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:

Channel TypeDescription
🌍 GlobalCompany-wide communication
🏗️ Job ChannelsAuto-created for each project
👥 PrivateOnly visible to specific invited members

📌 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

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