Mobile Companion App

The Option page is invoked using the gear button in the upper left corner of the Mobile application.

•Use basic QuickShot camera operation for photos
Use this option to use an alternate camera tool that does not prompt to save/retake photo, always uses the rear camera, and includes a timer and LED on/off button instead of auto-flash. It also has limitations such as no optical zoom but instead uses digital zoom. You can zoom using pinch zoom or use the zoom slider.

•Auto reopen camera/library until canceled
Enabling this option will cause Mobile to automatically open the camera again after taking a photo and open the photo library again after selecting an image, allowing you to quickly take multiple photos and insert multiple images, respectively. To cancel the cycle, use the virtual back button on Android, or the virtual Cancel button on iOS.

•Rotating to horizontal opens either camera
This option will automatically open the chosen camera when turning the mobile device to horizontal (landscape) orientation.

•Rotating to vertical closes QuickShot camera
This option will automatically close the QuickShot camera when turning the mobile device to vertical (portrait) orientation. Unfortunately, it is not possible to auto-close the device camera using rotation.

•Optional suffix to add to photo names
When two or more inspectors are inspecting a property that you will later merge their findings into a single report when restored into Ascent, you may want to be able to identify which inspector took which photos. This is also useful to prevent two photos from having the exact same name, causing one photo to overwrite another at the merge. Simply specify some unique identifier to be appended to the photo name that will be different for each inspector.

•Use abbreviations for Topic Checkboxes
This option allows the use of abbreviations in the Topic Checkbox panel, e.g. I for Inspected, etc. Using abbreviations collapses the Topic Checkbox panel, giving more space for the edit area. Useful on small mobile devices like phones. Abbreviations are managed on Ascent using the Topic Checkbox Abbreviations picklist, which is created when accessed via the Topic Checkbox Group Manager, or on a report transfer to Mobile. Each time a report is transferred to Mobile, the abbreviations are also transferred, keeping Mobile up-to-date..

•Use double-tap to toggle cloakable text
You can choose to be able to toggle cloakable text using a single tap or a double-tap.

•Auto Expand/Collapse Nav tree nodes
Depending on the complexity of the report navigation tree, you may prefer to automatically expand the selected tree node and collapse the previous one to make it easier to navigate with less scrolling.

•Reverse bottom tab order, Nav tree side
This is to accommodate single handed operation, making it easier to use with either your right or left hand.

•Limited color selection
If you use the basic colors, this would make selecting a color much easier than having to scroll the color list excessively.

•First time into a topic, move caret to end
During the session when editing a report, the caret position is remembered when you leave a topic so that when you return to it, the caret is repositioned back to where you left it. However, the first time you enter a topic, there is no remembered caret position. If you like to at least have the caret at the end of the topic comment to quickly be able to append to it, this option will do that. Otherwise the caret will be at the very beginning of the topic comment.

•Show editor toolbar, Configure
You can toggle the editor toolbar using a swipe left or right of the top main toolbar. If you had accidentally hidden the editor toolbar without knowing what you did to do that, you can toggle this option back on to make it visible again. You also have the option to configure what buttons you want available to you on the editor toolbar which is especially useful on small mobile devices like phones.

•Allow Mobile to prevent device sleep state
This is an iOS device option only. Use this option only if you experience access violations when coming out of sleep state while using Mobile on an iOS device. These access violations are related to the virtual keyboard that we are waiting on an external fix for. We've implemented a few processes that have significantly reduced these access violations on iOS, and this option is yet another one; however, it could increase battery usage since the device won't go into its sleep state when using Mobile.

Photo Options

Here you can specify how the photos should be taken. The options include:

•Resolution
The default resolution is 640 pixel width as it is on WhisperReporter Ascent. This is a fairly good setting for photos of deficiencies used in a report, but sometimes there is a need for a higher resolution such as when taking photos of product serial numbers for example. You can select a different resolution here, but please note that higher resolutions result in a greater file sizes.

•Ratio
The default ratio is 4:3 as it is on WhisperReporter Ascent. So even if taking a photo in portrait orientation on the mobile device, Mobile will crop it to the selected ratio. At times you may want to take a full portrait photo, such as when taking a photo of a water heater for example. In that case, select the "As Taken" ratio. When using that ratio, the photo's ratio will depend on the mobile device's orientation.

•Quality
Mobile compresses photos to a JPG image format. The default quality setting is 80% as it is on WhisperReporter Ascent. This is typically a good quality/photo size balance when taking photos of deficiencies. Higher qualities may result in slightly sharper images but also result in a greater file size.

Reset Database

If there is a need to reset the database, such as wanting to apply a new set of RapidRemarks, you can use this option to clear the database. Also, Whisper may make changes to the database or how data is formatted which may require the database to be reset. In any case, this option will completely clear the database, losing any reports and RapidRemarks on the device and may occasionally be requested to be used after updating to the latest version. After tapping this option, you will be asked to confirm before it proceeds.

Export current report photos (Note: now on the Transfer tab)

There may be a situation where you may want to separately save all of the current report's photos you took with the Mobile app during an inspection for transferring to a Windows PC or to a Mac. Use of this option only exports the photos of the currently opened report taken by the device (photo names that start with "Photo_2"), not any existing photos. How you transfer the exported photos depends on the device, Android or iOS.

•Android (Windows PC transfer only)

You will be prompted as to what folder you wish to export a backup of the exported photos to. The default name is the report number with [Photos] appended to it, and the default folder is: Internal Storage > Download

To pull them into Windows, attach your Android phone to a Windows PC using a USB cable and specify to use the USB connection for file transfer. Using the Windows file browser, select your device on the left side of the file browser under "This PC". Double click the folders on the right side to locate the folder you specified when exporting the photos. The Photo Exports folder will show one or more zip files by report number, each zip file being the report number containing the photos from that report. You can drag or copy and paste that zip file to a location on your PC. Note: if you backed up the photos from a report multiple times, you will see a numeric suffix appended to the name (files cannot be overwritten, so it adds this suffix if a duplicate name is found)

•iOS

- Transfer to a Windows PC

This will require iTunes to be installed on your PC. Connect your iOS device to the PC using a USB cable. Open iTunes and click on the device icon near the top left of the iTunes window, which may be just to the right of the category dropdown. Under Settings on the left panel, click "File Sharing" which will show the WhisperReporterMobile app entry on the right panel. When you click on WhisperReporterMobile you will see a list of files shared by the Mobile app. The photos for each report that you exported will be in the "Backup" folder. Select that folder followed by the [Save] button where you can select a location to save that folder to. This folder will contain all backups you made with the Mobile app, including zip files that are backups of the exported photos using the name of the report number with [Photos] appended to it.

- Transfer to a Mac

Connect your iOS device to the Mac. User Finder, select your device on the left panel, followed by the "Files" tab on the right panel. You should see the WhisperReporterMobile entry on the right panel. Expand that entry and you will see the "Backup" folder which you can drag over to a location on the Mac. You can also right click the "Photo Exports" folder and select Delete to remove it from your iOS device (It will be recreated the next time you use Mobile to export your photos for one or more reports). Once on the Mac desktop, you can double click it to open that folder to find the desired zip file containing the photos from the report.