Partly. A report you fill in with no signal is kept safe on your phone and sent when you are back online. But the app needs a connection to open in the first place, so open it before you lose signal and leave it open.
Opening the app needs a connection. That is the honest position today: if you are standing at the water with no bars and you tap the icon, it will not come up. Open it at home, or anywhere with signal, and get the form you want on screen before you set off.
Once a form is on screen it keeps working with no signal. When you submit:
- The report is saved on your phone, in the browser storage the app uses. It does not need the network for that.
- The form tells you it has been saved on the device rather than sent, and shows a count of reports still waiting.
- When signal comes back, the form sends what is waiting and the count drops.
One thing to know about the waiting ones: each form looks after its own. A cormorant report is sent by the cormorant form, a water quality report by the water quality form. If you have closed the app before signal returned, open the same form again when you are back online and give it a few seconds. Opening a different page will not send it.
Once the page is already open:
- Filling in any form: Biodiversity Monitor, Cormorant Report, Water Quality, HydroDeter
- Taking photos and attaching them
- Capturing GPS from your device, which is the phone's own satellite fix and needs no signal
- Submitting the report, which saves it on the phone
- Species cards you have already opened in the HydroLibrary
- Opening the app. It needs a connection to start.
- HydroVision AI. Photo and sound identification are done by a service over the internet.
- The three-word address. Turning your coordinates into three words is a lookup over the internet. With no signal the field is left empty and filled in when the report is sent. It does not stop you submitting, and you cannot type it in by hand: the field is read-only on every form.
- Postcode search. Needs a connection. Use the GPS crosshair or tap the map instead.
- MyHydroscape, the Live Data Map and the HydroLibrary search. All read live data.
- Open the form before you lose signal and leave it open. This is the one that matters.
- Look up the species in advance if you know what you are likely to see. A card you have already opened stays readable.
- Use the GPS crosshair for the position. The three-word address catches up on its own.
- Do not force-close the app with reports still waiting, and do not clear your browser data. Both wipe the queue.
- Get back into signal and open that form again if you did close it. That is what sends the report.
As long as it takes. A saved report stays on your phone until it is sent, so a week in the field with no signal is fine.
Two things wipe it, though, and neither can be undone: clearing your browser data, and removing the app. If you have reports still waiting, get them sent first. The form shows you how many are left.