PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Driver & Tech App

Using the Porta Potty Driver App With Gloves On and in the Truck

A porta potty tech's hands are not clean office hands. They are in gloves most of the day, dealing with hoses, chemicals and waste. The phone has to fit into that day without becoming a mess or a safety problem. That is mostly about habits, and good habits are simple.

The Fewer Taps, the Better

Training a new tech, as covered in Training a New Porta Potty Driver on the App in One Ride-Along, is mostly about rhythm. Part of that rhythm is knowing when the phone comes out and when it stays put. The driver app asks for very little per stop: read the card, tap Map, tap Start, take a photo, tap Complete. Everything else is information the tech reads, not data they enter.

That is on purpose. The less a tech has to touch the phone, the cleaner it stays and the faster the route moves.

Read at the Curb, Not on the Road

The single most important habit: do the reading when the truck is parked. At the curb, before getting out, the tech reads the card: units, unit numbers, placement notes, gate codes, site notes. Then taps Start and gets out.

When the job is done, back at the truck, the tech takes off a glove if needed, takes the photo, taps Complete, reads the next card, taps Map, and puts the phone in the mount. Then drives.

Nothing on the phone should need attention while the truck is moving. Navigation talks, the next card waits.

Gloves On, Gloves Off

Most heavy work gloves do not work on a touchscreen. There are a few common approaches:

• Pull off one glove for the few taps at the truck, then put it back on
• Wear touchscreen-compatible liner gloves under work gloves, and only remove the outer glove
• Use a stylus kept in the truck for quick taps
• Keep a pack of wipes in the cab and clean hands before touching the phone

Whatever the tech chooses, the rule is the same: dirty gloves do not touch the phone. The phone goes home with them, into their pocket and onto their kitchen table.

Batching the taps helps as well. Instead of pulling a glove off three times at one stop, the tech can do all the phone work in one moment at the truck: photo, Complete, read the next card, tap Map. One glove off, a few seconds of taps, glove back on, drive. Over a thirty-stop day, that habit saves a surprising amount of time and keeps the phone a lot cleaner.

Photos With Gloves

The photo is the one step that happens at the unit, not at the truck. If the tech can take it without removing gloves, great. If not, the easiest pattern is: finish the service, strip one glove, take the photo, walk back to the truck, tap Complete. Some techs prefer to take the photo from the truck window when the unit is close, which works fine on many sites.

Mounts and Chargers

A dash or vent mount keeps navigation visible and the phone out of the tech's hand. A charger in the truck matters more than people expect. Navigation, photos and crew GPS for the office map all use battery, and a tech whose phone dies at 1 pm is a tech running the afternoon from memory.

If your techs use their own phones, consider providing mounts and chargers. It is cheap, and it keeps the route running.

Weather and Rough Sites

Rain, mud, dust and cold all affect phones. A cheap rugged case and a screen protector save a lot of broken screens. In hard rain, read the card in the cab and take the photo quickly. In freezing weather, keep the phone in an inside pocket between stops, because cold drains batteries fast.

Keeping It Clean

Phones get dirty in this job. A simple routine helps: wipe the phone with a disinfecting wipe at lunch and at the end of the day. If a company phone stays in the truck, give it its own case that never leaves the cab, and clean it at the end of the shift.

Safety First

No tech should be reading notes, taking photos or typing while driving. If something needs attention, pull over. That rule protects your techs, your trucks and your insurance. The app is built around taps at the curb, so there is never a reason to touch it on the road. For more on getting the app on the crew's phones, see iPhone or Android, No App Store: Putting the Driver App on Phones Your Crew Already Has.

The Short Version

Read at the curb, tap at the truck, clean hands or liner gloves on the screen, phone in the mount while driving, charger always plugged in. For everything the app shows on each stop, see the PortaPottyBossPro driver and tech app page.