How to run a job in Datumvia, from opening a drawing to sending the report — plus backups, company folders and what to do when something goes wrong. Can’t find an answer? Email info@datumvia.com.
Set these up once, before your first job.
The home screen has Open a PDF, plus Site (a GPS site with no drawing), Scan (photograph a hand sketch and turn it into a drawing), Import (Android, from your save folder) and Restore.
You can also open a PDF from email or another app and choose Datumvia.
Drawings in more than one file? Tap Combine on the right of the button instead. Pick the files — on Android, hold the first file to select several, then tap Select (a tip says so as the picker opens) — and put them in order with the arrows. + Add another drawing fetches more, from another folder or one you forgot. They become one job, in that order. Sheets can’t be moved once they have pins, so sort them here.
Sheets that turn up later go in with the job’s ••• → Add drawings…; they’re added after the existing sheets, so no pins move. Name the job at the top of the Combine screen, or change it any time with ••• → Rename job… — on Android its folder in your save folder is renamed too, and only once everything has been copied across. If anything goes wrong the job keeps its old name and nothing changes.
Protected drawings. Some drawing sets can be viewed but not edited. You can pin them as normal; when you send, combine or add to one, Datumvia turns its pinned sheets into images first, which takes a few seconds. Zooming right in on those sheets in the report is a little less sharp.
For a site with no drawing, tap Site on the home screen. Photos are tagged with their location and grouped into numbered zones on a satellite map.
Turn on Internal only in a pin to keep it out of the client’s report. Internal pins are grey on the drawing and lettered (A, B, C) instead of numbered, so client pin numbers stay 1, 2, 3 with no gaps. You can still include them by turning on “Include internal pins” when you send.
+ Tick drops a plain checkmark with no photo or number — handy for marking off what you’ve inspected. Ticks stay in the app unless you turn them on when you send.
Open a photo and tap Markup to circle a defect or point at it with an arrow. Tools: pen, line, arrow, box and circle, in six colours and three thicknesses. Move lets you select and drag or delete a mark you’ve already drawn.
Datumvia keeps the clean original, so you can reopen the markup later to change or remove it. The marked-up version is what goes in the report.
Anywhere you can type a note there’s a 🎤 button: pin locations, photo notes, checklist notes and the report fields. Tap it, speak, and tap again to stop. Words are added after whatever is already in the box, so you can build up a note over several goes, then tidy it by keyboard.
Checklists turn an inspection into a consistent list with photographic evidence. Datumvia comes with sample lists for footings and piers, slab, structural steel, frame, waterproofing, crossovers, handover, electrical rough-in, switchboards, electrical testing, solar PV and battery storage. They’re a starting point — check them against your own drawings, specifications and the relevant standards, and edit them to suit.
Every item in a list is answered with the same buttons, so the answers belong to the list rather
than to each item — they are set once, when the list is written or imported, not typed on
every line. Leave it alone and you get pass / fail / N/A. To use something else — Yes / No,
Compliant / Non-compliant, or the status codes A–E used on plant and crane certificates
— pick it under Answers in the checklist editor, or start an imported file
with an Answers: line:
Answers: A = Inspected, B = Repairs made, C = Repairs required, D = Urgent repairs, E = Do not use
The part before the = is the button and what prints in the report; the part after it
shows under the item and in the key at the top of the printed list. Datumvia reads which answers
mean trouble, so the counts and the red highlighting still work.
More on writing a list.
Where the concerning answer changes from question to question — “Am I fit?” is a
problem on No, “Can I slip?” on Yes — add [!Yes] or
[!No] to the end of that line, or tap ⚑ on the item in the
checklist editor. Picking that answer then flags the item and asks for a note.
How it works.
Checklists print behind the report by default, each item with its result, note and a link to its photos. A Word template can instead print a list inside the report where you want it, or a line referring to it by number — 5.1, 5.2 and so on for repeat runs after rectification.
On the template screen, hold a list and choose Share a copy to send it as a file. Import a list from a file reads it back on another phone — or reads a plain .txt or .csv with one item per line and headings ending in a colon, which is how most lists already exist. An import never overwrites: a list with the same name comes in as a copy.
Building your own list, step by step — with pictures of each screen.
In the “Start a checklist” window, tap Edit templates. You can add items and headings, reorder them with ↑↓, delete them, duplicate a list, or build your own from scratch. Changes apply to checklists you start from then on, so an inspection you’ve already done never changes. Restore sample lists brings back any samples you’ve deleted.
Tap Report at the top of a drawing to put a cover report in front of the photos.
{{placeholders}} and the app
turns them into form fields. See it step by step, with pictures.Tap Preview before saving. Filled-in fields are highlighted for checking; the highlights never appear in the exported report.
Nothing typed is lost. The form keeps a draft as you type. If the app closes before you save — a phone call, a flat battery — open the same report on that job and it offers to pick up where you left off. Going back with unsaved answers asks first, with Save report right there.
Attaching your own PDF as the cover? A PDF protected against editing can’t go in as it is — open it, choose Print → Save as PDF, and attach that copy.
