Photos: reference shots and proof of this visit

Most software has one photo bucket and no opinion about it. LakeOps has two, because a photo of where the dock goes and a photo proving you pulled it last October are doing completely different work.

Reference photos: the institutional memory

These live on the item and there are two sets: how it looks in the water, and how it is stacked for the winter. They are permanent and they are never pruned.

This is the single most valuable thing you can leave for the next person. Crews turn over. Somebody who has never seen a shoreline can open the item, look at the picture, and know where the dock goes and which way the canopy frame lies on the rack. That knowledge otherwise lives only in the head of whoever has worked the lake longest.

The crew app shows the right set automatically: “where it goes” on a spring stop, “how it stacks” on a fall one, opened by default on any item still pending.

Visit photos: proof of this occurrence

These are added on the job item from the stop screen — what this crew left behind, this visit. They answer a specific question: “you say you pulled my lift last fall, show me.”

Because that question has a natural shelf life, so do these photos. LakeOps keeps every item’s photos from its two most recent completions and clears the older ones, with a floor so nothing ages out early on a quiet account. By the time a set is cleared, the crew has been back and photographed the item again — the newer set has already superseded it.

Which one should the crew take?

Situation	Which photo
First time at a property, or the item changed	Reference — on the item, from the office or the field.
Finished a normal stop	Visit photo on the item you finished, if anything is worth showing.
Something is damaged or not right	Visit photo, plus a note. That pair is what protects you when it comes up in six months.
Skipping an item	Visit photo of why, along with the written reason.

Photos and no signal

Be straight with crews about this one: photo uploads need a connection. Timers, completions, notes and pin corrections are all recorded on the device and sent later — images are not yet part of that queue.

In practice: mark the work done as it happens, and take the photograph either where you have bars or with the phone’s own camera to add when you are back in range. Nothing you tap is at risk; only the picture waits. See working with no signal.

Who sees them

The office sees both sets on the job and the item. The customer sees what is on their completion page. Reference photos are internal working knowledge — they are for your crews.