Training and Onboarding
The mobile TessaLink application has two different ways to use it - online and offline. Whenever possible, it is better to use the online version, as this will keep your data up to date and prevent synchronization errors. However, if you do not have a stable internet connection, offline may be required. This article will cover only the offline version. For online, click here.
Offline mode will store the changes that you make locally on the device. This means that nobody else sees those changes, and you don't see changes from others, until you sync.
Initial Setup
The first thing that we have to do is get the data downloaded onto your app so that you can make changes to it. This REQUIRES a stable internet connection.
1. Open the TessaLink mobile application
2. Click "New User Profile"
3. Click "Continue"
4. Log in using your username and password. This is the same one that you use for the web and desktop applications.
5. Accept the End User License Agreement
6. Choose a PIN. This can be any number that you want. In the future, instead of having to log in with your username and password each time, you will just choose your profile and enter your PIN.
7. Confirm you PIN. You are just entering the exact same PIN again to make sure there wasn't a typo.
8. Choose your sync settings (explained below). Each of these settings affects only this local account. It does not affect other accounts on this device or other people in any way.
A. Set the language that you want for the app. We currently support English, Spanish, Norwegian, and Portuguese.
B. Select the date format that you want. By default, this will be MM/DD/YYYY (American Standard). If you would like a different format, click in the empty box and choose the preferred format.
C. Choose the quality that you want to use when storing photos. This defaults to medium. Increasing the quality will increase the amount of time it takes to sync, as each photo will have more information to sync across.
D. Choose the level of accuracy that you want to use for GPS. The higher the accuracy, the longer it will take to acquire the exact coordinates.
E. If this is green, it will remember the last order number and PO number that you use on forms (resets each time you log out or the app is closed).
F. If this is green, it will remember the last owner and location that you chose, and show the at the top when choosing an owner and location (resets each time you log out or the app is closed).
G. Choose the cutoff date of completed forms that you want to sync. By default (blank), it will sync every form regardless of date. This does not affect the assets. So for instance, if I choose 2/2/2020, it will sync every asset from the customers I choose (see part H below), as well as all completed forms between 2/2/2020 and today.
This can be a great way to cut down on sync time. If you know that you will not need to see any completed work, you can choose todays date. If you only might need the past year, choose one year ago. For accounts with a large amount of history, downloading one year of data instead of ten years can dramatically reduce the sync time.
H. Choose the customers that you want to sync. TessaLink offline allows you to only sync certain customers if you want. Any customer that has the green slider next to them will be synced, while any customer with a grey slider will not be synced.
If a customer is selected, you can also specify that you only want certain locations. By default, every location will be synced for that customer (even though the sliders are grey on the locations). If there are any locations that have a green slider, those are the only ones that will be synced for that customer. If they are all grey, then all the locations will be synced. For customers that have sublocations, this works the same way (if any sublocations are green, they will be the only ones synced, but if they are all grey then all the sublocations for that location will be synced).
Note: currently there is not a way to add new customers to your synced data other than to start this entire process over. However, the more customers you download, the longer it will take to do searches for assets.
9. Click Save, and dismiss the success notification. You will have a mostly blank screen with a spinning circle.
Note: You will need stable internet for this part. We strongly recommend wifi. While 4G works for normal syncs, we have seen customers have problems when using it for this initial sync.
Note: You will need to keep the screen on, and keep the app open during this step. Closing or minimizing the app, or turning off the screen can sometimes cause the initial sync to fail. If it fails, you might need to restart the process. We recommend setting the device to never turn the screen off, connecting to wifi, plugging in the device, and leaving it overnight. After it finishes, you can change the settings back and use the device as normal.
10. The sync can take anywhere from 60 seconds to 18 hours. It depends on the internet speed, the number of customers you are downloading, the specifications of the device, the amount of forms and historical information, and several other factors.
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