offline — changes will sync when you reconnect
The banner is yellow-orange so it is visible in bright sunlight. It stays on screen as long as you are offline. When connectivity returns, the banner briefly changes to:
Back online — syncing…
and then disappears once the sync is complete.
The offline indicator reflects your device's network connectivity, not server availability. If you have a signal but the server is temporarily unreachable, the indicator will still appear. This is rare but can happen during brief server maintenance windows.
A very poor or degraded connection (for example, a 2G or slow-2G signal) is also treated as offline by the indicator banner and by the New Estimate wizard's save-for-later flow, even if your device still shows a signal. A weak connection can leave you "connected" but effectively unable to reach the server, so the estimate wizard offers to save your work for later instead of risking a hung or failed submission on a technically-connected-but-unusable link. Data-saver / low-data mode does not trigger this — that setting only affects background prefetching, not the offline indicator, so you can keep it on without being routed offline. This degraded-connection check depends on your browser reporting connection quality, which most Android/Chrome browsers do; Safari (iPhone/iPad/Mac) and Firefox do not expose this today, so on those browsers this particular signal-quality check does not apply.
A deeper check — one that actually tries to reach ContractorScope AI's servers, instead of only reading your browser's self-reported connection quality — is wired into the New Estimate wizard's save-for-later gate on every browser, including Safari and Firefox. Before offering to save your work for later, the wizard makes a bounded (a few seconds) real network attempt to reach the server. Only a genuine transport failure — the request never got a response at all — counts as offline; a response from the server, even an error response (for example, a brief rate-limit or a mid-deploy hiccup), still counts as reachable and does not trigger save-for-later, since it proves the server actually answered. This closes the Safari/Firefox gap noted above for a true connectivity loss, because it does not depend on the browser exposing connection-quality reporting.
How Auto-Sync Works
When your device reconnects to the internet, ContractorScope AI automatically syncs all queued changes in order:
- Status updates first — Job status changes are sent immediately so the dispatcher's board reflects your current state.
- Notes and memos — Text notes and voice memos upload next.
- Photos and files — Attachments upload last, as they are the largest.
The sync happens in the background. You do not need to tap anything — just reconnect and keep working. A subtle progress indicator appears in the app header while the sync is running.
If a sync fails (for example, a file upload times out), the item stays in the queue and retries automatically. You can also manually trigger a sync by pulling down to refresh on the My Jobs screen.
Conflict Resolution
If a record was edited both offline on your device and online by someone else (e.g., a dispatcher changed a job note while you were offline), ContractorScope AI resolves the conflict automatically:
- For job status — your device's status update takes precedence if it is a forward progression (e.g., you marked it Completed while offline and a dispatcher re-opened it). If there is a genuine conflict, both parties are notified.
- For notes — both versions are preserved. A conflict notice appears on the note so you can review and merge manually.
- For files — both files are kept. Duplicates are labeled with a timestamp so you can identify and delete the unwanted copy.
Pre-Loading the Catalog Before You Go
The material and labor catalog can be large. Pre-loading it while you have a strong connection ensures the full catalog is available when you need it on site.
Before leaving the office or a location with good WiFi, open the catalog and scroll through it. This caches the data locally. You can also tap Sync Catalog in Settings → Offline to force a full catalog download.
To manually pre-load:
- Open Settings from the bottom navigation bar.
- Tap Offline Storage.
- Tap Download Catalog Now.
- Wait for the progress bar to complete. On a fast connection this takes under a minute.
The downloaded catalog is stored on your device and refreshed automatically whenever you are online and the catalog has been updated by your admin.
Troubleshooting Sync Issues
Changes Not Appearing After Reconnecting
If you reconnected and your offline changes did not sync:
- Pull down to refresh on the My Jobs screen to manually trigger a sync.
- Check that your internet connection is stable — try loading a webpage.
- Go to Settings → Offline Storage and tap Sync Now.
- If items still show as pending, tap View Sync Queue to see what is stuck and why.
The Sync Queue Shows Errors
Tap any item in the sync queue that shows an error to see the failure reason. Common causes:
- File too large — A photo or video exceeds the 500 MB limit. Remove it from the queue and upload a compressed version when back online.
- Record deleted — The job or contact the note was attached to was deleted by someone else while you were offline. The note cannot sync because the parent record no longer exists.
- Session expired — Your login session timed out while you were offline. Tap Re-authenticate and sign in again to resume syncing.
Offline Data Is Stale or Missing
If a job you expected to see offline is not there, it was likely dispatched after you lost connectivity. The dispatch board updates in real time, but offline data only reflects what was on your device when you last had a connection.
To avoid this, check your schedule in the morning before leaving for the day while you still have a strong signal. This ensures all your jobs for the day are cached.
Next Steps
Now that you understand offline mode, explore these related features:
- My Jobs — Updating job status and notes from the field.
- Dispatch Board — How dispatchers see your status in real time.
- Notes & Files — Creating notes and attaching files, including offline.