Chapter 42 — Field visits
Sales reps, technicians and account managers spend their days at other people's premises, where no terminal and no office fence can say whether they were there. Field visits are Operentra's answer: a check-in at the client, judged against where the client is, with the client themselves invited afterwards to say whether the meeting happened. This chapter is the setup, the rep's flow, the verdicts, the review, and the feedback loop.
This chapter needs the Geo attendance plan feature (Enterprise); on other plans the menu entries are locked.
What this chapter covers
- 42.1 Enrolling field staff and field-visit settings
- 42.2 Clients: pins, provisional versus confirmed locations, radius
- 42.3 The employee's check-in and check-out flow
- 42.4 Verification verdicts
- 42.5 Visits list and map; closing and cancelling visits
- 42.6 Client feedback by email or SMS, the public feedback page, opt-out
- 42.7 Exporting visits
The concept
A field visit differs from a GPS punch in one decision: it is never refused. A rep who is far from the pin, or whose phone gives a vague fix, must still be able to record that the meeting happened, because the alternative is a rep who stops recording. So the system records everything and attaches a verdict instead, verified, unverified or flagged, and leaves judgement to a person. The second idea is that a client's location is itself a fact to be established: the first visit proposes it, HR confirms it, and only a confirmed location can verify anything. The third is that GPS can be spoofed and a customer cannot, which is what the feedback request is for.
How Operentra handles it
- Field Visits › Field Staff and Settings enrols the employees who may log visits (only they see Field Visits in the portal) and holds the rules: max GPS accuracy (100 m), default client radius (200 m), photo at check-in (off), quick-add clients from the portal (on), and the two feedback switches, email and SMS (both off).
- Field Visits › Clients is the directory: name, contact, phone, email, address, city, an owner, a status, notes, and a pin with its own radius. A pin typed by an admin is confirmed; a pin set by a first clean check-in is provisional until Confirm location.
- The portal page lets an enrolled employee start a visit (pick or quick-add a client, a purpose, an optional photo), end it with an outcome and notes, and edit purpose, outcome and notes for seven days. One visit open at a time.
- Verdicts: Verified inside a confirmed pin's radius; Unverified when there is no pin or a provisional one; Flagged outside a confirmed radius or with accuracy worse than the limit.
- Field Visits lists every visit with its verdict, distance, duration and the employee's office clock-in that day, with a Map view and a CSV export; an admin can mark a forgotten visit completed or cancel one.
- Feedback: after a check-out, the client contact can be emailed or texted a single-use link, one per client per day, valid seven days, with an opt-out; the answer (confirmed or disputed, a rating, a comment) lands on the visit.
- Visits never write attendance. They sit beside the attendance record as evidence.
- Who:
field_visits.view(Super Admin, HR Manager, HR Officer),field_visits.manage(Super Admin, HR Manager); enrolment gates the portal.
Walkthrough
Northwind has five enrolled field staff, ten clients across Austin and Denver with confirmed pins and radii from 120 to 400 metres, ten completed visits, eight verified and two flagged, feedback by email switched on, two requests awaiting a reply and three confirmed with a rating. The walkthrough reads them and then runs one visit.
42.1 Enrolling field staff and field-visit settings
Field Staff and Settings opens with the enrolled list ("5 employees enrolled") and Manage field staff, a search-and-tick dialog whose Save replaces the list; the page says it plainly: only enrolled employees see Field Visits in their portal, everyone else never does. Below are the GPS and check-in rules:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Max GPS accuracy (meters) | A check-in with a coarser fix is still recorded but Flagged; 100 by default |
| Default client radius (meters) | Applied to clients created from the portal or without a radius; 200 by default |
| Photo at check-in | Off by default; on, staff can attach a site photo, which uses storage |
| Quick-add clients from the portal | On by default; off keeps the directory admin-only |
| Feedback request by email | After a check-out, email the client a confirmation link; needs the client's email |
| Feedback request by SMS | The same link by SMS through your SMS provider and credits; at most one request per client per day |
42.2 Clients: pins, provisional versus confirmed locations, radius
Clients lists the directory with contact, location status (No pin, Provisional, Confirmed), owner, visit count and status, filtered by status, location and owner. Add client takes the name, contact person, phone, email, address, city, an owner employee, status, notes, and the pinned location: latitude, longitude and radius, typed, or filled by Use my current location when you are standing there, with View on map to check. The form says the rule: a pin typed here is treated as confirmed; leave it empty and the first field check-in pins it provisionally for you to confirm.
Confirm location on a provisional client shows the proposed coordinates and radius to accept as they are or adjust first, and the page is explicit that past visits keep the verdict they were given. Filter by Location: Provisional to find pins awaiting review. A client with visit history cannot be deleted; set it Inactive instead, and an inactive client cannot be checked into.
Northwind's ten are all confirmed; set one to a provisional pin on a throwaway client to see the flow.
42.3 The employee's check-in and check-out flow
An enrolled employee's Field Visits page in the portal has Start a visit: pick a client from a search of the directory, or Add a new client with a name, contact, phone, email and address when quick-add is on; an optional purpose ("Renewal meeting, demo, collection"); an optional site photo when the setting allows. Check in asks the browser for the location (the same HTTPS and permission rules as Chapter 41), then records the reading and the verdict. An unpinned client gets a provisional pin from this first clean reading. An unenrolled employee sees "Field visits are not enabled for you".
While a visit is open a banner shows the client, the time since check-in and the elapsed minutes, with End visit and the photo button. End visit asks for an outcome (Successful, Follow-up needed, Client no-show, Rescheduled, Other) and notes, and records the check-out reading. Only one visit can be open: starting another offers "End my current visit and start this one", which closes the first as completed with no check-out reading. Today and Last 30 days list the employee's visits, and purpose, outcome and notes can be edited for seven days.
