Offline Mode and Sync
Work without internet — your changes sync automatically when you reconnect.
Signplanr is designed for fieldwork where internet access is unreliable. When you lose connectivity, the app continues to work. Your photos, status updates, and comments are queued locally and sync automatically when you reopen the app with a connection.
iPhone users: use Safari. Offline mode and background sync rely on browser features that Apple restricts in non-Safari browsers on iOS. If you open Signplanr in Chrome, Firefox, or another browser on iPhone or iPad, offline data caching and queued photo uploads may be unreliable or unavailable. Use Safari (or install the app to your home screen via Safari) for the most dependable fieldwork experience. Android users can use Chrome — it supports all offline features.
How offline mode works
The Signplanr contractor app is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that saves key data on your device. Once you've downloaded an event (see below), you can — with no connection at all:
- Open the event, your full sign list, and every sign's details — including signs, surveys, and jobs you never opened before you went offline.
- See sign artwork, plus all text, statuses, due dates, and comments.
- Open your maps (sign positions and details) and your surveys and jobs, both the lists and each individual item.
The download also saves survey photos (reference and field photos, with their annotations), the map background image, reference documents, and — for geo maps — the map imagery around your pins, so those show offline too. Anything you haven't downloaded (for example a photo added by the organiser after your download) shows a "Not downloaded" placeholder until you reconnect.
You do not need to toggle anything on. Offline mode activates automatically when your device loses internet connectivity.
Download an event for offline use
Before heading to a site with poor signal, you can cache an entire event in one step instead of opening each page individually:
- Open the event from Your Events while you have a connection.
- Scroll to the bottom of the event overview — below the Reference Documents section — and tap the Download for offline button.
- A progress indicator counts through your signs, maps, and — if your organisation uses them — surveys and jobs. When it finishes, the button shows Available offline.
This saves everything you need for that event — your sign list and every sign's details, artwork, and maps, plus the pages themselves — to your device, so you can open any of your assigned signs, surveys, and jobs offline even if you never opened them beforehand. Tap the button again any time you have a connection to refresh with the latest data. If the button reads Download again, the app has been updated since your last download (or the download is more than 7 days old) and the saved pages need refreshing — tap it before you head out.
The download needs a connection, so the button is disabled while you are offline. Run it before you leave Wi-Fi or mobile coverage. If you've just opened (or just installed) the app, give it a few seconds to finish starting up before you tap Download for offline — that lets it save every page reliably.
How much Signplanr can keep offline depends on your device's free space, not a small fixed limit — on a modern phone that's usually plenty for a large event. If your device is genuinely low on storage, a download tells you it couldn't save everything instead of quietly dropping data you already saved. See Storage on your device below.
What you can do offline
| Action | Offline support |
|---|---|
| View sign list and details | Yes (after download) |
| View sign artwork | Yes (after download) |
| View maps — sign positions and details | Yes (after download) |
| View surveys and jobs — lists and details | Yes (after download) |
| View survey photos (with annotations) | Yes (after download) |
| View the map background image | Yes (after download) |
| Open reference documents | Yes (after download) |
| Take and upload photos | Queued, syncs when online |
| Annotate photos (including ones still waiting to upload) | Queued, syncs when online |
| Update sign status | Queued, syncs when online |
| Add comments | Queued, syncs when online |
| Fill in, start and submit surveys; survey notes | Queued, syncs when online |
| Acknowledge a job's site induction | Queued, syncs when online |
| Delete photos, comments or surveys | No (requires internet) |
| Receive new sign assignments | No (requires internet) |
If your organisation uses site surveys and jobs, these work offline the same way: you can view them, fill in survey answers, take and annotate survey photos, write notes, add a survey to a map, and submit a survey while offline — everything queues and syncs when you reconnect. Answers you enter offline stay on the survey if you leave and come back, or close and reopen the app.
Storage on your device
Offline mode saves data to your device. Modern iPhones and iPads let a web app like Signplanr store a generous amount — scaled to how much free space your device has — so a large event with plenty of artwork normally fits comfortably. You only need to think about it if your device is running low on storage overall.
Everything Signplanr keeps offline shares your device's free space:
- The app itself and the pages you have opened.
- Sign artwork you have downloaded (the largest items).
- Photos you have taken offline that are waiting to sync.
Here is how the app protects your work if space ever does get tight:
- Your unsynced photos are always protected. The app never deletes queued photos to make room — they stay safe until they sync. Only re-downloadable data (like artwork) is ever trimmed.
