Live Feed in the Mobile App: Team Communication in Real Time

💬 Live Feed in the Mobile App: Team Communication in Real Time
 

🧭 Introduction

The Live Feed in the Ontraccr mobile app is a real-time communication tool for field teams and office staff. It provides a dedicated chat system for projects, teams, and company-wide conversations, accessible right inside the app.

This guide explains how to post messages, use channels, tag teammates, share media, and work offline.

📍 Where to Access Live Feed

• From the Action Center, tap the yellow “Live Feed” bar at the bottom
• This expands the internal chat system within the app

To close it, tap the downward arrow again

🗂️ Understanding Channels

Channels are automatically created based on:

• Projects (one per project)
• Global company-wide chat
• Custom/private groups (manually created)

📁 Channel Types:

📌 Every new project automatically gets a dedicated job channel.

🔄 Navigating Channels

1. Tap the three horizontal bars (top-left of Live Feed)
2. Browse by:
   • Global
   • Custom
   • Jobs
3. Tap a channel name to enter and view its posts

📝 Creating and Posting a Message

To create a post:

1. Enter a channel
2. Tap “Create Post” in the top-right
3. Type your message or tap the microphone icon to dictate
4. Optional: Tag people, attach files, or mark up images
5. Tap Send

🔔 Tagging (Mentions)

To notify someone:

• Type @ then select a user from the list

Behavior:

• Tagged users receive an alert
• Posts without tags are visible to everyone in the channel

❗ You cannot tag an entire team — tags are individual only

📎 Adding Files and Photos

Inside a post:

• Tap the file icon to attach files from Ontraccr
• Tap the camera icon to:
  • Take a live photo
  • Annotate it (drawings, text, colors)
  • Add metadata (shared description + per-photo notes)
  • Save and attach to your post

📌 Metadata is embedded directly into the uploaded photo record.

🔁 Offline Chat Support

• Posts and uploads work offline
• Once signal is restored, messages sync automatically
• Great for remote job sites or underground projects

📌 Filtering Posts

Tap the red filter icon (top-right in Live Feed) to:

• Show only unread messages
• Mark all as read
• Sort and manage your feed more efficiently

🧰 Extra Tips

• Want to focus your chats? Create custom channels with a few teammates
• Add multiple @mentions in a post to notify several people
• Keep job-related communication tied to each project’s dedicated chat space

✅ Outcome

With the Live Feed feature, teams can:

• Communicate instantly across jobs and offices
• Keep conversations organized by project or group
• Share annotated photos, documents, and status updates
• Work and post even without an internet connection