[Status: Investigating 🕵️‍♀️] Make apps work offline

Hi Max, thanks for sharing your feedback here! I can definitely see how this functionality would be useful. We've already introduced offline sync capabilities to the Android app, and we always work on keeping the features consistent across different platforms, so it's great that you've shared this request here to help us learn about its popularity.

This would be really useful for getting up to date when travelling with poor or no internet access

@Darren, thank you for adding your vote here! :)

Add mine too. I catch up with my tasks when traveling mainly on planes. It is a piti you cannot access your tasks.

+1

Hi everyone, thanks for the comments! If you haven't already, make sure to click the "+" on the counter right underneath to original post to add your vote to it. Thank you! :)

I am glad I found this thread. We work with multiple teams in areas where there is little to no internet access. Being able to access tasks offline is critical for us. Anastasia, you mentioned we already have this capability with Android phones, can you please send me that article? Also, when would this be available for iOS?

A further question: Can we use these apps for online access on tablets (both Android and iOS)?

Hi John! Thanks for those questions. Info can be found in the Working Offline section of our Android App article, as well as in the corresponding section of the iOS App page - we've already released some updates there which make limited offline work possible! :) Both apps can be used both on Android and iOS based tablets, as long as they run on a supported version of Android (3+) or iOS (9+).

Absolutely essential. Plane time is ideal for doing maintenance and updates.   iOS please.

Add my vote too. This is essential when you're on the go. Also on the desktop app, otherwise there's no point on having a desktop app.

I can send emails and access my OneDrive folders offline so it would be great to access tasks and work with them.

N

I'm adding my vote also :) 

I tested the iOS "cache" feature.  It is nice, f you have opened those projects, tasks, docs.   

+1

Would be great in chrome too - ios on iphone isn't a great user experience yet (especially with Dashboards)

+1 p l e a s e !

Offline mode would be great !!! 

Hi all, thanks for your feedback on this post. Enhancing our mobile experience is something our Product Team continues to work on, and are keen on developing further. This information is very helpful in that process 👍

Yes, very important to be able to work when Internet connection is bad!!

I agree that it would be good to get the iOS app to work better offline, but there is one key feature that is needed to avoid confusion:

When the app is offline, or there are connectivity issues, there needs to be some kind of banner or alert (ideally one that persists until the issues go away), so people know their changes aren't being synced. We've had numerous occasions where users have saved comments using the wrike ios app, and then shut down the app, and not realized that their comments hadn't posted for others because of internet issues. It might be the next day, or even a few days later when they use the app again, and then not only did their original comment not post when it should have, but it posts much later in the thread, and creates even more confusion. 

And in the meantime, it would be great to be able to know for sure that something has posted and synced in the app. Currently even when you're offline and you post a comment, it looks like it has synced, and there's no way to tell it hasn't until someone else brings it up. There needs to be some kind of check mark or other UI indication that something has successfully posted and synced, to avoid this kind of silent failure.

Optimally, we would be able to download an entire folder with our tasks to work with offline. I've been vacationing in Hawaii and Google Maps' offline download ability is an incredible example for how to handle pre-loading.

Is it or will it be possible to have the desktop version also equipped with the offline working feature (creating tasks and more)? I am working on my windows based laptop when I am travelling.

Yes would be greatfor me too..travelling time is a good moment to think about tasks and projects and would be great if this time become a productive  thanks to wrike...

If I would prioritise the effort , I would insert the working offline feature in the desktop version of the app, then the mobile app.

..and yes, please assure the syncing status of what is inserted or left in the app is effectively clear and communicated....

Thanks

Paolo

I defintely need that functionality too - bit disappointing given that we're corporates paying the full rate and Asana has offline mode :(

@Everyone Hi, thanks for adding your votes and comments 🙂 For now while working offline on your iOS app, the following actions are available to you:

1. If you've opened a Folder, Project, My Work, Inbox, or Dashboards while online, you can view and open tasks from that section while offline. You can also edit the tasks' titles, assignees, statuses, and Folder tags. You will only be able to see/open tasks that match the same filters you were using while online.
2. You can also create new tasks, add comments, and attach files to tasks while offline. When you connect to the internet again your changes will be synced.
3. Submit Requests while you are offline (for Business or Enterprise users). A task or Project is created once you connect to the internet.
4. Reorder tasks in Folders and Projects that you've opened while online to change their priority (sort tasks by Priority to do it). Your changes are synced when you connect to the internet again.

I'd suggest adding your votes on Desktop App enhancements to this post 👍

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Thanks for the update, Lisa. There are still a couple of major issues with working offline on mobile:

1. There is no way to know you are working offline: There is no message telling you there are connectivity issues. 

2. Offline actions are only synced if you re-open the app: Syncing doesn't happen in the background...it only happens if you open the app again while connected to the internet. The problem is, since there's no way to know you are working offline, how do you know that you need to re-open the app when you've connected again? 

This has resulted in our team regularly (as in several times a month) leaving essential comments in tasks via mobile apps, having them not sync, and this causing confusion and delays in work. At this point, we are basically avoiding using the mobile apps at all, since this seems to happen really frequently on mobile.

Hi guys,

So, we're over the 60 vote mark so I've been busy getting a roadmap status.

There are two operating systems so the update is slightly different for both.

iOS

Sync after offline edits: Right now the team is trying to overcome a platform-obstacle. This is around the system's time-lapse for offline edits. Basically, the system stops saving certain actions after a certain timeframe and also it depends on other offline apps the system is running. The team is investigating how to overcome this and I'll update here when I have more news.

No 'Offline' indication: In iOS app we show a panel indicating that there is no connection. It is shown on every screen and it is quite visible. Please comment below with how we can improve this.

Android

Sync after offline edits: When android is connected to a network it sends an internal notification for all installed applications. We handle this “call” and start the sync process in the background. So this is available for Android 🙌

No 'Offline' indication: Great feedback for the Product team on this - we are going to add some indicators into the app to emphasize offline mode. With mobile apps, it's hard to say exactly when this will happen but the team is aiming to have it done before the end of Q3. If I have a concrete date I'll update you here.

Thanks again to everyone for helping this reach 60+ votes, go Community!

I've added the Community status of investigating, as all the items mentioned here are things the mobile dev team want to do soon 👍

Hi Stephen,

Re: "No 'Offline' indication", maybe there was a bug involved, because we've had a number of situations where we've made a comment or changed a description or status on a mobile app (ipad or iphone) and had it not applied until we opened the app later on, even though there was no "offline" message. When I brought this up with support, they said it was because the app was offline when we first made the change, and so that's why I commented on this thread. However, since there was no "offline" message displayed, it must be due to a different issue. I wonder if there's some kind of latency issue, e.g. it takes a certain amount of time for a change or comment to be applied, and if you close the app directly after making your change or comment, it doesn't have enough time to apply it? Either way, this is still preventing us from making use of the Wrike mobile apps.

I think a number of us would still like the functionality in our desktop app as well. Until then, I will use my iPad...

Hi Brandon Weber, thank you for your feedback here! Our Product team is planning to start the research on that 👍 

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover