Backup and Restore

Creating a backup ensures that your contacts, visits, notes, and reminders are safe if you lose your phone, get a new device, or need to reinstall the app.

Why Should I Back Up?

Your data in Field Service Companion is stored on your device. If something happens to your phone — it is lost, damaged, or replaced — your contacts, visit history, and scheduled reminders could be lost with it.

A backup creates an encrypted copy of all your data that you can restore later. It only takes a moment, and it could save you months of carefully recorded visits.

We recommend creating a backup regularly — especially after adding new contacts or logging important visits.

How to Create a Backup

1. Tap the Settings tab.
2. Tap Backup & Restore.
3. Tap Create Backup.
4. The app generates an encrypted backup file and a 6-word recovery phrase.
5. Write down your recovery phrase and keep it in a safe place. You will need it to restore the backup.
6. Tap Copy to copy the phrase to your clipboard, or tap Save Backup to share the file. The share sheet lets you save it to iCloud Drive, Google Drive, email it to yourself, AirDrop it to another device — anywhere you'll be able to find it later.

The app verifies every backup the moment it's written: it decrypts the file you just made and re-checks that everything reads back correctly. If anything is wrong, the app deletes the bad file and tells you so you can try again — you will never end up with a backup file that quietly cannot be restored.

How to Restore a Backup

1. Open Field Service Companion on your new or reinstalled device.
2. Sign in with your Apple ID or Google account.
3. Go to Settings → Backup & Restore.
4. Tap Restore from Backup.
5. Select the backup file from where you saved it (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, email, etc.).
6. Enter your 6-word recovery phrase.
7. Your contacts, visits, notes, and reminders will be restored. A confirmation banner shows how many records came back. Any reminders you had scheduled for the future are re-armed automatically.

If Something Has Gone Wrong On Your Device

In rare cases — for example after a storage problem on your phone — the app may detect that its local data is damaged and start the Recovery screen. You'll see a friendly screen titled "We need your help" with three options:

• Restore from backup — The recommended path. Opens the same restore flow described above. Your contacts and visits come back exactly as you left them, assuming your most recent backup file is reachable.
• Send debug report — Shares a non-personal diagnostic file with the development team. Doesn't fix anything by itself, but helps us understand what happened.
• Start fresh — A last resort. Clears the local data on this device and starts with an empty app. Use this only if you have no backup and want to begin again.

After a successful restore from this Recovery screen, the app continues normally — you don't need to relaunch.

Keeping the App Healthy

You can ask the app to verify its own data is consistent at any time:

1. Tap Settings → Run integrity check now.
2. The app will run a full check of its local database. This usually takes well under a second.
3. You'll see either "Database is healthy ✓" or a note that auto-recovery will run on next launch.

The app does this same check automatically every seven days, so you usually never need to. The button is for those moments when something feels off and you want a clean signal.

Important Things to Know

• Your recovery phrase is the only way to unlock your backup. There is no "forgot password" option. If you lose the recovery phrase, the backup cannot be restored. This is by design — it means no one else can access your data either.
• Backups are encrypted with strong encryption. Even if someone finds your backup file, they cannot read it without the recovery phrase.
• The app does not automatically back up your data to a cloud service. You need to create backups manually and save them somewhere you can find them. Cloud backup is planned for a future version.

Need More Help?

If you have difficulty creating or restoring a backup, a friend who is familiar with Field Service Companion may be able to help you. You can also contact us at support@returnvisits.org.