Site Visits & Check-In/Out

Documenting your field site visits

Site Visits document each visit to a client site. They capture when you arrived, when you left, and what work was performed, and they're essential for accurate billing and payroll.

The Check-In and Check-Out processes are guided by specific forms so you or your technicians capture the required information at each step, and so the ticket moves onto the Tickets To Bill list. Technician users are blocked from manually entering check-in information and closeout information directly on the site visit form until they check in and check out, to ensure they use the guided forms. The guided forms also serve to create time stamps and user stamps to ensure data accuracy. If you're the admin on the account, you have full control.

The Check-In/Check-Out Process

The recommended workflow for field visits:

1. Check In - When you arrive at the job site, click 'CHECK IN' on the site visit record. This records your arrival time and logs your vehicle mileage.

   1. You can reach the 'CHECK IN' button from several places:

      1. The dashboard's Assigned Work card, on the Today tab

      2. The calendar event, which links to the site visit record (with a Check In button at the top)

      3. Direct navigation to the site visit record, then the Check In button at the top

2. Perform Work - Complete the work as needed.

3. Check Out - When leaving, return to the site visit record (from the dashboard, calendar, or direct navigation) and click Check Out to open the form. Check Out stays greyed out until every required Before and During task is done; if the site wasn't ready, use the Site not ready? link under it instead. Record your departure time and the Outcome (Site Visit Complete or Site Not Ready), then the Scope of Work Status, repair notes, and any parts, supplies, or expenses, and upload deliverable files & photos.

4. Once deliverables are uploaded to the check-out form, you can select files and email them to the client if they're an email-based deliverables client. If you've entered a contact with a department of 'DELIVERABLES / CLOSEOUT', that email auto-populates when you choose to email deliverables — or type any address. If the Send Deliverables task already emailed them, the form says Deliverables already emailed, and sending the same files to the same person again within 10 minutes asks before it sends a second copy. All uploaded deliverables are saved to the site visit's Files tab for future access.

Check-Out Outcome: Site Visit Complete or Site Not Ready

Every check-out records an Outcome:

• Site Visit Complete: you did the work. Choose the Scope of Work Status, write your Repair Notes, and finish the form as usual.

• Site Not Ready: you arrived, but the work couldn't go ahead for a reason on the site's side, such as no access, no site contact, or the site wasn't prepared. Pick the reason under Why wasn't the site ready? and fill in What happened on site: who you contacted, when, and what stopped the work. You need at least 15 minutes on site. The visit's required work tasks (signatures, photos, forms) aren't required, but the 24-Hour Confirmation and checking in and out with the external client still are. Submit with Check Out — Site Not Ready.

A check-out never cancels a site visit; only the client can cancel. Site Not Ready can only be recorded at check-out, not by editing the status afterwards.

A Site Not Ready visit shows an orange Site Not Ready status, and the ticket moves to Additional Site Visit Pending. The site visit shows a Site Not Ready card with the reason, the note and the time on site, and the client can choose Schedule Return Visit there to create a copy of the visit. When a marketplace or Private Network technician did the visit, the card also shows where their pay for the trip stands:

• The client's Site Not Ready fee is set as the trip pay automatically if they set one and you checked in on site with the app.

• Otherwise the client chooses Confirm Current Pay (the current pay stands) or Request Pay Change (a flat amount for the trip, which the technician must accept, even $0).

• While a pay change or cancellation fee waits on the technician, the site visit header shows Pay Change — Awaiting Tech Approval to the client and Pay Change — Your Approval Needed to the technician (Cancellation Fee — … for a fee).

• When the technician accepts the client's amount, or submits the visit after the fee applied or the pay was confirmed, the visit goes to the client for approval like any other visit. Nothing is paid until the client approves it.

When You Can Check In

Check in on the scheduled day, in the site's local time. Check-in is not available before the scheduled date, and if a visit still shows no scheduled date, the Check In button stays disabled until one is set.

Arriving early: please do not check in more than 15 minutes before the scheduled start time without first checking with the client who placed the job. On an hourly visit, an early check-in puts time on the clock the client did not plan for — some visits also start on a scheduled conference bridge, so being on site earlier does not move the work forward. If the client is fine with you going early, note it on the site visit or send them a message through the app first, so the OK is on the record.

Service Envoy does not score or penalize an early check-in. Your on-site time is compared with the scheduled start for the visit's on-time metric, and that is all it is used for.

Arriving late: there is no late cutoff on the check-in form. On a visit with a fixed start time, if there is still no check-in 60 minutes after that start, the client is alerted and a no-show is recorded against the visit (on a variable arrival window, that happens at the end of the window). Checking in clears an automatic no-show. If you are running late, message the client before the start time.

One Site Visit at a Time

A technician can be checked in to only one site visit at a time. If you try to check in while you are still checked in somewhere else, the check-in is not saved. Instead, a message names the site visit you are still checked in to and when you checked in, with a Check out of ticket #... button that opens that visit's check-out. Check out there, then come back and check in.

This applies to Tech Marketplace and Private Network visits at other companies too, and to office staff checking a technician in on their behalf.

