The benefits of capturing data from industrial equipment are plentiful - from boosting worker efficiency and increasing production, to proactively maintaining equipment and minimizing downtime. Samsara reduces the upfront capital and ongoing operating costs of capturing that data by providing a consolidated SCADA technology stack. Even with SCADA helping more customers than ever, there are still assets without telemetry that need to be manually tracked with paper and pen.

Samsara now offers industrial customers a mobile app to capture data in a digital form. Instead of using clipboards and paper to manually capture data from equipment, field technicians can use the Mobile Forms app. By using a mobile app, form data is ingested in real-time and consolidated with telemetry data for use in Samsara dashboards, reports, and analytical tools.

Reduce time spent filling out forms

Using paper to record and track data for reporting is one of the most time consuming and inefficient processes still found within many industries like oil and gas, water and wastewater, or equipment rental and service companies. A single oil and gas pumper can be responsible for servicing anywhere from one to one hundred wells, spending hours writing down production data and consolidating at the end of the day for submission to a central office. 

With Samsara, pumpers can fill out a mobile form customized to their specific operations. Administrators can easily set up the form within the Samsara dashboard to capture data like well status, flow rates, oil production, ticket number, pick up date, or other relevant data for each well. Those forms are then immediately accessible to unlimited users through the mobile app.

Improve reporting accuracy

The accuracy of paper tracking can be compromised, whether due to a hurried inaccurate reading, messy handwriting, a coffee spill, or a miskey by an office worker. Digital forms improve reporting accuracy by eliminating many of those issues.

Samsara gives customers the ability to set up data validations that provide feedback to technicians when a recorded value is not within the expected range. For example, if a water operator is recording a tank level that cannot exceed 90 feet, and they mistype 700 into the form, they will be asked to correct it while they’re still onsite. Improved accuracy has a positive impact on tracking key regulatory compliance data, like water quality.

Access consolidated data in real-time

Not only does the Mobile Forms app help field workers; it also alleviates office workers from spending time inputting forms into Excel spreadsheets or other tools. All form data is submitted directly to the cloud, where it can be viewed alongside telemetry data in dashboards, reports, or analysis. Plus, alerts can be set up for unexpected values, giving supervisors the opportunity to investigate without the time delay of paper records.

The Mobile Forms app is designed to work without internet connectivity, so technicians can capture data from remote locations without cell service. The form data will be uploaded to the cloud as soon as cell connection is reestablished. 

The Mobile Forms app is available today with a separate license. To learn more about the setting up Mobile Forms, check out the support article and reach out to your Samsara representative.