--- title: How to fill in a job from a photo of the paperwork description: Photograph the delivery note and Stratum Track offers its details for the fields that are still empty. You tick what to keep, nothing you have typed is touched, and the record keeps an audit trail on every AI-filled value. published: 2026-09-01 updated: 2026-09-01 --- # How to fill in a job from a photo of the paperwork An item arrives with a delivery note stapled to it. The order number, the serial number and the description all have to be typed into the job, off a piece of paper that is already in the technician's hand. It is five minutes of typing per job, and it is how digits get transposed. Stratum Track lets your technician photograph the note instead. It reads what is on it, offers the details for the empty fields on that step, and your technician ticks what to keep. Nothing is saved until they do. This takes no setup on your side. Ask us to switch it on for your workshop, and the button appears on any step with empty fields it can fill. ## What you need - The feature switched on for your company. It is off until you ask for it. - A step with fields still empty. The button appears only where there is something on that step it could fill, so it never appears where it has nothing to do. ## Step 1: Press Fill from a photo The button sits above the step, on the right. Your technician presses it, takes the photo, and Stratum Track reads it. It handles the paper a workshop already has: a delivery note, a paint tin label, a weld spool tag, a handwritten sheet somebody filled in on the floor. ## Step 2: Check what it read Nothing has been saved at this point. Stratum Track shows what it found and asks your technician to check each value. ![The Check these values sheet, with four values read from a delivery note and one flagged as hard to read](/assets/screens/photofill-01-check-these-values.webp) Each row shows the field, the value, and **Read from:** the words on the paper it took it from, so your technician can check each value against the paper itself. Every row has its own tick box, and only the ticked ones are saved. A row that needs a second look is marked in amber: - **Hard to read, check this one**, where the writing was poor. Stratum Track flags the row rather than guessing. - **Check this against the sheet**, on any measurement your template holds a tolerance for. It appears whatever the reading is, so every measurement with a tolerance on it is checked by a person before it is signed for. At the bottom, **Already filled in, left alone** lists the fields that already had an answer, with what that answer is. ## Step 3: Press Use these values The ticked values go into the fields, and each one carries a small **From a photo** chip so your technician can see which answers they did not type. They then work as they always have: type over anything that is wrong, fill in anything the note did not show, and save the step. ## Step 4: Look at what the record says ![A job's record, showing which values a machine filled and which one a person then changed](/assets/screens/photofill-02-record.webp) On the job's record, a value read from a photo carries a **Filled by AI from a photo** chip. If a person then changed it, the chip reads **Filled by AI from a photo, edited**. The chip stays on the record for the life of the job. So when a client or an auditor asks which values a machine filled, and whether a person checked them, the record answers both. ## Starting a whole job from a photo The same reading runs from the dashboard as well. **Job from a photo** takes the paperwork that came in with an item and opens the create job form already filled in, so nobody has to type the note in. If the photo does not show enough to start a job, it says so: **We couldn't get enough from that photo to start a job.** It then lists what it did read, and offers **Try another photo** or **Create it the usual way**. ## Worth knowing - **A value your technician has typed is never overwritten.** Only empty fields are offered, and anything already answered is listed as left alone. - **Nothing is saved without somebody tapping to accept it.** The reading step and the saving step are separate on purpose. - **It does not fill a field inside a repeating table.** Those hold as many rows as the work needs, and one line off a delivery note cannot decide which row it belongs to. - **A field an unsigned hold point has locked stays locked.** A required signature still comes first. - **If it cannot read the photo it says so, in plain words**, and tells your technician to type it in as usual. It fills nothing rather than filling part of the step. ## Common questions #### Can it put a wrong value on a job without anybody noticing? No, because it cannot save anything on its own. It proposes, your technician ticks, and only ticked rows are written. Anything already filled in is left untouched, and the sheet lists it as left alone. After that, every value it did fill carries a chip on the record saying so, and a second one saying edited if somebody changed it. The chip stays on the record after signing. #### What kinds of paperwork does it handle? The paper that already comes into a workshop. A delivery note, a paint tin label, a weld spool tag, a handwritten sheet. It reads the printed and handwritten text in the photo, the same as a person would. Where the writing is poor it marks the row **Hard to read, check this one** and leaves the judgement to a person. #### Which fields will it fill? The empty ones on that step that take text, a number, a decimal, a measurement, a date, a time, a dropdown answer or a yes and no. It skips fields already answered, read-only references, fields inside a repeating table, and fields an unsigned hold point has locked. #### Does my technician have to use it? No. It is a button on the step and nothing else changes. Ignore it and the step works exactly as it did before. A workshop can adopt it one technician at a time, and nobody is blocked by a photo that cannot be read. #### Is this switched on for everyone? No. It is off by default and enabled per company, so ask us and we will turn it on for your workshop. If you would like to see it against your own paperwork first, send us a delivery note and a report and we will show you.