42.4 Verification verdicts
Every check-in carries one of three verdicts, with its reason on hover and in the visit's detail:
| Verdict | When |
|---|---|
| Verified | The reading fell inside the radius of a confirmed client pin |
| Unverified | Nothing trustworthy to compare against: the client has no pin, or only a provisional one |
| Flagged | The reading contradicts a confirmed pin (outside its radius), or the device's accuracy was worse than the allowed maximum |
The reasons are spelled out: inside the client's confirmed radius; no pinned location yet; pin is provisional, awaiting HR confirmation; outside the confirmed radius; accuracy worse than the allowed maximum. Confirming or moving a pin never rewrites earlier verdicts, so a client's first visits stay Unverified however they are later judged. Of Northwind's two flagged visits, one rep was outside the client's radius and the other's phone reported an accuracy worse than the 100-metre limit; the eight verified ones are inside.
42.5 Visits list and map; closing and cancelling visits
Field Visits opens on a date range with summary tiles (Visits, Verified, Unverified, Flagged, In progress, Active staff, Disputed) and filters by employee, client, status, verification and client feedback. The table shows check-in time, employee, client, purpose, verdict, distance from the pin, duration, the employee's office clock-in that day (or "Not clocked in"), status, and client feedback; the office column is what ties a visit to the attendance record without one writing the other. Map plots the check-ins coloured by verdict with confirmed client pins drawn as circles.
A visit's detail shows both readings, the GPS accuracy, the distances at check-in and check-out, purpose, outcome, notes, the photo, the office attendance that day and the feedback. Two actions need the manage permission. Mark completed closes a visit the employee forgot to end; the page says the duration stays unknown and nothing is invented. Cancel visit keeps the row, marked cancelled, and excludes it from every count. A visit closed automatically by the next check-in says so.
42.6 Client feedback by email or SMS, the public feedback page, opt-out
With a feedback switch on, a check-out triggers a request to the client contact: by email, branded with your logo, saying that the rep from your company visited today at the time and asking them to confirm and rate; by SMS, one line with the same link. The guardrails are automatic: only for visits the rep checked out of, never cancelled or admin-closed ones; only when the client has an email or an E.164 phone number for the channel; at most one request per client per day; a single-use link that expires after seven days; an opt-out link on every message, after which the client is never asked again.
The link opens a public page with no login: a greeting by the contact's name, "Did this meeting take place?" with Yes and No, a one-to-five rating on Yes, a comment, and a thank-you; a used link says the answer is already in, an old one says it expired. The answer lands on the Visits page as Awaiting reply, Client confirmed or Disputed, with a filter and a Disputed tile, and in the visit's detail with the rating, comment and channels used. A disputed visit, the client saying the meeting never happened, is the strongest signal the module produces, whatever the GPS said. The email text is a template in the Field Visits category of Settings › Email Templates (Chapter 79).
42.7 Exporting visits
Export CSV on the Visits page downloads the current range and filters with the columns of the table, for a weekly review or a commission check.
What happens next
- Attendance stays attendance. A verified visit does not clock anyone in; the office column shows whether they also did (Chapter 37), and a late arrival is still HR's call (Chapter 39).
- Provisional pins wait on the Clients page until confirmed; until then every visit to that client is Unverified.
- Feedback arrives for up to seven days after each check-out.
What the employee sees
The Field Visits page in the portal only when enrolled: the start form, the open-visit banner, the end dialog, today and the last thirty days, and the verdict on each visit. They do not see the client's feedback.
Common mistakes
- Expecting a visit to be refused when the rep is far away. It is recorded and Flagged; refusing would lose the record.
- Leaving pins provisional. Every visit to that client stays Unverified; review the Provisional filter weekly.
- Confirming a pin and expecting old visits to change. They keep their verdict.
- Reading a visit as a clock-in. Visits never write attendance.
- Switching on SMS feedback with phone numbers not in E.164. The SMS channel is skipped for that client and only the log says so.
- Deleting a client with history. Refused; set it Inactive.
- Marking a forgotten visit completed and reading its duration. There is none; nothing is invented.
- Ignoring a Disputed answer because the GPS said Verified. The customer is the stronger witness.
Practice
Use your own trial workspace, not a customer's, and a phone.
- Open Field Staff and Settings, enrol yourself, and read the six rules. Switch feedback by email on.
- Add a client with no pin and your own email as the contact; then on the phone, start a visit to it, read the verdict, and end it with an outcome.
- Open Clients, find the provisional pin, Confirm location, and read the visit's verdict again.
- Open Field Visits, read the tiles and the office clock-in column, switch to Map, then open the visit's detail.
- Open the feedback email, answer No with a comment, and find the Disputed tile and the answer on the visit.
Quiz
1. Why is a field check-in never refused?
Because a refused rep stops recording. The visit is kept with a verdict, verified, unverified or flagged, and a person judges.
2. What is the difference between a provisional and a confirmed pin?
A confirmed pin (typed by an admin or confirmed on the Clients page) can verify visits; a provisional pin, set by a first clean check-in, leaves visits Unverified until HR confirms it.
3. When is a visit Flagged?
When the reading is outside a confirmed pin's radius, or the device's reported accuracy is worse than the allowed maximum.
4. What guardrails apply to a feedback request?
Only after a real check-out; the client needs an email or E.164 phone for the channel; one request per client per day; a single-use link valid seven days; an opt-out honoured forever.
5. Does a verified visit mark the employee present?
No. Visits never write attendance; the Visits page shows the employee's office clock-in beside the visit so HR can compare.