The phone the crew already carries
No handsets to buy and no data plans to sign. The field app runs on the Android phones your people already have, and the form is downloaded once, before they leave.
No new hardware
Field data without signal
What your crew sees out there today can be in your system today, even where there is no network
The crew leaves before dawn, drives hours of dirt road, inspects the sites and comes back with paper sheets filled in pencil. Somebody types them up days later, the photo that proved the finding stayed in the phone of whoever took it, and when a regulator asks for the evidence, somebody has to go and look for it.
Here the inspector fills the form on the phone they already carry, with no signal and no mobile data, with the photo and the location attached to the finding. Everything uploads by itself once they are back in coverage. And it does not end in a spreadsheet: it enters your ERP as the asset with its updated condition, the maintenance order already open and the crew's shift report.
USD 890 for the form, two weeks. From USD 2,900 with the bridge into the ERP. On your side, around five office hours and one day in the field.
The problem, as it sounds in the field
This is not a stationery problem. It is that the decision gets made on last week's information, and the proof of what was seen does not turn up when it is needed.
The paper comes back wet
Rain, mud, gloves and a schedule. There are blank boxes nobody will be able to fill in later, because the only way to know was to be standing there. And what cannot be read gets interpreted back at the office, which is another way of making it up.
The data arrives too late to be useful
Days pass between the visit and the moment anyone can read the result. If the inspection found something that needed attention, the work order is born late because of the typing, not because of the finding.
The evidence lives on someone else's phone
The photos are in the gallery of whoever took them, with no way to tell which site or which day. When that person changes handsets or leaves the company, the proof goes with them.
When somebody asks for the backup, you go hunting
A regulator, a parent company, an insurer or a client asks for the record of an inspection from eight months ago. It exists, in some folder and some filing cabinet, and finding it costs two days of somebody's week.
Launch offer: the first three to put the forms into operation get three months of the monthly operation at no cost. It is not a discount: the price does not move, and once the three slots are gone it stays where it is. Size it with your own numbers before you talk to me. Count how many sites you inspect a month, how many days pass between the visit and the moment the data is usable, and what one wasted crew day costs when a sheet comes back incomplete. If that arithmetic does not justify the entry step, tell me and I will not sell you anything.
What is being sold is not the app: it is the bridge into the ERP
Worth saying before anything else, because it is what separates this from an afternoon's work.
KoboCollect is free and open source software. You download it, build a form and it works. If all your operation needs is to stop using paper, your own people can do that in an afternoon from the public documentation, and I will tell you so on the first call.
What almost nobody offers is what happens after the submission. That every inspection uploaded from the field becomes the right record inside Odoo: the asset with its condition and the date of its last check, the maintenance order open with the finding inside it, the crew's shift report, the photo attached with its timestamp and its coordinates, and, when the work is billed to a third party, the line that later gets invoiced.
The alternative is what you see almost everywhere: an export button, a spreadsheet, and somebody retyping into the ERP what the field had already written down correctly. That file is where the data dies, and removing that step is the reason this service exists.
The bridge is where the two things I do meet: a form that survives the field, and an ERP that receives what the form brings back. That is why step 1 stands on its own, but step 2 is the product.
How it works where there is no signal
Offline does not mean uncontrolled. Most of what makes a field form good is decided before the crew leaves, not out on the track.
It cannot be handed in incomplete
The questions that matter are mandatory, impossible values are rejected on the spot, and the form skips the sections that do not apply so the inspector does not waste time. The correction happens while they are standing in front of the site, which is the only moment when correcting is worth anything.
Validated on site
Photo and coordinates attached to the finding
Where the evidence matters, the photo and the location are mandatory and stay inside the same record, with their timestamp. There is no separate gallery that nobody can read afterwards.
Dated and located evidence
It uploads itself back in coverage
Every finished inspection is stored on the phone and waits. When the handset has signal again, camp or office wifi included, the submissions go up without anyone having to remember. The inspector can see which ones went and which ones are still pending.
Nothing to remember
A submission that arrives twice does not open two orders
Resends happen: an upload breaks, somebody syncs again. Each inspection carries its own identifier, and the bridge checks whether that inspection already came in before creating anything. It is the kind of detail that never shows up in a demo and that decides whether your ERP stays clean or fills with duplicates.
