Installer, technician, laborer: whatever you go by, this guide is for you. You’re the one out on the job site doing the day-to-day work. So that means you play a vital role in capturing photos for your whole company to show progress, document damage and repair, and keep projects organized.
Luckily, CompanyCam makes documenting work simple. To get started, you’ll need ~5 minutes (to read this guide) and a smartphone (which you’re probably already holding).
Keep Your Projects Organized
When you open the app, you’ll see the two projects that are closest to your location, along with the name of each project and its address. CompanyCam displays projects this way specifically for people in the field so they know exactly where you’re supposed to go—even if someone in the office gave you some unclear details.
When you tap into a project, you’ll see an overview of everything happening on that job site.
Pro Tip: You can also search and star projects that you consistently find yourself referencing or need to revisit to add photos or comments after you leave.
Document Any And Everything On The Job
As we mentioned up top, you’re doing the day-to-day work, which means there are a lot of eyes watching (and fingers waiting to be pointed at you should something go wrong). That’s why you should document everything while you’re on site.
Clock-In and Clock-Out
It might seem trivial, but clocking in and out with a photo can cover your butt.
For example, let’s say something on-site gets messed with after you leave for the day. The homeowner may try to blame you/your company for the damage. But if you have documentation of when you arrived at and left the property, you can quickly resolve the dispute—avoiding delays or having to pay for damages.
Pre-existing Damage
You’ll also want to snap photos of all pre-existing damage for the same reasons. We’re not trying to say customers are always looking for ways to pull a fast one. They may have not noticed something was damaged or even looked closely at that area of their home/business until they contracted you to fix something.
On the flip side, if you do scratch siding or dent some drywall, document it so it can get resolved ASAP.
SOPs FTW
The simplest way to ensure you’re capturing everything you need is to use Checklists. Work with your office administrator and project manager to build out a comprehensive list for your role.
If you don't have SOPs in place yet, check out our list for some ideas.
Communicate with Your Team
CompanyCam can’t lend a hand with hanging drywall or running Romex (our devs are working on it). But it can help you get more eyes on a project—which is just as valuable.
If you need someone off-site to take a look at something:
Open up CompanyCam
Snap a photo
Add context with:
photo annotations
@ mentioning your boss or crew
a chat in the project conversation
You’re probably thinking, “I already use text messaging for this… why should I do it in CompanyCam?” Keeping communication in CoCam accomplishes a few things:
Focused conversations. You all will be referencing the same photo, so there’s less chance of miscommunication.
Fewer notifications. By keeping comms in CompanyCam, you’ll do less digging through email and messages to find answers.
Better collaboration. Subcontractors can be added as guest users, making handoffs easier and less time consuming for you.
Share Project Timelines with Customers
Many crew members are also responsible for keeping customers updated on everything happening at the project site.
The simplest way to share updates is to share a project timeline:
Open up the project you want to share
Tap the ••• in the top right corner
Choose Share Project Timeline
Send to the customer's email or phone number
Project timelines are great because this link will automatically update with all the photos you take for that project. This allows you to keep working without stopping and sending photos at the end of each day.
Sometimes you don't want a customer to have access to ALL the photos you take on a job. To send specific photos, follow these steps:
Open up the project
Select View All in the photos section of the project
Tap Create/Share
Pick the photos you want to send
Tap the paper airplane in the bottom right corner
Share via email or text
👏👏👏 to you for making it through this guide! Now you've got the know-how to go out and put CompanyCam to work for you.
If you run into anything along the way that you can't find answers for in this guide, check out our help site.
Know someone else who'd benefit from our tool? Become a CompanyCam Closer and earn extra cash when you refer others to sign up for CompanyCam.