- Downloads stop safely instead of overflowing. If there genuinely isn't room, Download for offline saves what it can and tells you some artwork wasn't saved — rather than silently dropping data you already had. It won't wipe your other saved events to force one download through.
- If your device is critically low on free space, the download is refused with a message asking you to free up room. Delete unused apps or photos from your device, then try again.
Open the app at least once a week. On iPhone and iPad, if you do not open Signplanr for about 7 days, the system may automatically clear its offline data — including cached pages, downloaded artwork, and any photos still waiting to sync. Before a long gap, connect to Wi-Fi and confirm everything has synced (the sync indicator disappears).
If your device is low on space:
- Download one event at a time — the one you are heading to — rather than several large events at once.
- Free up space on your device (delete unused apps, clear your camera roll) if downloads are being refused.
- Sync at the end of each day so queued photos don't build up.
How sync works
When you take a photo, change a sign status, or post a comment while offline, the action is saved to a local queue on your device. Sync happens automatically when:
- Your connection returns while the app is open.
- You open the app with an internet connection and queued items exist.
Queued photos appear as semi-transparent thumbnails with a "Pending sync" badge so you can see what is waiting to upload. Status changes and comments you make offline show up straight away too — so you can keep working through your signs — and reconcile with the server automatically once you reconnect.
Sync requires the app to be open. Keep the app in the foreground while syncing large photo uploads. For the most reliable experience, install the app as a PWA.
The sync indicator
A card appears at the top of the screen when there are pending changes:
- Amber card — items are queued and waiting for a connection.
- Blue card with spinner — sync is in progress. Keep the app open.
- Red card with Retry button — one or more items failed to sync. Tap Retry to attempt syncing again.
- Red card listing changes that couldn't be saved — the server rejected a change permanently (for example the survey had already been submitted by someone else). The card names each change and why, so you know what didn't go through; tap Dismiss once you've read it.
- Red card with Sign in — you've been offline long enough that your sign-in expired. Tap Sign in; your saved changes stay on the device and sync straight after.
- No card — everything is up to date.
Changes sync in the order you made them, per sign or survey. If one change is still retrying, the ones after it for that same survey wait — so a survey is never submitted ahead of a photo or answer that belongs to it.
Keeping the app up to date
Every so often you may see a small "A new version of Signplanr is ready — Refresh" prompt. Tap Refresh to switch to the latest version — it takes a second and you never need to reinstall anything. The update is only applied when you tap Refresh (or fully close and reopen the app), so the version you are using never changes underneath you mid-job.
After an update, any event you had saved for offline use needs to be downloaded again — open the event and tap Download again. Pages saved by the previous version can't be shown by the new one. Do both while you have a connection, before you head to site.
Limitations
- Only what was downloaded shows offline. Photos, documents or map imagery added after your last download show a "Not downloaded" placeholder until you reconnect — tap Download again when you're back online.
- Geo map imagery is saved around your pins. The download caches the streets or satellite imagery for the area your signs and surveys are in, at a few zoom levels. Panning far away or zooming right in may show blank tiles until you reconnect.
- Offline storage depends on your device's free space. Downloads stop safely and warn you rather than overflow; if your device is very low on storage a download may be refused. See the Storage on your device section above.
- Offline data can be cleared after ~7 days of not opening the app. On iPhone and iPad the system may wipe cached pages, downloaded artwork, and unsynced photos if you go a week without opening Signplanr. Open it at least weekly and sync before long gaps.
- Deleting photos, comments or surveys requires a connection. If you are offline and try, you will see a message asking you to connect first.
- Queued items also expire after 7 days. If you do not sync within a week, stale queued items are automatically removed.
- Failed items retry up to 5 times. After 5 failures an item is marked as failed and waits for you. Tap Retry to try again.
- Clearing browser data removes the queue. Always confirm sync is complete before clearing data or uninstalling the app.
Tips for fieldwork
- Download the event before heading out. On the event overview, tap Download for offline while you still have Wi-Fi to cache all your signs, their details, artwork, and maps in one step. (Opening individual pages still caches them as you go, too.)
- Reference documents come with the download. Event-level and sign-level documents are saved with Download for offline and open in the app while you're offline.
- Check sync status at the end of the day. Before leaving the site, connect to Wi-Fi and confirm the sync indicator disappears. This ensures all your photos reach the organiser.
If you clear your browser data or uninstall the PWA, any unsynced photos in the queue are lost. Always confirm sync is complete before clearing data.