Your ERP stays clean
The form is designed by whoever inspects
The questions and their order are written with the person who fills in the paper today, not with whoever runs the area from an office. A form designed at a desk forces the inspector to complete it in an order that is not the order of the walk, and that gets paid for in time and in errors every single day.
With the person who will use it
Where this comes from
Between September 2025 and May 2026, at TECNACORP, I ran KoboCollect forms in the field to record the condition of well cellars, for their inspection and their maintenance, on oil and gas operations in the Ecuadorian Oriente.
Two pieces of local context. A cellar is the concrete pit at the base of the wellsite: the wellhead sits in it and the rig is set up over it. It gets checked, audited and maintained, and all of that happens on locations reached by dirt road. The Oriente is the Ecuadorian Amazon, east of the Andes: hours from the paved road, and for most of the drive there is not a bar of signal. The forms were filled in there, offline, and uploaded once the crew was back in coverage.
I do not name the operator or the block. And I publish no figures from that work: not how many sites, not how many crews, not how much time was saved. No measurement exists that I could stand behind, and I would rather have no number than an invented one. What I did bring back is the method, and the method is what is on sale.
The same thing works well outside oil and gas, because the problem is identical: inspecting physical infrastructure at sites with no coverage. Power and distribution networks, mining, civil works, agribusiness, third-party inspection and contract supervision. If your operation sends people a long way to look at things and the result comes back on paper, this is for you.
What is included and what is not
Limits written down before signing are worth more than the list of inclusions. These are mine.
Step 1 includes
One inspection form of up to forty questions, designed with the person who inspects; mandatory photo and location where they matter; skips and validations so it cannot be handed in incomplete; offline operation on the phones the crew already has; the synchronisation tested in the field rather than in the office; and training for the crew.
Step 2 adds
Up to three forms and the bridge: every submission becomes, inside Odoo, the asset with its condition, the maintenance order, the crew's shift report and the photo attached with its timestamp and its coordinates. With your site register loaded and a campaign progress dashboard, so you can see what has been inspected and what is left.
The technical criteria are yours
What counts as a finding, against which standard and with which tolerance, is defined by your responsible engineer. I do not tell you how your assets should be inspected: the form captures your criteria and makes them impossible to skip.
Where the data sits
The work can run on the project's public server, on a hosted one, or on one of your own if you decide to pay for it. Those are three different answers to where your information rests, and I explain the difference before signing, not afterwards. What gets collected is yours and can be exported in full whenever you want.
Not included
No handsets and no data plans: you buy those, and you almost always have them already. No electronic signature and no legal weight for the report either; if the document coming out of the field has to stand as signed evidence before a third party, that is a different conversation and probably a different supplier.
One engagement at a time
Step 2 is software running in production and only one project runs at a time. If the slot is taken, I tell you the date of the next one before you invest any time in this.
The guarantee: the flight mode test
You have exactly one doubt, and you are right to have it: that the data gets lost along the way. This is how it gets answered, in front of you and in five minutes.
Guarantee of data that arrives. The acceptance test is run in flight mode with you watching: the full form is completed on a phone with no signal, the handset is switched off, switched back on in coverage, and the record appears in your ERP with its photo and its coordinates. If it does not pass that test, the step is not charged.
For it to apply: the test is run on one of the phones the crew actually uses, not on a demo handset. That condition is there for your benefit, because the salesperson's device always works.
There is nothing to interpret. Either the record is in your system with its photo and its coordinates or it is not, and you can see it on the same screen. It is the easiest guarantee to claim of anything I sell, and it doubles as the product demonstration: by the time the test is over, you have already watched what you bought do its job.
What to demand from anyone selling you this
There is a lot of field digitisation on offer that turns out to be a form and an export button. Seven questions separate that from serious work, and the answers should come back immediately.
Where does the data end up?
This is the question that settles everything. If the answer is a spreadsheet, you are paying project money for an afternoon's work. Ask them to show you the record inside your own system, with the photo in it, not a downloaded file.
Which phone was it tested on?
Insist on the test running on one of the crew's handsets, with its full storage and its version of Android. A form only ever tested on the salesperson's new phone fails on day one out on the track, and by then the contract is signed.
Who wrote the questions?
If the form was drafted in an office without the inspector in the room, the field will send it back: wrong order, questions that cannot be answered standing up, boxes nobody understands. Ask who it was designed with and how many hours that person spent on it.
What happens if the same submission arrives twice?
