The Mobile App

CortexPM ONSITE puts the job in your pocket. It’s the same workspace as the web app — same jobs, same people, same records — shaped for what you actually do away from a desk: sign on to site, record what happened, raise a defect, acknowledge a toolbox talk, check what’s due this week.

Available now on the App Store and Google Play. Search for CortexPM.

The app is not a shrunken version of the web app. Everything in it is something worth doing one-handed, standing on a slab. The heavy work — building a program, running a claim, approving timesheets — stays on the web.

Signing in

1. Open the app and tap Sign in. There’s no password field in the app itself — it opens your browser, you sign in the same way you do on the web, and it hands you back.
2. If you belong to more than one company on CortexPM, you’ll be asked to choose a workspace. One company, and it takes you straight in.
3. That’s it. No company code, no invitation link to dig out of your email.

You stay signed in for 30 days of inactivity. In normal use you’ll never be asked again — the app renews your session quietly in the background.

Watch out: if your account is deactivated by your company, or you don’t open the app for 30 days, you’ll land back on the sign-in screen. Just sign in again.

What you see depends on who you are

The app doesn’t ask you to pick a mode. It reads your role in the workspace and builds the right app around it. Four shapes:

Staff tabs are also filtered by your permissions — no access to Program means no Schedule tab, and the next module moves up into its place. So two people in the same company can see different tabs.

Tip: anything that doesn’t fit across the bottom lives under More. On a staff account that’s usually Drawings, Directory, Safety and Quality.

Site sign-in

This is the backbone of the app, and it works the same way for crews, staff and subcontractors.

1. Tap Sign in to site on the Today screen.
2. The app finds nearby sites from your location — jobs you’re assigned to, within about 2 km. Further-away jobs are listed separately, and you can show all sites if you need to.
3. Confirm the site. You’ll see a map with the geofence drawn on it and a status pill: Inside the site boundary, Just outside, or Out of range.
4. If there are toolbox talks waiting, you read them here — one per page — and tap I’ve read and understood on each. The acknowledgement is recorded against your sign-in, so the record shows who was briefed and when.
5. You’re on site. Sign out the same way at the end of the day.

The geofence defaults to a 150 m radius around the job address. If you’re outside it, the app asks for a reason and records it rather than blocking you — late delivery, off-site yard, wrong address on the job. Signing out from beyond the boundary asks the same.

Watch out: a job with no geofence configured can’t be signed into from the app. Staff see a “Geofence Not Configured” message; crew simply won’t see the job in their nearby list. The geofence comes from the job’s address, so an address typo is the usual cause — fix it on the job (see Jobs & Job Cost).

Watch out: sign-in and sign-out need live location and a live connection. They’re the one thing the app won’t queue for later.

For site crews

The crew app is deliberately small: three tabs and nothing to learn.

Today

The whole day runs from here.

• Sign in to site to start.
• Once you’re on, tap Open to say what you’re on — a cost code, picked from a row of buttons: recent ones you’ve used, the job’s budget lines, or a search. Tap a different one when you move to a different task and the app closes the old segment and opens a new one. You never fill in a timesheet.
• At the end of the day, Your day shows how your time split across what you tapped. Nudge any line up or down in 15-minute steps if it’s not right, then Submit my day.

Your submitted day goes to your supervisor as draft → submitted → approved or sent back. A day that’s sent back comes back to you editable, with the reason attached, and you can resubmit it. Approved days lock.

Tip: if your allocated hours don’t match your time on site, the day still submits — it’s flagged for your supervisor to look at, not blocked. And if you sign on but never tap a cost code, the day still submits as one entry against your default code. Attendance never comes out as zero hours.

Safety

See something? Say something. Pick Near miss, Hazard or Good practice, say what you saw, optionally where on site, and Send it. It lands in the same safety register a site manager’s observation would.

Toolbox talks you’ve been given are also here, so you can re-read one any time.

Me

Your week’s hours, day by day and job by job. Your jobs. Switching workspace, signing out, and deleting your account.

Watch out: you’ll see “You’re not on a crew yet” until someone in the office assigns you to a job. That’s a staff job in the web app — until it’s done, there’s nothing for you to sign in to.

For project staff

Today

A cross-project feed of what needs you today, with the site sign-in card at the top and a capture button for the things you record most: Diary entry, Defect, Photo, Inspection, Observation.

Schedule

Your program tasks, banded overdue → today → next 7 days → lookahead, with markers on anything on the critical path or held up by an open predecessor.

Tap Update progress to record a percentage and actual dates.

Watch out: you can record progress on mobile but you can’t reschedule — moving dates, changing dependencies and reworking the program stay on the web, where you can see the consequences.

Defects

The defect register for the job, and a Record Defect form: location, description, severity, who it’s assigned to, due date, and photos from the camera or your library. Open a defect to edit it, mark it rectified, or verify a fix.

Diary

New diary walks you through conditions and weather (pre-filled), a prompt to record a wet-weather delay and its impact on works, headcount taken from site sign-ins, a narrative, and photo evidence. Insert template drops a standard structure into the works and safety sections so you’re filling in headings rather than staring at an empty box.

Tip: the wet-weather prompt appears when rainfall has been recorded, and diary photos are mobile-only — the web diary has no photo upload. If you want images against a day, take them here.

