Talk it in is for saying what happened on site instead of typing it. You speak, you read back what was heard, and it goes in as a line in the diary, a held-up note, a task, a snag, a material request, a delivery, a question (RFI) or an inspection. It can also update work that is already on the project: a task done, a delivery received, an inspection passed. It is on both the mobile app and the web app.
Where to find it:
- On your phone: on the project’s Home, the Talk it in card sits above Log activity
- In a browser (app.buildersai.co.uk): on the project’s Home, Talk it in sits beside Check in. It works in Chrome, Edge and Safari. A browser that cannot listen (Firefox, for one) does not show it
How to talk one in:
- Press Talk it in. It starts listening straight away, so there is nothing to hold down. The first time, the phone says why it wants the microphone before it asks
- Say what happened, as you would to the site manager: “Plasterboard delivery came forty sheets short this morning. Travis Perkins say the rest is on the first drop tomorrow.” Your words come up on the screen as you speak
- Press Done. A note can be up to two minutes long, and the last fifteen seconds count down
- Read what was heard. It is already sorted into one of these, and you can pick another:
- Diary note: a line in today’s site diary
- Held up: a diary line that says what held you up, with the cause picked from weather, access, materials, plant, labour, information, instruction or other. It is a flag, the same as Anything hold you up? in Log activity: the site manager turns it into a delay with the time lost. See the “site_diary” and “delay_register” topics
- Task: with who it is for and the day it is due, when you said them (“Dave needs to move the scaffold on plot 12 before Monday”)
- Snag: a snag on the project
- Material request: materials asked for from site, with what, how many and where from, and the day they are needed on site (“Need 20 bags of cement up to plot 4 by Thursday”). It goes on the project’s materials as still to be sent. See the “work_items” topic
- Delivery: a delivery that is expected, with the supplier, the ticket or order number and the day (“Jewson are delivering the roof tiles on Friday”)
- Question (RFI): a question for somebody, with who it is for and when the answer is needed (“Ask the architect about the window head detail on plot 7”)
- Inspection: an inspection that is booked, with who inspects and the day (“Building control are coming for the drainage on Tuesday”)
- Update existing work: a change to something already on the project. See “Updating work that is already there” below
- Correct anything that is wrong: the words are in a box you can type into, and the title, the person, the day and the other details can all be changed
- Press Save. A line says where it went, for example “Saved to today’s diary”. If it heard nothing, it cannot be saved: press Start again
Nothing is saved until you press Save. The kind it picks is a suggestion (“We think this is a snag”), so read it before you save it.
Updating work that is already there: Say what happened to something already on the project, and Talk it in finds it: “Task 14 is done”, “The Jewson bricks have come, all there”, “Building control passed the drainage”, “The engineer came back on the lintel question, a 140 lintel is fine”.
- Which one? It shows the item it thinks you mean, with its number and title. Saying the number (“task 14”, “snag number 3”) is the surest way. If it cannot tell, or picked the wrong one, press Change and search by number or name. Only work that is still open is offered, and only work you can see
- What happened? Pick from what that kind of work allows:
- A task: Mark done
- A snag: Mark fixed. It then waits for an admin to check it, as it does when you tick it off. An admin’s goes on to resolved
- A material request: Sent to site
- A delivery: Received in full (it is then done), Part delivered or Rejected (both stay open, because the rest, or a replacement, is still owed)
- An inspection: Passed, Passed with conditions or Failed
- A question (RFI): Answered. What you said becomes the answer. If an answer has already been typed in, it is kept as it is, and what you said is added as a comment
- Anything: Just add a comment, which changes nothing else
- Press Save. What you said is always added to the item as a comment, with the recording on the phone, so everybody on it can read, and play, what was said. Something already finished is not changed again: your words are added as a comment
With no signal: Talk it in still works. The phone hears you without signal, makes its own suggestion of what kind of note it is, and keeps the note until you have signal again, when it sends by itself. The screen says “Saved on your phone, it will send when you have signal” until it has.
The recording:
- On the phone, the recording is kept with the note. It is attached to the diary line or the work it became, or to the comment on the work it updated, and anybody who can see that record can play it as a Voice note, on the phone and in a browser. The words are on the record itself, so they can be searched and printed like anything typed
- A browser does not keep a recording. A note talked in on the web saves your words only
- Some older Android phones cannot keep a recording. The words are still saved, without one
- A recording is what the microphone heard, so anybody talking nearby can be on it
It listens in English, with British spelling, and it is told the words a site uses (snagging, DPC, noggins, telehandler and the like) and the first names of the people on the project, so it is more likely to get them right. Names it does not know may still come out wrong: that is what the box before Save is for.
Who can use it: Members and admins of a project, the same people who can write in the site diary and add tasks. Followers are not offered it, and nobody is offered it on a project that is read-only. Everything it saves or changes lands exactly where it would if you had typed it or ticked it off yourself, so everything else about it (who can see it, who is told, who may sign off a snag) works as it always does.