Add photos and videos to a job

Photos are the quickest way to show what you found and what you did. Before and after shots, a cracked heat exchanger, a meter reading, the state of a loft before you started. Attach them to the job and everyone can see them.

Videos work here too, for the things a still can't show: a noise a boiler is making, water coming through a ceiling, how a valve behaves when you open it.

Adding photos on your phone

Open the job and find the Photos section. You get two buttons:

• Take photo opens the camera for one shot
• Choose photos opens your camera roll, where you can select as many as you want in one go

On an iPhone that's the standard iOS photo picker — search, albums, recents, the lot — as long as you've given Mucka access to all your photos.

Tap Choose photos, tick every shot you want, and confirm. Mucka uploads them one after the other and you'll see "Uploading 2 of 7…" so you know how far along it is. The thumbnails appear as each one lands.

You don't have to add them one at a time any more. If you've just done a boiler swap and taken a dozen shots, select the lot in one go.

On a computer

On a desktop or laptop the Photos section is a drop area instead. Drag photos and videos straight onto it from a folder, or click browse to pick them. You can select several at once there too.

Videos

Videos sit in the same section as photos. A clip shows up with a small play badge in the corner so you can tell it apart from a still, and tapping it opens the player.

• On a computer or the mobile website, add a video the same way you add a photo: drag it onto the drop area, or click browse and pick it. MP4, MOV and WebM all work, up to 200 MB.
• In the app, you can watch any video on a job, but picking a new one from your camera roll isn't in yet. Until it is, add clips from the website and they'll show up in the app straight away.

Videos brought across from an old system land here too, so if you had clips on jobs in Commusoft or Gas Engineer Software, they're on the job in Mucka.

Viewing photos and attachments

Tap any thumbnail and the photo opens full screen over the page, at full quality. Swipe-worthy arrows (or the arrow keys on a computer) move between shots, and you close it by tapping outside the photo, the X, or going back.

You don't have to open the whole job to see them, either. Tap a job in your diary and the photos are in the sheet that slides up, under the notes. They're view-only there — adding and deleting stay on the job itself, so nothing gets lost to a mis-tap on a sheet you open twenty times a day.

Files in the Attachments section open the same way: a photo or a PDF opens in a full preview right there in the app. Word documents, spreadsheets and CSVs can't be shown in a preview, so tapping one downloads it instead — on your phone that's the share sheet, so you can send it straight to Files, print it or pass it on.

Saving photos and sending them on

Along the bottom of the full-screen photo there's Save, and Save all when the job has more than one.

• On your phone, that opens your normal share sheet. Save to Photos puts them in your camera roll; the same sheet is how they go to WhatsApp, Messages, Mail or Files. Save all sends the whole set through in one go rather than one at a time, which is what you want when a customer asks for the before-and-afters.
• On a computer, they download. Save all fires one download per photo — your browser may ask once whether to allow multiple files; say yes and the rest follow.

They come down named after the job, so JOB-1043 1.jpeg, JOB-1043 2.jpeg and so on, rather than the long string of letters and numbers they're stored under.

Gas certificates

Photo evidence on a certificate works the same way. Each check item that takes a photo has Take photo and Choose photos buttons, and you can attach up to six per item.

The Scan buttons put their photo on the job for you. When your engineer photographs a rating plate or an analyser screen to fill the fields in, that same photo lands in the job's Photos section — so nobody is taking the picture twice, once for the scan and once for the record. It only files a photo the scan could actually read; a blurry one that is about to be retaken is left off. More on that in Scan a data plate instead of typing it.

Sending a photo to Mucka in chat

Photos you send in the chat with Mucka are a different thing. That's for asking Mucka to look at something, like reading a supplier receipt. Chat takes one photo at a time on purpose, so Mucka can deal with each one properly and show you what it read off it. To store a set of photos against the job, use the Photos section on the job instead.

What Mucka does to your photos and videos

Photos come off a phone camera far bigger than anything needs to be. Mucka shrinks each one on your phone before it uploads, so:

• Uploads finish quicker on a weak signal in a van
• You use less of your data allowance
• The app stays steady when you add a lot of photos in one go

The photos stay plenty sharp for viewing and zooming. There's nothing to switch on.

Videos are kept exactly as recorded, so nothing is lost from a clip you might need later.

Common gotchas

• Worried about photo size? Don't be. Send whatever your phone took. Mucka shrinks each photo on the phone before it uploads and tidies up anything still large at the other end, so there's nothing for you to compress first.
• Only seeing one button. You're on the web version rather than the app. Drag photos onto the drop area or click browse, and hold Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) to pick more than one.
• Choose photos shows nothing. Mucka needs permission to see your camera roll. On iPhone open Settings → Mucka → Photos and pick All Photos. On Android open Settings → Apps → Mucka → Permissions.
• "Save all" only saved one, on a computer. The browser blocked the rest. Look for a message near the address bar asking whether to allow multiple downloads, allow it, and press Save all again.
• Photos not appearing for the office. They upload as you add them, but they need a connection. If you were in a basement with no signal, open the job again once you're back on and check the thumbnails are there.