Tip: headcount coming from actual sign-ins is the reason the diary is worth trusting six months later in a delay claim. Get the crew signing on and the diary writes half of itself.

Under More

• Drawings — the current-revision register, filtered by discipline, opening in your phone’s PDF viewer. Pin a sheet to keep it available offline.
• Directory — everyone on the job. Tap to call, tap to text, or Navigate to site.
• Safety — site sign-in and toolbox talk acknowledgement.
• Quality — checklists, observations, and site inductions.
• Projects — switch which job the app is pointed at.

Things you can action from site

• Contract actions — read an RFI, notice or variation and send a response, or approve a variation.
• Claim review — go line by line through what was actually built, set an assessed total, and save the assessment, which moves the claim to Under Review.
• Variation flags — turn a flag raised by a subcontractor into a draft variation, or dismiss it.
• Raise variation — who it’s against, what happened, estimated value.

Watch out: claims can be assessed on mobile but not approved. Approval stays on the web — it’s a money decision that deserves a full screen.

For subcontractors

Your Today screen carries a company switcher (if you work for more than one builder), the site sign-in card, an attention feed of what’s waiting on you, and quick actions: take a photo, flag a defect, sign in to a site, submit a progress claim.

Which modules you get is set by each builder you work for, so the app may look different between one client and the next:

• Safety — site sign-in and toolbox talks
• Reporting — report defects, post progress updates, flag variations
• Money — progress claims, with attachments
• Quotes — RFQs you’ve been invited to, and submitting your quote
• Contracts — your subcontracts, retention held, purchase orders
• Schedule — when your work is programmed
• Notices — what’s been formally issued to you

For clients

• Today — progress at a glance and the latest updates on your build.
• Documents — what your builder has shared, tap to download.
• Messages — write to your builder and read their replies.
• Selections — choose your finishes, add notes, and see what’s already locked in.
• Defects — report something that’s not right, with photos.
• More — schedule, progress photos, invoices, notification preferences, and a larger-text setting.

Signing on with no app at all

Not everyone who walks onto a site needs an account — deliveries, inspectors, a subcontractor’s labourer there for a day. CortexPM handles them with a QR poster on the gate.

1. A staff member downloads the site attendance poster for the job — an A4 PDF with the job’s QR code — and puts it up at the entrance.
2. Anyone scans it with their phone camera. No app, no account.
3. They enter their mobile number. If CortexPM recognises it, it confirms who they are. If not, they give their name and who they’re with.
4. Any outstanding toolbox talks are presented on the same page and acknowledged there.
5. They’re signed in as a guest worker or visitor, and they appear in the same attendance record as everyone else.

The browser session lasts 16 hours, after which they scan again. Signing out works from the same page, or by phone number if they’ve closed it.

Tip: if a poster goes missing, someone in the office can rotate the job’s QR code from the web app and every printed copy stops working at once.

Notifications

The app sends a push when something needs you:

If you’re project staff — a defect assigned to you, a defect marked as fixed and ready to verify, a defect reported by a subcontractor or client, a new toolbox talk published, your site diary approved, and — if you issued a document — when the recipient views it or responds.

If you’re a subcontractor — a defect assigned to you, work starting soon, a schedule change to your task, a payment processed, and a payment certificate issued against your claim.

If you’re a client — you control yours under More → Notification preferences: new messages, selection reminders, new documents, invoice notifications and project updates.

If you’re site crew — none. Nothing in the app needs you to stop what you’re doing, so it doesn’t send crew push notifications.

Working offline

Site coverage is what it is. The app is built for it.

What keeps working: anything you record. Defects, diary entries, photos, safety observations, cost-code switches — they’re saved on the phone and sent the moment you’re back in range. You’ll see a pending marker on Today until they’ve gone through. A cost-code switch is recorded at the time you tapped it, not the time it was sent, so your hours stay accurate.

What needs signal: anything you read. Lists, drawings, the directory, the schedule. And site sign-in and sign-out, which need live GPS and a live connection.

Tip: pin the drawings you’ll need before you leave the office and they’ll be there on site regardless.

Watch out: if something you recorded can’t be accepted — a defect on a job you no longer have access to, say — it stays in your pending list marked as failed rather than disappearing quietly. Deal with it when you’re back in range.

Permissions the app asks for

• Location — site sign-in and sign-out, finding nearby jobs, and navigating to site. Only while you’re using the app; it never tracks you in the background.
• Camera and photos — attaching evidence to defects, diaries and inspections.

That’s the lot. The app doesn’t ask for your contacts, your calendar, or your microphone.

Your account

Under Me or More:

• Switch workspace — if you work for more than one company on CortexPM.
• Sign out of the app.
• Delete account — removes you from your workspaces and anonymises your login. Work records you created — diaries, defects, claims — stay with the company as business records.

Watch out: you can’t delete your account if you’re the sole owner of a workspace. Hand ownership to someone else first.

What stays on the web

• Building and rescheduling programs
• Approving progress claims
• Approving timesheets
• Estimating and takeoff
• Invoices, payments and anything in Accounting
• Company settings, users and permissions

Where something needs the web, the app says so and points you there.

See also: Site Management for the web-side view of diaries, defects and attendance · Getting Started for roles and permissions · Subcontractor Portal and Client Portal for the browser equivalents.