Using the DS Site app: a guide for site supervisors

Getting started

DS Site is free. Install it from the App Store or Google Play and create your own account — it is yours, not your employer's, and it travels with you between sites and between companies.

1. Install DS Site and create an account.
2. The app opens on Channels. A channel is one builder's workspace.
3. Tap your company's channel to open it. If you work for more than one builder, search for the one you need.

Most people only ever see one channel. If you have been sent a code or a link for a site you have not worked on before, opening it may offer you a Join Channel button — tap it and that builder's channel appears in your list from then on.

Finding your way around

There are two ways you will normally reach a form, and two more for getting back to something.

Scan a code

This is the quickest route and the one most sites rely on. A code on the gate, on a noticeboard or on a piece of plant opens the right form straight away, already knowing which site you are on.

Use the home page

Your channel's home page is a set of tiles. Some open a form; some open another page of tiles. The names and the order are chosen by your builder, so a site supervisor at one company might tap HSEQ and another might tap Safety.

Recents

Recents, along the bottom of the app, lists everything you have opened lately — pages, forms and things you have already submitted — with the type and how long ago. It is the fastest way back to something you were part way through.

Pages and Forms, and Search

Inside a channel, Pages and Forms holds Blank (forms you have opened before), Submissions (what you have sent) and Shared (what others have shared with you). Search looks through submissions.

Your profile, and why forms already know you

Tap Profile at the bottom of the app. This is your record: your personal and work details, your licences, qualifications, insurances, inductions and verifications.

Forms draw on it. That is why a form often opens with your name, your company or your licence details already in place, and why you rarely have to type them twice. It is also where you go when something pre-fills wrongly — fix it here and it is right on every form afterwards.

After you submit a form the app may ask whether to save what you entered to your profile. Say yes and the next form knows it too.

Filling in any form

Every form in DS Site works the same way, whatever it is called and whoever built it. Learn this once and the rest of the app follows.

1. Open the form. Some fields may already be filled in from your profile — check them rather than assuming.
2. A red asterisk means the field is required. Everything else is optional.
3. A form is one long page, not a series of screens. Use JUMP TO… at the bottom to move between sections.
4. Where a field has a QR button beside it, you can scan a code straight into that field instead of typing.
5. Long text boxes have a small arrow that makes the box bigger or smaller — useful when you are writing more than a line.
6. For a section you can repeat, such as equipment or deliveries, tap Add to create an entry, fill it in, and tap Add again for the next one. Delete removes one.
7. Where a form asks for a photo, Take photo opens the camera inside the app and Files picks one you already have.
8. Date fields open a calendar already on today's date, so usually you just confirm it.
9. Tap SUBMIT.

When it goes through you will see "Thanks. Your form has been submitted successfully and can be viewed below", and the completed form opens so you can read it back. If your builder allows it, an EDIT button lets you correct it afterwards.

When a form asks for your location

Tap Get Location — the app does not take it on its own. The first time you do this your phone asks whether to allow DS Site to use your location. The app only reads it at the moment you tap, and it records where you were; it does not follow you around the site.

When a form will not submit

DS Site checks the whole form when you tap SUBMIT, not as you go. If anything is missing, nothing is sent and the app shows you what to fix.

• Each problem field gets a red outline and the words Value required underneath.
• The form jumps to the first one.
• A red dot appears on JUMP TO…, so you can move between the remaining problems.

Fix them and tap SUBMIT again. Nothing you have already typed is lost.

Working with no signal

Sites lose coverage. Before you go somewhere without it, open the page or form you will need and tap Store for offline use at the top. Once it is stored the bar changes to Available for offline use and you can fill it in with no connection.

Under Profile → Settings → Usage Settings you can see how much space the app is using, change the limit, and see how long submissions are kept on the phone — thirty days to begin with. Manage Storage shows what you have downloaded and lets you clear it.

Picking up an unfinished form

If you leave a form part way through, the app saves it for you and tells you "Form saved to drafts".

To get back to it, open the same form again. The app asks whether you want a new one or the draft:

1. Tap DRAFT FORM to carry on where you left off.
2. Tap NEW FORM to start again. Your draft stays where it is.

Completing a site induction

An induction is how a builder confirms you understand their site before you work on it. On most sites it is the first thing you do, and on many it is what lets you sign on at all.

1. Scan the induction code at the gate, or open the link your builder or your employer sent you.
2. Check your details. Most of them come from your profile.
3. Work through the content — site rules, plans, any questions you are asked.
4. Sign on the screen with your finger where the form asks for a signature.
5. Tap SUBMIT.

Your induction is recorded as Pending until someone at the builder reviews it. Once they do, it shows as Inducted.

Signing on and off site

Signing on records that you are on site. It matters for safety — in an evacuation the list of who signed on is the list of who to account for — so sign out when you leave as well.

1. Scan the Sign In code at the gate, or open Sign In from the home page.
2. A green YOU ARE SIGNING IN banner confirms which way you are going.
3. If the form asks for your location, tap Get Location.
4. Check your details and choose the site you are working on.
5. Answer whether you are a worker or a visitor, and tick the acknowledgement shown.
6. Tap SUBMIT.

When you leave, scan the Sign Out code and submit. Signing out is a shorter form, and a red You are signing out banner confirms it.

Filling in the site diary

The diary is the daily record of what happened on site. It is the document that gets pulled months later when someone asks why a week was lost, so write it as you go rather than at five o'clock.

1. Open Site Diary from the home page, or scan its code.
2. Choose the project.
3. Set the date. The calendar opens on today, so usually you just confirm.
4. Add equipment and deliveries using Add for each one.
5. Write up the day — what was done, anything that held you up, anything that went wrong, and what is planned for tomorrow.
6. Add photos.
7. Tap SUBMIT.

Your entry is saved against the project and is available to your team in Deep Space.

Finding the current drawings

If your builder has set it up, every project has a Document Register page in DS Site holding the current drawing set: one file per drawing, at its latest revision. When the office issues a new revision, it replaces the old one on this page, so what you see here is the set to build from.

Getting to the drawings

1. Open your builder's channel and tap Pages and Forms, then Pages.
2. Tap Documents, then Project Documents. Each project is listed by its name, followed by the project code and number in brackets.
3. Tap your project. Under the Document Register heading, tap the register entry.
4. The page lists the drawings under Files. Tap one to open it; tap Done to come back to the list.

Reading the list

Each file is named from the drawing number, the revision and the title, for example A4 611 Rev 1 NEW BUILDING EXTERIOR DETAILS CANOPY.pdf. Punctuation in drawing numbers shows as spaces, so the drawing the office calls A4-611 appears here as A4 611.

The list is in drawing-number order. It is not split by discipline, but most drawing numbers start with a discipline letter (A architectural, S structural, E electrical, M mechanical, H hydraulic, F fire, C civil), so each discipline's sheets sit together.

Your builder may also put a tile such as Drawings on the channel's home page that opens this page directly.