GPS Location on Check-In & Check-Out

When a technician checks in or out, Service Envoy captures a one-time GPS snapshot from their device — a quick, low-friction way to confirm they were actually at the site. It is best-effort and never blocks the check-in: if the technician's phone denies location access or can't get a fix, the check-in still goes through and the GPS line simply doesn't appear.

When a location is captured, it shows up in two places:

• The check-in and check-out notification emails. The dispatch notification — and the technician's own copy — now include a Check-In GPS and Check-Out GPS line, for example "📍 0.2 mi from site address (±12 m)", with a View on map link that opens the exact coordinates in Google Maps.

• The site visit's Activity log. The same distance-from-site note is recorded on the visit itself for the audit trail.

The distance is measured from the site's address, and the "± m" figure is the phone's own accuracy estimate at that moment (a smaller number means a more precise fix). It's a single snapshot taken at the instant of check-in or check-out — Service Envoy does not track a technician's location at any other time.

Checking In Where There's No Signal

If your phone can't reach Service Envoy when you tap Check In or submit your check-out, the app saves it on your phone and tells you No signal. Check-in saved on this phone. A banner at the bottom of the screen shows it's waiting. It sends by itself, with the arrival or departure time you entered, as soon as you have signal again. You can also tap Send now on the banner.

• Stay signed in on the same phone until it sends. Saved check-ins only send for the person who saved them.

• If it can't be accepted once it sends (for example, the mileage didn't add up), the banner turns red and says why. Open the site visit to fix it, or call your office.

• Service Envoy records both the time you entered and when the check-in actually arrived, so a check-in that waited for signal is shown as sent late.

Other ways to check in from a dead zone:

• Check in later with the real time. The date and time on the check-in form can be changed. Note when you arrived, then check in with that time once you have signal. A time later than now is not accepted.

• Call your office. An admin or dispatcher can check you in and out from their own login, with the times you give them.

• Use the site's Wi-Fi if the customer allows it.

Finish any required Before Check-In tasks, such as photos, while you still have signal. Photo uploads need a good connection, and check-in waits for those tasks.

Files and Videos from Your Office

Your office may attach training videos, documents and websites from the client record to a site visit. You'll find them on the site visit's Files tab under Client Provided Files. Tap a video to play it right on the site visit. Tap a website or Google link, then Open website (or Open in Google) to open it in a new tab.

Site Visits and Billing

Site visits have their own per-visit rates so two different site visits for the same ticket can have independent rates. This is for situations when you have a primary and a helper technician or one visit is a site survey flat rate and the second visit is an hourly install. Vehicle mileage is saved to the Vehicle Mileage table.

Where the money is. Everything about a visit's money is on its Financials tab: Technician Rates, Client Rates (with the estimated billing and margin, and the buttons to ask your customer to approve a price), pay and expense requests, the technician payment record on Private Network visits, a parts and expenses summary, and — on marketplace visits — funding and its history. The urgent buttons (approve and release payment, Fund, Record Tech Payment, Invoice Site Visit) stay at the top of the visit, so you never have to open the tab to act.

Client Rates, margin and the customer-approval buttons are shown to the Owner, Admins, Project Managers, Accounting and Staff. Read Only users don't see Client Rates on any lane.

The technician's company sees the same tab as Pay, showing only their side of the money, never your client rates, margin or billing. Once the visit is approved it shows the date the payout is scheduled to go out; before that it shows the standard payout schedule (pay releases on the first Thursday at least 7 days after approval). Employee technicians (users with the Technician role, at your company or theirs) never see a Pay tab or any rates: pay is agreed and received by their company.

The check in form requires a vehicle to be entered into the system and mileage to be entered by default. A company admin can turn this off under My Account → Check-In Requirements → Require vehicle & mileage on check-in (https://serviceenvoy.com/account). It's a company-wide setting. Project Managers can change it too by default; any other role needs the Manage Check-In Requirements permission.

What the Activity tab records

Every site visit keeps a running record on its Activity tab. Besides check-in, check-out, schedule changes and completed tasks, it now records:

• Notes. Each note added, edited or deleted, with who did it. A deleted note's text stays in the record, so it can still be read.

• Repair Notes. Each change, with the text before and after. If a closeout or a later save replaces what was there, the earlier wording is not lost.

• Files. Each file or link added to the visit: uploads from the visit page or the check-out form, items attached from the client record, and attachments brought in from an email.

Notes stay private to the company that wrote them, and so do their Activity lines. A technician's company sees its own notes and Repair Notes changes; your office sees yours.

When a technician can't be emailed

If email to a technician's address is rejected, or they mark our email as spam, Service Envoy stops sending to that address. From then on they receive nothing from us by email: no login link, no visit confirmations, no schedule changes and no messages.

When that happens:

• A red can't be reached by email warning appears at the top of every site visit they are assigned to, and on their own record.

• Every office with an open site visit assigned to them gets a notification listing those visits, as well as their own company.

Call the technician to confirm the work, and get a working email address from them or their company. Once the address on their record is corrected, the warning goes away.