Drawings & pins

Attach a floor plan, schematic or site photo to a survey session, then drop a pin on it for each observation you record. The finished report shows the drawing with a numbered marker per observation and a legend naming them.

This turns "crack in the west wall, second bay" into a picture the client can read at a glance.

Use cases

• Condition surveys — mark each defect on the building's floor plan
• Equipment audits — pin every asset you inspected on the plant-room schematic
• Site inspections — photograph the elevation, then pin the observations onto the photo
• Multi-page drawing sets — attach a PDF and pin observations across its pages

Key concepts

Concept	Description
Sheet	One page you can drop pins on: a PDF page, a photo you take, or an image from the gallery
Pin	A marker saying "this observation is here". One pin per sheet per observation
Observation	One instance of a repeatable group — "Defect 3", "Room 2". Pins belong to observations, not to the survey as a whole
Marker	What a pin looks like in the report and on the web: a numbered dot. The number is the observation's position in its group
Figure	In the report: one sheet drawn once, with a marker for every observation of a group pinned on it, and a legend beneath
Legend	The table under a figure. Maps each marker number back to its observation, with the finding's classification and severity where there is one

Where each part works

Task	Mobile app (Android, iOS, PWA)	Web
Attach a sheet	Yes — form mode	Yes — Attach sheet on the Sheets card
Delete a sheet	Yes — form mode	Yes — the bin on the Sheets card
Place, move or remove a pin	Yes — form mode	Yes — on the observation's pin field
See the sheets on a session	Yes	Yes
See where an observation is pinned	Yes	Yes — View on the pin field
Pins in the designed report	—	Yes

Do each part wherever it suits. On site, the phone: photograph the plan, pin as you find things. Back at the office, the browser: attach the PDF that arrived by email, add a pin you missed, nudge one you placed in a hurry on a big screen.

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Step 1 — Add a location pin field to the template

Pins only appear on observations whose template has a Location pin field.

1. Open the survey template and select the repeatable group that holds the observations (for example "Defects").
2. Drag Location pin from the field palette into that group.
3. Name it something the surveyor will recognise — "Location on plan" works well.
4. Turn on Required if every observation must be pinned before the survey can be completed.

Full setup guidance in Survey Templates →

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Step 2 — Attach the sheets

On the phone

Open the survey in form mode and find the Sheets section (below Photos).

Three ways to add one:

Button	Adds
Photo	Takes a photo with the camera — good for a plan on a site wall
Gallery	Picks an existing image from the device
PDF	Picks a PDF. Each page becomes its own sheet

An image is ready to pin on straight away. A PDF is uploaded, virus-scanned and then turned into page images on the server, so it needs a connection before you can pin on it.

In the browser

Open the session's form and find the Sheets card, below Photos. Select Attach sheet and pick one or more PDFs or images. This is the quicker route when the drawing came by email and is sitting on your laptop — there's no need to move the file onto the phone first.

The card then shows the file scanning and, for a PDF, preparing its pages; it refreshes itself until they're ready. The sheet is on the session from that moment, so a surveyor already on site sees it on their next sync and can pin on it.

Attaching in the browser needs a connection — there's no offline queue on the web.

To remove a sheet, select the bin on its row. The web asks the same question the phone does — naming the file, and its page count for a PDF — and the server applies the same rule: a sheet an observation is still pinned on is not deleted, and you are told which observations to clear first.

Sheet status

Each attachment shows where it has got to:

Status	What it means
Waiting to upload	Added offline. It uploads when you're back on a connection
Uploading…	On its way to the server
Upload failed	Tap Retry
Checking the file…	Virus scan in progress
Blocked by the virus scan	The file was rejected. Delete it and use a different one
Preparing pages…	The PDF is being turned into page images
Could not prepare pages	Preparation failed. Tap Retry; the reason is shown
Ready, or the image's dimensions	Ready to pin on

Limits and housekeeping

• A PDF may be up to 40 pages. Past that, nothing is prepared — split the drawing set and attach it in parts.
• Deleting a sheet is refused while pins remain on it. The app names the observations that still have pins so you can move or clear them first.
• Deleting a PDF removes all of its pages.
• Attaching or deleting a sheet updates the session's "last updated" time. It doesn't create a sync conflict.

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Step 3 — Place the pins

1. Open the observation's card in form mode — "Defect 3", say.
2. Tap the location pin field. It reads Place pin until the observation has one.
3. The placement screen opens full-screen, showing the sheet fitted to the screen.

On the screen

• Sheet strip (top) — every sheet on the session. Tap one to switch. A pin badge marks the sheets this observation is already pinned on. A sheet that isn't ready yet is greyed out with the reason.
• The sheet (middle) — pinch to zoom, drag to pan. Markers stay the same size as you zoom; only the drawing scales. Other observations' pins are shown too, so you can space them out.
• Toolbar — fit the whole sheet, zoom out, zoom in, and Remove when this observation is pinned on the sheet you're looking at.
• Done (top right) — closes the screen. Pins are saved as you place them; there's nothing to confirm.

Placing

On a phone or tablet, a crosshair sits fixed in the middle of the screen. Move the sheet under it until the crosshair is over the spot, then tap Place pin here. Placing again moves the pin — the button changes to Move pin here.