It happens whenever signal is poor. Ask what stops one inspection from opening two maintenance orders. If there is no technical answer, the first month of the campaign will leave your system with duplicates that somebody has to clean out by hand.
Are you being charged a licence fee?
KoboCollect and ODK are free software with no licence cost. If a licence appears in the quote, ask exactly what it covers: it may be legitimate hosting, or it may be someone selling you what is free.
Where do the photos and coordinates rest, and how do I get them out?
On which server, under which account and in whose name. And above all: the day the relationship ends, how do you take everything you collected with you. If that answer is not in writing, your inspection history is a hostage.
What does changing the form in six months cost?
It will change, because what you inspect changes. What matters is whether a change is an afternoon or a renegotiation, and whether the data already collected on the previous version is still readable alongside the new one.
The price, and what it costs your team
Two steps and a campaign retainer while the campaign runs. The first one stands on its own: if after watching it work you do not want the bridge, you do not buy it.
Step 1 · The form in their pocket, two weeks
One form of up to forty questions, designed with the person who inspects, working offline on the crew's own phones, with the synchronisation tested in the field and training included. On your side: two hours from whoever fills in the paper today, one hour from the supervisor to settle what counts as a finding, and two hours of crew training.
Step 2 · From the field into the ERP, four to five weeks
Up to three forms and the full bridge into Odoo: asset, maintenance order, crew shift report and photo with timestamp and coordinates, with your site register loaded and the campaign dashboard. One project at a time. The price depends on how many forms and on which records have to be created on the ERP side.
Campaign support, three months minimum
While the campaign runs: form changes when what you inspect changes, reprocessing of rejected submissions, and reconciling that everything which left the field made it into the ERP. It is not a subscription and I do not call it one: the campaign ends and this ends with it.
The field day is not negotiable and it is written next to the price: one inspector, one real shift, with the form put through the actual route. A form that was never tested out on the track is a form that fails out on the track, and then what is lost is an entire crew day, travel included. In total it comes to around five office hours plus that day.
Prices in United States dollars; under my tax regime, RIMPE Negocio Popular, my services are invoiced with VAT at 0 %, so the figure is the final one. Guarantee of data that arrives: if the flight mode test does not end with the record inside your system, photo and coordinates included, the step is not charged. Whatever is collected is yours and can be exported in full. Conditions in the proposal, in the refund policy and in the confidentiality agreement.
Frequently asked
Do I need Odoo?
Not for step 1: the form works the same and the data is there to download. The step 2 bridge is built for Odoo, which is the ground I know. With another ERP I study its interface first and tell you before quoting, not afterwards.
What if the crew has no data plan?
None is needed. Synchronisation happens over wifi, at camp, at the office or at the hotel at the end of the shift. The phone holds the inspections in the meantime and nothing depends on having mobile coverage at the site.
How many days can a phone go without uploading?
As many as its storage allows, and that gets sized during design: inspections per shift, photos per inspection and at what resolution. On a long rotation, photo resolution is the decision that weighs most, and it gets made with you.
We already use Kobo forms. Is this still useful?
It is, and it is cheaper: if your forms already work in the field, the work starts straight at the bridge into the ERP. I review them first and tell you whether to keep them as they are or adjust them before connecting.
Does it work on iPhone or on a tablet?
The field app is Android, which is what crews tend to carry. For other devices there is the browser form, which also works offline once loaded, with some differences in how it handles photos. Which one suits you is decided during design, with the devices you actually have.
Does the inspection report carry legal weight?
No, and it is better said upfront. What you get is a record with its date, its location and its evidence, which is very hard to argue with, but it is not an electronically signed document. If you need it to stand as evidence before a third party, that requires an electronic signature and it is a different project.
Who owns what is collected?
You do. The server is held in your company's name when that is the option chosen, and in every case the information is exported in full, photos included, whenever you ask. This goes in writing in the proposal.
Why not have our own IT team do it?
They can, and sometimes that is the right call. The form itself is within reach of anyone willing, using public documentation. Where it gets hard is the bridge: resends, rejections, heavy photos, sites that were named differently on paper, and the record that has to be born correctly inside the ERP. If your team covers that, I will say so.
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Tell me about your field work
Tell me what you inspect, how many sites a month and which system you run today. I reply with a proposal within one business day.
contacto@andresbrinez.comSix years building systems for companies in three countries: Colombia, Ecuador and Australia · Member of the Odoo Community Association