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Volunteer Field Capture

The Field Capture app lets volunteers photograph and record items on-site with their mobile device, even when offline. Designed for community archives, volunteer scanning days, and distributed collection events.

Available on Starter and above. Requires the Volunteer role or higher.

What it is​

Field Capture is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that runs in your mobile browser. It works offline, stores captures on the device, and sends them when you press Send now. Volunteers can:

  • Photograph items with their phone camera
  • Record audio notes describing the item
  • Add metadata — titles, dates, descriptions, donor details
  • Capture consent — checkbox confirming permission to digitise

Everything stays on the volunteer's device until they tap Send now. No uploads happen without an internet connection.

Accessing Field Capture​

  1. On your mobile device, open your browser and navigate to app.archivers.ai/capture.
  2. Sign in with your volunteer or archivist account.
  3. When prompted, tap Add to Home Screen to install the app.

The app icon appears on your home screen. Launch it like any native app — it works offline from that point forward.

Creating a new accession​

Field Capture works with accessions — a single batch of items captured in one session (e.g. "Smith family photos — 2026 donation", "Village Hall records — May scanning day").

Option 1: Voice-assisted accession​

The fastest way for volunteers unfamiliar with archival terminology:

  1. Tap New Accession.
  2. Under Speak it (optional), tap Start recording.
  3. Answer the five prompts listed on screen, in any order:
    • What's in the accession?
    • Where is it from?
    • What dates does it cover?
    • Who donated it?
    • Anything else we should know?
  4. Tap Stop when done — recording stops itself at 90 seconds.
  5. The platform listens, then pre-fills the form fields with suggested values and marks the panel Drafted.
  6. Review and edit the suggestions, then tap Create Accession.

Dictation needs the Professional plan or above, and an internet connection; on a plan or a moment without either, the button is disabled and says so, and you type the fields instead.

Option 2: Typed entry​

For volunteers who prefer typing:

  1. Tap New Accession.
  2. Fill in:
    • Title — short name for this batch (required)
    • Description — what the materials are and where they came from
    • Date range — approximate dates covered
    • Donor / source — who provided the material
  3. Tap Create Accession.

Capturing items​

Once you've created an accession, you're in the capture screen:

Taking photos​

  1. Tap the camera button.
  2. Take a photo of the item (document, photograph, artefact).
  3. The capture appears as a thumbnail in the grid.
  4. Repeat for as many items as you have in this batch.

Multi-page documents: Take one photo per page. Each arrives as its own item; link them as pages of one record afterwards in the app — see Reviewing classifications.

Recording audio​

  1. Tap the microphone button.
  2. Record an oral history, interview, or audio note about an item.
  3. Tap Stop when done.

Audio captures appear in the grid with a waveform icon.

Adding metadata​

Tap any thumbnail to open Capture Details:

  • Donor / Source Information — who provided the material, or the event it came from
  • Description / Scope and Content — what the item is, its historical context, or the details of an oral interview (required)
  • They said yes to this going into the archive. — tick to confirm permission to digitise. Required before it will send; without it the archive refuses the upload every time.

Tap Save Capture to keep the changes.

Offline mode​

The app caches everything locally in your browser's storage. When you're offline:

  • Captures still work — photos and audio are stored on your device
  • Sending is refused — the header says Offline, and pressing Send now tells you to reconnect
  • Metadata edits save locally — they go up with the next send

When you're back online, the header says Online again and Send now works.

Sending what's waiting​

When you're ready to upload:

  1. Connect to Wi-Fi or mobile data.
  2. Tap Send now. One pass goes over everything on the device still waiting.
  3. The app uploads each capture in turn, naming the file and showing its percentage and the overall progress.
  4. A capture that didn't go keeps a Send again button of its own; where the block was a missing consent, ticking the consent is offered on the row itself.

What happens on the server:

  • Each capture becomes a file in the accession.
  • Metadata you entered in the field is attached to the file.
  • The accession appears in the archivist's Dashboard → Accessions list, ready for review.
  • AI processing is triggered automatically (if quota permits).

Review workflow for archivists​

A volunteer's capture is held for a check: it's marked Waiting for a check and kept out of Explore, finding aids, exports and the public portal until someone accepts it. It reaches staff through the Review desk, under New material, and through the waiting for a check card on the Dashboard. From there, or from the accession itself, you can:

  • Review the photos and metadata
  • Run OCR or transcription on items that need it
  • Assign the accession to a fond
  • Export when ready

Volunteers see only the accessions they've created. Archivists see all accessions across the organisation.

Every capture must have consent recorded ticked before it will send. This confirms the volunteer has obtained permission from the donor, property owner, or rights holder to digitise the material.

The platform records who captured it, when, and which device it came from (the browser's own description of itself, recorded automatically). This provenance trail appears in the item's metadata and is included in exports.

Deleting local captures​

To remove captures from your device without sending them:

Use the Delete control on the capture's row and confirm. The dialog says plainly what is being thrown away — this is useful if you accidentally photographed the wrong item.

Limitations​

  • No video capture (yet) — use your phone's native camera app and upload videos separately via the desktop interface.
  • No editing after sending — once a capture has gone, you edit it in the main app.
  • Consent is per-item — you can't bulk-apply consent to all captures. This is intentional — each item requires explicit permission.

Troubleshooting​

A capture wouldn't send

  • Check your internet connection — the header says Online or Offline
  • Ensure you're signed in (the app prompts you to re-authenticate if your session expired)
  • The row says why it stopped, and offers Send again. Where the reason was a missing consent, tick the consent on the row first — sending the identical file again would only be refused again.

See also​