In the browser

The pin field on the web form carries the same two actions:

1. Select Place pin (or Move pin if the observation already has one). The sheet gets a dashed outline and a crosshair cursor: editing is switched on. Nothing moves a pin until it is.
2. Click the spot. The pin lands there.
3. Refine it without leaving: drag the filled marker, or select the marker and use the arrow keys — each press moves it about 8 px on a 4000 px drawing, and holding Shift moves it five times as far.
4. Select Done, or press Esc, when you're finished. Editing switches off and the drawing is safe to study again. Open full size, then Actual size, shows the drawing 1:1 and scrolls to your marker — the most precise way to place a pin on a dense A1. Remove pin clears this observation's pin from the sheet you are looking at.

Sheet tabs across the top list every sheet on the session, with a pin icon on the ones this observation is already on, so you can pin the same observation on a second drawing.

There is nothing to save, and nothing to undo. A pin is a field value like any other: each change is saved as you make it, exactly as typing in a text box is, so closing the sheet cancels nothing and the phone picks the pin up at its next sync. To put a pin back where it was, move it back.

With a mouse (the browser app on a laptop), click the sheet where the pin belongs. Click again to move it. Drag to pan.

The rules

• One pin per sheet per observation. Placing again moves the existing pin rather than adding a second.
• An observation can be pinned on several sheets — a plan and a photo, or two pages of a drawing set.
• A required pin is satisfied by one pin on any sheet. You don't have to pin every observation on every sheet.
• To clear a pin, open the sheet it's on and tap Remove.

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Step 4 — Check before completing

Pins are placed by hand, so they're deliberately kept out of the progress percentage and the field counters. Their status shows in two places instead.

On the observation's card:

Badge	Meaning
Pinned on 1 sheet / Pinned on 3 sheets	The observation has pins
Pin needed	A required pin field on this observation is empty

No badge means the group has no pin field, or an optional pin hasn't been used.

When you complete the survey, the footer counts what's still owed — "2 location pins needed" — and the completion check refuses, naming the observation and the field. The same refusal appears on the phone's Complete, in the web completion dialog, and if you ask the voice assistant to finish the survey.

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Step 5 — See the pins on the web

Open the completed (or in-progress) session in the browser.

The Sheets card lists every sheet on the session with a thumbnail, its name, and how many pins it carries. View opens the sheet on its own, and Attach sheet adds another (see Step 2).

The pin field on the form shows where the observation is pinned, and View opens the sheet with the whole group's numbered markers — this observation's filled in, so you can see it in context. From there:

• Open full size expands the sheet in place.
• Actual size switches to 1:1 and scrolls, centred on this observation's marker — useful for dense A1 drawings.
• Open original opens the full-resolution image in a new tab.

Place pin and Move pin sit beside View on the same field — see Step 3.

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Step 6 — The report

In a designed report (the AI Report Builder), each pinned sheet appears as a figure after the section it belongs to:

• The drawing, with a numbered marker for every observation of that group pinned on it.
• A legend underneath: marker number, observation, and — where the observation has a finding — its classification and severity, taken from the most severe finding.
• The observation's own pin row reads "Marker 3 · plan.pdf p.1", never raw data.

A group pinned on two sheets produces two figures. Marker numbers follow the observation's position in its group, so "Defect 3" is marker 3 on every sheet it appears on.

To turn figures off, open the report design, click Advanced, and switch off Show sheet figures under "Drawings and pins". The observation still says which marker and sheet it has; only the pictures go.

A sheet that can't be drawn — still preparing, preparation failed, or blocked by the virus scan — keeps its pins in the data but is left out of the report.

Note: the browser print preview lists pins as text ("Pinned on 2 sheets"). Figures are a designed-report feature.

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Voice mode and pins

Pins are placed by hand, like photos and signatures. The voice assistant never asks for one and has no way to place one.

If you ask it to — "set the location pin next to the stairs" — it says pins are placed by hand on the sheet from the observation's card, then carries on with the current question. Anything else you said in the same breath is still saved.

Switch to form mode to place pins, then switch back.

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Working offline

• Image sheets can be added on the device and pinned on with no connection. They upload when you're back online.
• PDFs can be added on the device offline but can't be prepared into pages until it reconnects, so you can't pin on them yet.
• The browser has no offline queue. Attaching a sheet on the web needs a connection; the upload reports a failure rather than waiting.
• Pins placed offline survive closing the app and sync when the connection returns.
• Sheets already prepared stay on the device, so you can keep pinning against them all day without signal.

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Troubleshooting

The pin field says "Add a sheet in the Sheets section first"

The session has no sheets yet. Scroll to the Sheets section in form mode and add one — from the device, or from the Sheets card in the browser.

A sheet is greyed out in the sheet strip

It isn't ready to pin on. The reason is shown under the thumbnail — usually "Preparing pages" (wait, or tap Retry in the Sheets section) or a failed virus scan.

"Could not prepare pages"

The PDF couldn't be turned into images. Tap Retry in the Sheets section. If it keeps failing, check the page count (40 maximum) and that the PDF isn't password-protected — then re-export it and attach it again.

The sheet won't delete

Pins still point at it. The message names the observations; clear or move their pins, then delete. This is the same refusal on the phone and in the browser — it is the server's rule, not the app's.

The report shows the pin text but no picture

Either Show sheet figures is off in the report design, or the sheet isn't renderable — check its status on the session. Very large reports also drop images that don't fit the page budget; the words always stay.

A pin I placed has disappeared

Two devices editing the same session offline keep whichever saved last, and pins for one observation move as a set. Re-place the pin on the device you're using now.