Inserv Field Ops Internal Proposal — Field Operations Platform REV 0 · 11 JUN 2026
For internal review
Proposal — Field Operations Platform

One app. The whole operation.

From callout to closed-out: dispatch, equipment, certifications, field photos and paperwork in one place — built around how our crews actually work, on the phone in the ditch and on the desktop in the office.

10 field techs 5 bases · AB / BC / SK / QC / TX 100% callout work 1 source of truth

Presenting? Use to step through sections.

SEC 01

Where the hours leak

The crew is excellent. The tooling around the crew isn't. Today the operation runs on WhatsApp threads, memory, and manual chasing — and that costs real hours on every single job.

200+msgs/day

Coordination buried in WhatsApp

Job details, addresses, scope changes and crew assignments scroll away in group chat. Nobody can see at a glance who is where, on what job, with what gear.

daysof chasing

Paperwork chased by hand

Reports, JSAs and timesheets are due in Egnyte — but nothing checks. Missing files surface weeks later, found by a person, chased by phone call.

0warnings

Cert & cal expiry by surprise

Technician certs and instrument calibrations live in spreadsheets and memory. The worst place to find out one expired is at the client's site gate.

~1hr/job

Photo admin

Field photos get renamed, sorted and filed by hand — per job, per tech. Pure overhead that a phone can do automatically.

data entry

Readings written, then retyped

Thickness readings are written on paper in the ditch, then typed into reports at the computer. Every transcription is a chance for an error.

?right now

Equipment whereabouts

Which truck has the OmniScan? Is that cal block still in Kamloops? Finding gear means calling around — and cal-due units slip through.

※ Figures illustrative — to be replaced with our own numbers after a 2-week baseline.

SEC 02

One source of truth

A single platform with two faces: a phone-first app for the crew in the field, and a dashboard for the office — with automations watching Egnyte and email so nobody has to.

FIELD OPS JOBS · GEAR · CERTS · DOCS ONE DATABASE FIELD APP PHONE · WORKS OFFLINE PHOTOS · FORMS · QR SCANS SYNCS WHEN BACK IN SIGNAL OFFICE DASHBOARD DESKTOP · LIVE STATUS JOBS · ALERTS · MATRIX REPORT-READY DATA EGNYTE STAYS THE DOC ARCHIVE AUTO FOLDER PER JOB WATCHED VIA OFFICIAL API ALERTS PUSH + EMAIL MISSING PAPERWORK CERT / CAL EXPIRY

Field-first, offline-first

Pipeline rights-of-way have no signal. Forms, photos and check-outs work fully offline and sync automatically when coverage returns.

Egnyte stays. Chasing goes.

We keep Egnyte as the document archive. The app files documents into it automatically and watches it so missing paperwork triggers reminders — not phone calls.

Management sees everything live

Active jobs, who's where, gear status, expiring certs, overdue paperwork — one dashboard instead of ten chat threads and three spreadsheets.

SEC 03

What it does

Six core capabilities. Each one removes a manual job that someone on the team does today by hand.

★ Flagship — Field Tools

AI photo transcriber

Photograph the UT meter screen, the handwritten readings sheet, or the equipment data plate — and the readings land in the job record as structured, editable data. No more retyping in the truck. AI extraction with a human review step, at pennies per photo.

PHOTO — UT METER14:32 · ON SITE
38DL PLUS — UT THICKNESS
7.62 mm
GRID B-3 · GAIN 52dB · 5.0 MHz
JOB INS-26-014 — READINGSAI EXTRACTED ✓
GridReadingNominalStatus
B-28.74 mm9.5 mmOK
B-37.62 mm9.5 mmREVIEW
B-48.91 mm9.5 mmOK
F-02

Equipment & calibration tracker

  • QR tag on every unit — scan to check gear out to a person and job, scan to return it.
  • Live whereabouts — who has the OmniScan, which truck has the cal blocks.
  • Calibration traffic lights — due dates, certificates attached, alerts before expiry, overdue units flagged at dispatch.
F-03

Crew & certification matrix

  • Whole team at a glance — NDE levels per method, OQ tasks, safety tickets, client onboarding.
  • Expiry alerts at 60 / 30 / 7 days — renewals happen before the site gate, not at it.
  • Client-audit ready — cert documents attached; the matrix clients ask for is one click.
F-04

Paperwork that chases itself

  • Deliverables checklist per job — the app knows what each job owes: report, dailies, JSAs, timesheets.
  • Watches Egnyte automatically — folder created at dispatch, uploads detected via the official API.
  • Escalating reminders — polite nudge to the tech, then the supervisor. No human chasing.
F-05

Offline field forms → PDF

  • JSA, daily field report, timesheet on the phone — job, crew and gear pre-filled from the system.
  • Works with zero signal — drafts save locally, queue up, and sync when coverage returns.
  • Clean PDFs, auto-filed — straight into the right Egnyte folder, named by convention.
F-06

Smart photo manager

  • Every photo tagged — job, GPS, timestamp captured at the moment you shoot.
  • Named by convention, automaticallyINS-26-014_20260611-1432_weld_03.jpg
  • Queued to Egnyte — the hour of renaming and filing per job disappears.
F-07

