Upload a photo in the diary

A damaged fitting, the trace of a leak, a gauge reading: a photo often says more than a description. In the shift diary you can attach photos to an event, the shift handover, a maintenance item and a task — the photo is recorded together with the entry and stays in the diary. A photo is never mandatory: the diary can be closed just the same without one.

Before you start

• Permission: there is no separate photo permission — you can upload a photo wherever you can record the entry itself (event: event:create, shift handover: shift_log:create, maintenance: maintenance:create, task: task:update_status). Any one of the four is enough to upload, but you can only attach the photo to an entry you hold the right for — so a maintenance technician can add photos to a maintenance item even without being able to open a diary.
• An editable diary: in a closed, archived or view-only diary you cannot add new photos; you still see the photos that were already uploaded. Exception: whoever may correct the closed diary (holds the diary-edit right, e.g. the data supervisor) can also attach photos to it while correcting.
• Whether the box is switched on: an admin switches photos on per element, per unit (for a maintenance item the item’s own unit counts, if you record it for a unit other than the diary’s). By default the events and the shift handover accept photos, maintenance and tasks do not — if you see no upload box there, your admin has not switched it on yet (see As an admin below).

No person should be recognisable in the photo

When you upload, the system warns you: “No person should be recognisable in the photo.” Your organisation (the data controller) is responsible for the personal data visible in a photo — photograph equipment, not people. EXIF data (for example the GPS location) is stripped from the image on upload.

Steps

The Photos box on the Events element’s form on a desktop. On a phone the “Take photo” button appears next to it. The help icon in the header leads here.

1. Open the diary and find the element the photo belongs to: the events element (the entry form for a new event, the event’s row for an existing one), the shift handover text, the maintenance item or the task.
2. Add the photo. On a desktop click “Choose image”, or drag images onto the box (“or drag images here”). On a phone “Take photo” opens the rear camera.
3. Wait for the upload. The box shows a progress indicator like “Uploading… 40%”; then the thumbnail preview appears. You can pick several images at once.
4. Reorder if needed. The ◀ ▶ buttons move a photo earlier or later — the order is kept in the diary and in the PDF. “Remove photo (not saved yet)” takes out a photo that has not been saved.
5. Save the entry. For a new entry (a new event, a new maintenance item, a handover that is not saved yet) the photos are attached when you save the entry — the box reminds you: “Photos are attached when you save the entry.” For an existing entry the photo is saved immediately; no separate save is needed.

At most this many photos per entry

The box shows how many photos are already uploaded (“3 / 10 photos”). An entry can hold at most 10 photos — your admin can set a lower limit. The server enforces the limit too: once you reach it, no more photos can be uploaded (“You have reached the limit of 10 photos for this entry — no more can be uploaded.”).

Deleting a photo, and the trace

• You can delete your own photo until the shift is closed; from a closed diary only the system administrator can delete, with a mandatory reason (for example when a recognisable person ended up in the photo, or a photo was uploaded by mistake).
• You always have to give a reason when deleting, and deletion cannot be undone. Deleting leaves an audit trail.
• A trace stays in place of the deleted photo: “Image deleted by <name> (<time>) — reason: <reason>”. The trace cannot be removed; the live and archived diary views and the photo viewer show it in place of the photo.
• ⚠️ Deleting does not rewrite a PDF that has already been generated — the photo stays in it. See below and Managing photos.

How the photo gets into the PDF

An admin sets how photos appear in the shift-log PDF under PDF & email → Appearance → Photos in the shift-log PDF, with three settings:

Setting	What you see in the PDF
Thumbnail (default)	Photos as small thumbnails side by side: at the event, under the handover text, after the maintenance or task table under the item’s title.
Large image	Photos at full width. This makes the PDF considerably bigger.
No photos	The PDF is built without photos — exactly as before photos were introduced.

A shift-group PDF includes at most 60 thumbnails or 24 large images; whatever does not fit is stated in the PDF (“N more photo(s) can be viewed in the diary; the PDF does not include them.”). This setting does not apply to the diary’s “Image” data point (see Fill in the diary data points).

When is a new PDF made?

When a new photo is attached to the diary, the diary PDF that was already generated counts as out of date: the next time it is opened the system makes a new version, the old version is kept, and the report e-mail is not sent again. Deleting or replacing a photo, however, does not produce a new PDF version: a PDF that has been generated and sent is a snapshot of the moment it was made, and the photo stays in it (in the app a trace shows in its place). If the PDF later gets a new version for another reason, the deleted photo’s place shows the trace there; earlier versions keep the photo. Changing the PDF setting only affects PDFs generated afterwards; a finished PDF is not rebuilt because of it.

As an admin: switching photos on

The box is switched on per element and unit (Diary elements tab → Photos block), the count is 1–10, the PDF setting is under PDF & email → Appearance; the two photo viewer permissions are granted in the permission matrix. The steps and screenshots: Set up photos.

If it worked

The photo’s thumbnail appears under the entry, the box shows the count (“n / 10 photos”), the photo is visible in the diary together with the entry, and it is included in the diary PDF according to the chosen setting.

Common problems

What you see	Why	What to do
No upload box at the element	Photos are switched off on this element (or the diary is not editable, or you have no write permission).	Ask your admin to switch it on; a closed diary only gets new photos from a role allowed to correct it.
“Photos are turned off for this diary element (diary layout setting) — the entry was NOT saved.”	The box was switched off while you were preparing the entry with photos.	Remove the photos and save again; an admin can switch photos back on.
“You have reached the limit of 10 photos for this entry — no more can be uploaded.”	The box’s limit is full.	Delete one (with a reason) to add a new one, or ask your admin to raise the limit (up to 10).
“<file> is not an image — skipped.”	You chose a file that is not an image.	Choose an image.
“<file> is too large — take a lower-resolution photo.”	The file exceeds the allowed size.	Take a lower-resolution photo.
“Only <n> photos fitted (at most <max> photos per entry) — the rest were not uploaded.”	You picked more at once than still fit.	Upload the rest to another entry or after deleting one.
“Too many uploads in a short time — wait a few minutes and try again.”	You hit the upload rate limit.	Wait a few minutes.
“You are not allowed to upload photos here.”	You have no write right for the entry.	Ask your admin for the right.
“Could not reach the server — the photo was not uploaded.”	The connection dropped.	Check your connection and try again.
“Your session has expired — sign in again and re-upload the photo.”	The session expired.	Sign in and upload again.

Related

Log an event in the diaryThe events element — the most common place to attach a photo.

Browse and export photosAll uploaded photos in one place: grid, filters, large view, manifest export.

Closed diaries and the PDFHow to look back at a closed diary and its PDF.