Why capture has to work offline

Ask anyone who has counted mortality at the back of a shed: the moment you need to record a number is the moment you have no bars. If the software waits for the network, the number gets written on a hand, a wall, or nowhere. So the first design rule in PoultryDesk is simple: capture never waits.

Submit first, sync later

When you submit a capture form, PoultryDesk writes the entry to a local queue on the device and shows it with a queued badge right away. You move on. In the background, when a connection is available, the queue uploads on its own. You never resubmit, and you never lose an entry because a page failed to load.

The server decides the order

Offline devices cannot agree on time, so the server is the source of truth for ordering. Each entry carries a client-generated id that makes it idempotent: a retry or a flaky connection can send the same entry twice, and it still counts once. When two people capture against the same lot while offline, both entries are kept and reconciled on sync.

Corrections instead of overwrites

Because the record is append-only, fixing a mistake means adding a correcting entry, not editing history. That keeps the daily round fast (no one has to find and unlock an old record) and keeps the trail intact for an audit.

What it feels like

In practice, the round feels instant even on a dead connection, and the numbers are safe the moment you tap submit. That is the whole point: the technology gets out of the way so the work gets recorded.

For the operator's-eye view of the same behavior, see the FAQ on offline and sync.