Coordination & dashboard

  • Job board — every callout with client, site, scope, status and assigned crew. The thing WhatsApp can't be.
  • Per-job updates & notification center — scope changes reach the right people, and stay findable.
  • Management dashboard — live jobs, crew locations, alerts, gear status. One screen, current by definition.
Field calculators — remaining wall %, B31G screening Journey management — check-ins on long solo drivesPHASE 3 Report generator — field data → report draftPHASE 3 Time → invoicing — hours roll up per jobPHASE 3
SEC 04

A callout, start to closed-out

The same dig verification job — INS-26-014, a compressor station near Sundre — run today, and run through the platform.

Today

14 WhatsApp threads. Three "did you send the JSA?" calls. Photos renamed at the motel at 11pm. A missing daily report discovered six weeks later during invoicing.

With Field Ops

One job record. Everything below happens inside it — and management watches it move in real time without asking anyone anything.

T-2 days — Callout received

Job created in 60 seconds

Client, site coordinates, scope (PAUT + UT verification), dig sheets attached. The Egnyte job folder and its deliverables checklist are created automatically.

T-2 days — Crew assigned

The app checks quals so nobody has to

Assigning the crew, the system verifies certs against the job: "D. Okafor's H2S expired — flagged." The right crew goes, with proof of quals attached.

T-1 day — Mobilization

Gear scanned out, cal-checked

QR scan checks the OmniScan, Epoch and cal blocks out to the truck. A unit due for calibration within the job window would be blocked with a warning right here.

Day 1–3 — On site, no signal

Everything works offline

JSA filled on the phone in the morning. Photos shot all day — auto-tagged with GPS and time. Readings photographed off the meter screen. It all queues locally.

Day 1–3 — Back in coverage

The truck syncs on the drive out

Forms become PDFs in the Egnyte folder. Photos land named and sorted. The AI transcriber turns the meter photos into a readings table on the job record — reviewed and confirmed by the tech in two minutes.

Day 4 — Reporting

The report starts 80% done

Readings, photos, gear list, crew and dates are already structured data. The analyst reviews instead of retypes.

Day 7 — Closed out

Nothing left to chase

The deliverables checklist went green on its own — and if it hadn't, the reminders would already be out. Invoice-ready without a single phone call.

SEC 05

Checked before promised

Every integration in this proposal was verified against vendor documentation first — including the one that doesn't work, so there are no surprises later.

Verified ✓

Egnyte

Official REST API + folder webhooks: upload, organize, and watch for missing files programmatically. Requires our Business plan and an admin-issued API key — that's part of the ask.

Verified ✓

AI photo transcription

Claude vision API reads meter screens, data plates and handwritten sheets with ~93–98% field accuracy, returning structured data. A human review step is built in by design. Cost: cents per job, not per photo-hour.

Standard

Email + push notifications

Reminder emails, escalations and daily digests via standard email infrastructure; push notifications to the field app. Boring, reliable, cheap.

Not viable ✗

WhatsApp group automation

Investigated thoroughly: Meta's official API cannot join existing group chats (the new Groups API is enterprise-only, 100k+ conversations/month), and unofficial bots violate Meta's terms with a real risk of permanently banning the phone number. The platform replaces the load-bearing coordination instead — WhatsApp stays for banter.

SEC 06

The roadmap

Three phases. Each one ships something the team uses — no eighteen-month black box.

P1
Now → weeks

Working prototype

  • Equipment + QR + calibration tracking
  • Certification matrix + expiry alerts
  • AI photo transcriber + photo manager
  • Offline forms → PDF (JSA, dailies, timesheet)
  • Paperwork watcher — simulated Egnyte
IN BUILD — DEMO READY SOON
P2
After green light

Production pilot

  • Real Egnyte connection (API key)
  • Real email reminders + push
  • Proper logins & roles
  • Hardened offline sync, installable field app
  • Pilot with 2–3 techs on live jobs
NEEDS THE ASK ↓
P3
Following pilot

Full ecosystem

  • Dispatch & scheduling, full job board
  • Report generator from field data
  • Time tracking → invoicing
  • Journey management check-ins
  • Per-job chat — coordination fully in-app
SCOPED, NOT STARTED
SEC 07

The ask

Four things — none of them expensive. The prototype proves the concept before any real commitment.

1

A green light

Approval to finish the prototype and put it in front of the team for honest feedback.

2

Egnyte API access

An admin-issued API key (included in our Business plan) so the paperwork watcher runs against the real archive.

3

A small budget

Hosting plus AI usage — on the order of tens of dollars per month for a team this size. Less than one chased-down report.

4

A field pilot

Two or three techs run it on live jobs for a month. We measure hours saved and decide on Phase 2 with real numbers.

We already do the hard part in the ditch. Let's stop doing the easy part by hand.

PREPARED BY FIELD TEAM
INSERV NDE SOLUTIONS · JUN 2026
STATUS: AWAITING REVIEW