What this does
Photos attached to a test report or survey now show when and where they were taken, using the information the camera saved into the image. On a report, each photo is compared against the report's date and the location's coordinates, and anything that doesn't line up is flagged for you.
These flags are advisory only. Nothing is blocked, rejected, or changed automatically — Accept, Reject, and Send Back all behave exactly as they did before. The flags are there to point your eye at photos worth a second look.
💡 This is on for every organization and there is nothing to set up or turn on.
What you'll see on a report
A banner on the Details tab
When at least one photo on the report is flagged, a banner appears at the top of the Details tab. For example:
3 photos may not belong to this report — taken outside the report's date window; taken away from the property. Review them in the Files tab.
The banner tells you how many photos were flagged and why, then points you to the Files tab to look at them. The reasons listed are categories, not counts — if a photo is both out of the date window and away from the location, it's still counted once in the total.
If no photo is flagged, there's no banner at all.
A badge on each photo in the Files tab
The Files tab shows a colored badge on each photo:
Badge | What it means | What it says |
🟢 Green | Taken within a day of the report date | Captured within a day of the report date |
🟡 Yellow | Taken 2–30 days from the report date | Taken 26 days from the report date — may not belong to this report |
🔴 Red | Taken more than 30 days from the report date | Taken 952 days from the report date — unlikely to belong to this report |
⚪ Neutral | The photo has no capture date saved, so there's nothing to compare | No capture date |
Opening a photo shows the same information as a caption, along with its coordinates and a View on map link that opens the spot in Google Maps.
How the two checks work
Date
The photo's capture date is compared to the report's date. The distance is measured in either direction, so a photo taken shortly before or after the report date is treated the same way:
Within 1 day — green. The one-day allowance is deliberate: it absorbs time-zone differences and late-evening work so a perfectly normal photo isn't flagged.
2 to 30 days — yellow.
More than 30 days — red.
Location
The photo's coordinates are compared to the location's own coordinates. Within 150 meters counts as on-site; beyond that, the photo is reported as taken away from the property.
⚠️ The location check needs both the photo's coordinates and coordinates saved on the location record. If either is missing, there is simply no location verdict — you'll see the photo's date information but nothing about where it was taken. This is common and is not a problem with the photo.
Many locations don't have coordinates saved yet, so for now a missing location verdict is the normal case rather than the exception. Improvements to assembly and location coordinates are coming in a future release.
Photos that show "No capture date"
A photo shows No capture date when the image simply doesn't carry one. The most common reasons:
It was uploaded before this feature was released. Capture dates are recorded for new uploads only — there's no retroactive fill for photos already in the system. This is the reason you'll see most often at first.
It's a screenshot, which carries no camera information.
It was sent through a messaging app — most strip this information when the image is shared.
It was edited, or converted between formats, and the information was dropped along the way.
A photo with no capture date gets no date badge and is never flagged for it. Missing information is treated as "can't tell," not as a warning.
About the capture time
The time shown is the one the camera recorded, exactly as the camera recorded it. It is not converted to your organization's time zone, even though the screen labels it "local time."
A photo can therefore read 2:41 PM when that wasn't 2:41 PM where you are. That's expected. Cameras save the wall-clock time without a time zone, and since the photo's true time zone isn't known, the digits are shown as-is rather than shifted to something that could be equally wrong.
Use the capture time to judge whether a photo belongs to a job, not as a precise timestamp.
Photos elsewhere in the app
Capture date and coordinates also appear on assembly detail, location detail, and in the attachment details view, each with a View on map link.
There are no date badges on these screens — a badge compares a photo to a report's date, and these screens aren't tied to a single report. An on-site indicator can still appear where the location has coordinates saved.
Adding the Captured and Location columns
The attachment list can show two extra columns, Captured and Location. They're turned off by default, because only photos carry this information and the columns would be mostly empty in a list that mixes photos with documents.
To switch them on, open the column settings for the attachment list and select Captured and Location.
FAQ
This photo is fine — why is it flagged?
Treat a flag as a heads-up, not a verdict. A report filed a while after the visit, or a camera with a wrong clock, will both produce a flag on a perfectly legitimate photo. Nothing is blocked, and you can accept the report as normal.
Why does a photo show coordinates but no on-site indicator?
Because the location record has no coordinates to compare against. Both halves are needed.
Can I turn the flags off, or change the thresholds?
Not in this release. The 1-day, 30-day, and 150-metre thresholds are fixed for everyone.
Will older photos ever get their capture dates?
Not automatically. Only newly uploaded photos have their capture date recorded. A photo uploaded before the release keeps showing No capture date unless it's uploaded again.
Does this change who can see our photos?
No. This is your organization's own data, shown to your own users. Nothing is shared outside your organization.
Does a flagged photo stop a report from being accepted?
No. The checks never block, reject, or auto-action anything, and they never modify or delete a photo.