Engineer App

The Engineer App is the field engineer’s view of the live plan. Where the deployment centre watches the whole operation, the Engineer App shows one resource — you — your stops in order, and the quickest way to report progress. Everything you do flows straight back into the optimised plan, so dispatch and the contact centre always see where you are and when you’ll arrive.

It is a phone-first, full-screen view, laid out as a simple grid so the important controls stay under your thumb. Sign in as your resource and the plan appears.

Signing on

Open the app and choose your resource to sign on. Helix binds the app to that resource for the shift, so the stops, times and messages you see are yours. Signing off (from the menu) hands the app back.

Your plan

The centre of the screen is your plan — the stops Helix has scheduled for you, in the order to work them, with each stop’s state and projected time. Spiral keeps the sequence optimised as the day changes, so the top of the list is always your next job. Tap a stop to see its full detail — location, customer, instructions and any captured data — and scroll for stops further ahead.

The map

Tap the map control to open turn-by-turn navigation to your next stop, using the device’s own maps. As you advance your state — heading, arrived, complete — each report carries the moment it happened, so projected arrival times stay honest and dispatch can see a delay developing before it bites. Continuous position tracking, where your location feeds the plan between stops, arrives with the dedicated field app (the Helix Field mobile shell); the web view reports on the transitions you make.

Staying in contact

Dispatch can see whether you are reachable. While you are signed on, the resource list and map show the devices you have connected — and if you drop out of contact entirely (the app closed, no signal), a red no-comms badge appears against you, so the deployment centre knows to raise you another way rather than assuming the silence is progress. Nothing to do on your side: just staying signed in keeps you visible.

Status and actions

Report progress by advancing your state — on the way, arrived, working, complete. Each change is timestamped and sent to dispatch live, updating the plan and the contact centre’s view of the job. When dispatch offers you a job or asks a question, it arrives here as an action: accept or decline an offered job, and acknowledge or answer messages. This is the two-way link between the field and the deployment centre. Your inbox receives the actions addressed to you — those targeted at the resource on a stop, or at any seat (the callout is one) — and each concludes the way every Helix action does: you choose an outcome, and the decision is recorded and audited against the job. Messages you send to dispatch travel the same machinery in the other direction. (The full model — audiences, classes, conclusions — is the Actions guide.)

Working offline

Coverage in the field is not guaranteed, so the app does not depend on it. When you advance your state out of signal — on the way, arrived, complete — the change is stamped with the time it happened and held on the device. A small ⇅ n queued badge shows how many are waiting. The moment the connection returns they send themselves, in order, so dispatch and the plan catch up on the exact sequence you walked, at the times you walked it — you never have to remember to resend.

The same happens when you have signal but Helix cannot take the change just then, because the optimiser is restarting or has stopped. The change waits on the device under the same badge and is sent as soon as Helix can take it again, without you doing anything.

Decisions that need a live conversation — accepting or declining an offered job, answering a message — wait for a connection rather than queue, because they only make sense once dispatch can hear you. Your progress reports never wait.

Standby callout

If you are rostered on standby and the plan needs you, Spiral calls you out — the callout arrives in your inbox like any other action. Accept and your roster is updated on the spot: your standby becomes rest and your shift starts a configured response period from now, so dispatch, the plan and your pay record all move together — no separate confirmation step. On a voluntary call you also see Refuse; refusing releases you from that job (it will not bounce straight back to you) and dispatch is told. A callout also has a time limit to answer — let it lapse and it counts as a refusal, so respond either way. Where your organisation runs its own callout channel (a phone call, an SMS system), accepting through that channel updates the same roster and the in-app callout simply clears.

The menu holds the rest: send a message to dispatch, switch to a different resource, change appearance, open the About dialog, and sign out. It’s also where you’ll find help — including this guided tutorial, which you can re-run at any time.

Introduction to Helix — the dispatch screen the Engineer App reports into.
Actions — how the two-way messaging between dispatch and the field works.
Contact Centre — where inbound work enters the same live plan.