In any long field — recommendations, defects, scope — start each line with a dash for
bullets, or with 1., 2. for a numbered list, and it prints as a proper
list. The numbers you type aren’t printed twice, so a list starting at 3 still reads 3, 4, 5.
Anything that isn’t a list from start to finish is left exactly as you typed it.
Tap Send on a drawing. You get one PDF where tapping a pin jumps to its photo. The links work in Adobe Acrobat and any desktop PDF viewer; some built-in phone previews (Gmail’s, Drive’s) don’t follow them, so the default email says to open it in a PDF app.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Include checklists | Checklist pages at the front, with failed items listed first and pin numbers that link to the photos. |
| Filled-in items only | Leaves out checklist items you didn’t touch — useful with a long general list. |
| Include site map | Adds a satellite map page for geotagged photos. |
| Only keep pinned pages | Removes drawing sheets with no pins on them. |
| Photo size | High detail (the default) keeps photos as taken, for zooming right in. Standard makes them about a quarter of the size — still sharp on any screen — so the report is easy to email. The photos in the job are never changed. |
| Include internal pins | Adds your internal-only pins and their photos. |
| Include inspection ticks | Draws the tick marks on the drawing. |
| Photos folder | Also produces a zip of the full-size photos alongside the PDF. |
Then choose Email or Save as…. You can edit the file name, and set an office BCC address in Settings so a copy always reaches the office.
With a cloud connected (see Cloud backup), the send screen also has
Save to Google Drive + get link (or Dropbox / OneDrive). The report uploads to a
Datumvia Reports folder in your own account, and keeps going if you switch apps or lock the
phone. When it’s up you get a link the client can open without an account — tap
Email link for your usual email with the link in it, or Copy link. The link
stays on the job’s ••• → Report link.
Best for big reports: nothing is attached, so there’s no size limit on the email. Dropbox takes up to 150 MB and OneDrive 250 MB in the background; bigger still uploads, with the app kept open. Some company OneDrive accounts only allow links for people inside the company.
Settings → Cloud backup. Connect Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive. Your files go to your own account — Datumvia has no server of its own.
When you archive a finished job it’s zipped (drawing, photos, report and job data) and uploaded to a
Datumvia Archives folder. Big uploads carry on in the background, and pick up again if you
close the app.
Jobs still in progress can be mirrored to a Datumvia Working folder, so a lost or broken
phone doesn’t lose a job. Choose Off, Wi-Fi only (recommended) or
Any network. When a job is archived or deleted, its working copy goes to your cloud
provider’s recycle bin.
The home screen shows each job’s status: backed up, waiting for Wi-Fi, or offline.
A business can send everyone’s jobs to one shared folder instead of each person’s own. Two ways to set it up:
Staff open the link on their phone and Datumvia points at that folder. The link identifies the folder only — it contains no passwords and grants no access. Everyone still signs in with their own account and needs access to the folder already.
Archive a finished job to package it up and clear it off the phone: the drawing, every photo, the cover report and the job data go into one zip, in your cloud and/or your save folder. Use Back up all + delete on the home screen to do a batch at once.
Archive a single job by pressing and holding it on the home screen, then Archive (keep here) or Archive & delete.
To bring one back, tap Restore on the home screen:
Restored jobs keep their pins, photos, notes, checklists and cover report.
Deleting a job (••• → Delete) removes it from the phone, and on Android its folder in your save folder. If it was being backed up as you work, that copy goes to your cloud’s recycle bin, where it can be recovered for about 30 days. Archives are never deleted — use Archive & delete for anything you might want back later.
Datumvia is free for 2 jobs on the phone at a time, with everything included: pins, photos, checklists, reports and backups. When both are in use, archive a finished job (••• → Archive & delete) to start the next one.
For unlimited jobs, subscribe in the app: Settings → Subscription, monthly or yearly, through the App Store or Google Play. It's tied to your Apple or Google account, so on a new phone tap Restore purchases. Manage or cancel it in your phone's App Store or Google Play settings.
For a team, a company licence covers everyone, invoiced yearly: email info@datumvia.com. The licence arrives by email; on each phone tap Activate in Datumvia, or paste the key in Settings → Company licence. If a subscription or licence ever lapses you drop back to the free plan. Nothing is deleted or locked.
Allow microphone and speech recognition in your phone’s settings for Datumvia. On Android, offline dictation needs the language downloaded in Google voice typing settings.
The area may have no imagery at that zoom, so the app shows the closest level it has. If it says imagery is unavailable, check your connection — pins, photos and reports still work without it.
With Wi-Fi only chosen, backups wait for Wi-Fi. Either connect to Wi-Fi or switch to Any network in Settings → Cloud backup.
The job was still being packed when the app closed. Try the backup again from the home screen and leave the app open until the “Preparing archive” notice finishes.
When sending, set Photo size to Standard — usually the biggest saving — and turn on Only keep pinned pages. If it’s still too big, use Save to cloud + get link and email the client a link instead.
The PDF is protected against editing. Drawings are handled for you (see Opening a drawing); for a cover report, open the PDF, choose Print → Save as PDF, and attach that copy.
If crash reports are on (Settings → Privacy), we’ll get an anonymous report automatically. Email info@datumvia.com with what you were doing and we’ll chase it.