Mobile app onboarding

The Planscape mobile app is offline-first by design. This guide walks you through installation, sign-in, project sync, and the pre-site preparation that lets you work a full day without signal and have everything replay automatically when you're back in range.

Supported devices

The app is ~85 MB on first install. Each cached project adds 50–500 MB depending on how many photos and model views you pre-sync.

Step 1 — Install

• iOS: App Store — search "Planscape BIM"
• Android: Play Store — search "Planscape BIM"

If you're a beta tester, use the TestFlight / Play Internal Testing link sent to your email instead.

Step 2 — First launch & permissions

The app asks for four permissions on first run. All are optional, but you'll need them for the core workflows:

You can change any of these later in your phone's Settings → Planscape.

Step 3 — Sign in

Enter the email and password you used for the web app. If your firm has SSO enabled, tap Sign in with SSO and you'll be redirected to your identity provider (Azure AD, Google Workspace, Okta).

After login, the app fetches your project list and shows the project picker. Tap any project to open it.

Step 4 — Pre-sync before going to site

This is the step most people skip and then regret. Pre-syncing downloads everything you'll need to work offline:

• The full issue list and all photos.
• The current document register and all PDFs marked "Site reference".
• The federated model's plan views at all visible levels.
• The Mapbox tile cache for a 5 km radius around your project pin.

To pre-sync: open the project, tap the cloud icon in the top right, choose Full pre-sync. On a normal 4G connection this takes 2–10 minutes depending on project size. Do it from the office, not the site.

Step 5 — Test offline mode

While you're still at the office, do a quick offline test:

1. Put your phone in airplane mode.
2. Open the Planscape app.
3. Open your project.
4. Tap + New issue, fill it in, attach a photo, save.
5. You should see a yellow chip on the issue: "Queued — will sync when online".
6. Turn airplane mode off. Within 10–30 seconds the chip should go away and the issue is synced.

If that worked, you're ready for a site visit with confidence.

Working a day on site

The status indicator

The top-right of every screen has a connection indicator:

• 🟢 Online — connected, all features available.
• 🟡 Queued (N) — offline; N changes waiting to sync.
• 🔴 Sync failed — tap to see why and retry.

What works offline

• Browsing issues, documents, the federated model.
• Raising new issues with photos and voice notes.
• Commenting on existing issues.
• Changing issue status (open → in progress → resolved).
• The GPS site map (using cached Mapbox tiles).
• QR scanning an asset (offline lookup hits the local cache).

What needs a connection

• Real-time comment notifications from teammates.
• Initial document download (use pre-sync to avoid this).
• Voice-note transcription (the audio file syncs offline; the transcript is generated server-side).
• Push notifications from teammates.

Conflict handling

When the queue replays, two situations can produce conflicts:

• You and a teammate both change the same issue status. Last-write-wins by timestamp. The app shows a conflict banner on the issue with the alternative value so you can decide.
• You raised an issue against an element that was deleted in Revit. The issue still saves but is flagged as "orphaned" — you can re-link it to another element or close it.

Push notifications

You'll get a push notification when:

• An issue is assigned to you.
• Someone comments on an issue you created or are assigned to.
• A document you authored gets approved or rejected.
• Your firm's trial is about to expire (7 / 3 / 1 days before).

Tapping a notification opens the relevant screen directly — issue detail, document approval queue, billing page.

Configure which notification types you want: Profile → Settings → Notifications.

Battery & data usage

A typical day on site (8 hours, GPS on, 50 photos, 20 issues raised) uses roughly:

• Battery: 25–40% of a modern phone. Bring a power bank if you'll be out all day.
• Data: 15–50 MB when syncing the queue. Pre-syncing the night before reduces this to almost nothing.

Troubleshooting

App won't open / crashes on launch

Most common cause: corrupted cache. Profile → Settings → Storage → Clear cache. You'll need to log in and pre-sync again.

"Stuck queue" — items won't sync

• Check the status indicator. If it's red, tap it and read the error.
• Most often: an issue references an element ID that no longer exists. Open the issue, re-attach to a current element, save again.
• If everything else fails: Profile → Diagnostics → Export queue and email it to support@planscape.co. We'll force-replay server-side.

GPS keeps drifting

Indoor GPS is inherently noisy. Go outdoors briefly to re-acquire signal, or use the manual pin-drop instead of "use my location".

Photos take ages to upload

• Photos are 12 MP by default — large. We compress to 80% JPEG, but a 50-photo batch is still ~200 MB.
• The app auto-pauses uploads on slow connections. Force them to upload now: Profile → Sync → Resume uploads.
• To reduce upload size: Profile → Settings → Photos → Upload quality: Standard (drops to 1080p).