Onboard your first field engineer

Get one engineer working end to end before you invite the rest. The steps below take one person from an invitation email to a completed test job, and anything that’s wrong with your setup shows up on the way.

You need the Tenant Admin role to send the invitation. Your engineer needs an iPhone, because that’s where the WorkWing app runs.

1. Invite them as a field worker

Open Settings > Team Members and click Invite colleague.

1. Enter the email address they’ll sign in with.
2. Set Role to Field worker.
3. Pick the Brand whose jobs they’ll work.
4. Click Send invitation.

The invitation shows under Colleague invitations until they accept it, and the link in it works for seven days. If you’re out of seats, WorkWing tells you rather than sending it. See Team members.

A contractor whose login you don’t own is an external worker, not a field worker. They’re invited from the same screen with Invite external worker, and they see less. See External workers.

2. They accept

The email has an Accept Invitation button, a link to the app on the App Store, and a link that opens your workspace in the app once they’ve accepted.

Opening the invitation asks for their email address and sends them a six-digit code. They enter it and they’re in. There’s no password to set, which is why Email code needs to stay switched on under Settings > Authentication for anyone signing in on a phone. If you’ve switched email codes off and use single sign-on, they sign in through your provider first, then open the invitation link again.

When they accept, WorkWing creates their resource record and puts them in that brand’s dispatch pool. Open Resources and they’re there, ready to be assigned work.

3. Finish their record

Three things make the scheduler work better for them. None of them stop you assigning a job.

• Set their working hours, so you’re warned when a job falls outside their shift.
• Add them to a team and record their skills, which is what job types with required skills match against.
• Leave Available on if you want auto-assignment to be able to pick them.

4. Sign in on the phone

They install WorkWing from the App Store and open it.

The app asks first Which workspace do you work in? That’s the first part of your workspace address, such as acme for acme.workwing.app, or your own domain if you’ve set one up. The link in the invitation email fills it in for them. If they don’t know it, Don’t know your workspace? emails them a link to each workspace their address belongs to.

Then they sign in with whatever your organisation allows: Email me a code, a password, or your single sign-on provider. After the first sign-in the app offers Face ID or Touch ID, so later sign-ins take a glance.

If you require two-factor authentication, they have to set it up in the web app before the phone will let them in. Do that with them at the start rather than on their first morning. See The mobile app.

5. More than one organisation

If they also work for another company that uses WorkWing, one login covers both. They switch between organisations from Me, the avatar in the top corner, and each organisation shows only its own work. Switching needs a signal. See Working for more than one organisation.

6. Notifications and location

On first launch the phone asks whether WorkWing may send notifications. Tell them to allow it, because that’s how they hear about new assignments, schedule and priority changes, messages from dispatch, and reminders about upcoming and overdue jobs. Each kind has its own switch under Me > Settings, in the Notifications block. If they declined, that block shows an Enable Notifications button.

Before the app shares their location in the background, it explains what it’s about to do and asks them to accept. Their location is what puts them on your dispatch map and lets you pick the nearest person. If you’ve turned on Require location sharing while working under Settings > Security, they can’t switch it off. Tell them before they find out from the app. See Availability and settings.

7. What they’ll see

As a field worker they see the jobs assigned to them, the customer and location on each of those jobs, the form the job type asks them to fill in, and the messages dispatch sends about their jobs. They also see any project they’re on the crew for, and the observations they’ve reported themselves.

They don’t see your customer list, other people’s jobs, reports or settings. Roles and permissions has the full picture, and Your day shows the app from their side.

8. Run a test job

Create a job with a job type you’ve set up, schedule it for today and add your engineer. Use a test customer with your own email address and Email Opt-in ticked, so you see the emails a real customer would get.

1. Their phone gets an assignment notification, and the job appears on Today.
2. They tap On my way. Your job page shows them en route, with an arrival time.
3. They tap Arrived on site, then Start job.
4. They open the completion form and fill it in. Anything the job type requires, such as a signature, stops them until it’s done.
5. They submit, and the job shows as Completed on the web with their answers on it.

If the job type’s form doesn’t ask for what you need, change it now. Changes to a job type’s forms apply to jobs created afterwards, so create a fresh test job after each change. See Working a job.

Test jobs count against your plan’s job allowance once someone is assigned, but repeat visits to the same customer at the same location count once. Run all your test jobs against one test customer and one location. See Plan limits and overage.

9. Try it with no signal

Field work happens where the signal doesn’t, so run one test job with the phone in airplane mode. The first sign-in on a device needs a connection, so do that beforehand.

With no connection they can still open their jobs, move through the statuses, fill in and submit the form, take photos and add notes. The strip under the header shows how many changes are waiting, and everything sends when the signal comes back. Me > Settings > Outbox lists anything still queued and anything the office couldn’t accept.

Two things are worth telling them. Switching organisation with unsent work loses that work, and the app warns them first. Signing out keeps it on that phone for a week, for them alone. See Working offline.

What’s next

• Go-live checklist: what to check before real work goes out
• Messaging the field: sending notes to engineers from the office