https://tradeyoke.net/blog/author/assemblysoft-devops The engineering team behind TradeYoke: how it is built, deployed and kept running. en-gb https://tradeyoke.net/blog/sign-in-to-trade-business-software-with-google https://tradeyoke.net/blog/sign-in-to-trade-business-software-with-google Wed, 14 Oct 2026 10:35:42 GMT Too many passwords is how trade businesses end up with a reused one, a shared one or a sticky note in the van. Here is how to carry fewer of them, and how TradeYoke removes passwords altogether. AssemblySoft DevOps Security Product Guides https://tradeyoke.net/blog/the-tradeyoke-build-timeline https://tradeyoke.net/blog/the-tradeyoke-build-timeline Wed, 14 Oct 2026 08:39:00 GMT One page listing every part of Building TradeYoke in date order, from the idea in 2019 and the start in January 2024 to where the platform stands in October 2026. AssemblySoft DevOps Our story Engineering Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/from-passwords-to-passkeys-sign-in-and-trust https://tradeyoke.net/blog/from-passwords-to-passkeys-sign-in-and-trust Wed, 14 Oct 2026 08:34:00 GMT A system that holds a business's customers and invoices has to be hard to break into. Here is how TradeYoke's sign-in grew, and what is live in the web browser today. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Product Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/passkeys-sign-in-without-a-password-for-tradespeople https://tradeyoke.net/blog/passkeys-sign-in-without-a-password-for-tradespeople Wed, 14 Oct 2026 02:35:42 GMT Locked out of the business app in a customer's driveway, or reusing one password everywhere because it is the only one you remember? Here is how passkeys fix that, what to do whatever software you use, and how to sign in to TradeYoke with a fingerprint. AssemblySoft DevOps Security Product Guides https://tradeyoke.net/blog/invoice-fraud-and-account-takeover-protection https://tradeyoke.net/blog/invoice-fraud-and-account-takeover-protection Sat, 26 Sep 2026 01:15:46 GMT A text saying "our bank details have changed" has cost UK businesses tens of millions of pounds. Here's what actually protects a trade business from invoice fraud and account takeover — the habits that help whatever software you use, and how TradeYoke is built to catch a forged message before you act on it. AssemblySoft DevOps Security Payments Guides https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-app-four-platforms https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-app-four-platforms Sat, 05 Sep 2026 21:15:11 GMT TradeYoke's web app and native apps are the same code. Here's what that buys customers — and the rules we follow to keep it true. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters https://tradeyoke.net/blog/offline-first-why-it-matters Thu, 21 May 2026 08:15:11 GMT Signal drops in basements, plant rooms and country lanes. An app that keeps working there, and syncs honestly when the signal returns, is the one you'll actually use. Offline is not a mode. It is the ordinary condition of a working day, and the app should be built for the ordinary condition. — TradeYoke ### Why the web app is different, and why we say so TradeYoke runs on web, iOS, Android and Windows from one codebase. The installed apps, on the phone and on a Windows laptop, are offline-first in the sense above: local store, queued changes, sync with conflict rules. The web app in a browser is where the office plans the week, sends the invoices and reads the reports, and since November 2026 it keeps working with no signal after one visit too: in Chrome and Edge it even sends your changes after you close the tab. We say that plainly because "works offline" on a website usually means very little, and because the split is deliberate. The phone is where the signal drops, so the phone is where offline lives. The platform page sets out what each surface does. > ✅ Offline mobile is included in every TradeYoke plan, including Free. It is not an add-on, because a phone app that stops in a basement is not a phone app. ### What it looks like on a wet Tuesday A window cleaner working a rural round loses signal at the third stop and does not notice. The stop is marked done, the customer pays cash and it is recorded against the visit, the next customer's gate is locked so the visit is skipped with a note, and the rain sets in at stop nine. The undone stops are moved to Thursday in one go, as described in the rain days post. None of that needed a connection. When the van reaches the main road, the queue sends: the done, the cash, the skip, the carry-over. The office sees the round's state, the owed figure updates, and the "we're coming Thursday" texts can go out. The cleaner did not think about signal once. [Image: Plan my day on the phone: the morning decisions are made once and sent to the phone, so the day runs from the local copy.] ### How we built it, briefly Every change is a small, self-describing operation with its own id, so sending it twice does nothing and sending it late still works. Each record carries a version tag; a change made against an old version is detected, not silently applied. The phone pulls a feed of what changed on the server since it last asked, rather than re-downloading everything. Conflict rules are declared per kind of change, and the ones that cannot be resolved automatically are surfaced to a person. That is the substance behind the marketing phrase. It applies to every trade on the trades page, because the sync layer does not know or care whether the record is a window cleaning visit or a gardening one. The live monitoring described in the tracking post rides on the same connection logic. See also: what already works on a phone browser today See also: offline-first in practice ### How to test any app's offline claim - ✓ Put the phone in flight mode before opening the app — If it will not open, the claim is about cached pages, not work. - ✓ Mark a job done, take a photo, record a cash payment — All three, with no signal. Then book the next visit. - ✓ Change the same job from another device — Then turn the signal back on and see which change survives, and whether the app tells you. - ✓ Close the app, reopen it, still offline — The queued changes should still be there. - ✓ Reconnect and check the office view — Everything should arrive, in order, once. ### Questions people ask **Does the app work with no signal all day?** Yes, on the phone and installed apps. The day's data is on the device, changes queue on the device, and the queue sends when a connection is available, whether that is at the next stop or back at the yard that evening. **What if the phone dies before it syncs?** The queue is stored on the device, not in memory, so it survives the app being closed or the phone being restarted. Charge it and reconnect and the changes send. If the phone is lost, unsynced changes on it are lost with it, which is a reason to let it sync at the next opportunity rather than at the end of the week. **Does the web app work offline?** Yes, after one visit. Open the web app once with signal and it keeps working with no signal; in Chrome or Edge it even sends your changes after you close the tab, and in Safari or Firefox they send the next time you open a tab. A few pages need a connection and say so. The installed apps on Android, iPhone and Windows, which are in pilot, also send changes in the background, and they are where the signal most often drops. **Does offline cost extra?** No. Working with no signal, on the web and in the apps, is part of every plan, Free included, and plans are per business rather than per user. See the pricing page for the four plans. ### Take the round somewhere with no signal and see TradeYoke's phone apps work offline and sync honestly when the signal returns, on every plan. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> AssemblySoft DevOps Mobile Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/van-tracking-without-the-hardware https://tradeyoke.net/blog/van-tracking-without-the-hardware Sat, 16 May 2026 10:15:11 GMT You do not need a box wired into the van to know where the team is. The app on the phone is the tracker, and the map shows customers, jobs, vehicles and people together. 💡 Send the on-the-way text from the visit, not from a personal phone. It goes from your business number or address, it is recorded on the customer's record, and the reply comes back to the office, not to whoever happened to be driving. ### Privacy with the team: tracking people, not vans A box in the van tracks a vehicle. An app on a phone tracks a person, and that difference is where trust is won or lost. The Information Commissioner's Office publishes guidance on monitoring workers, and the principles are straightforward: be clear about what is collected and why, collect it only when it is needed, and tell people before you start. In practice that means tracking during the working day, for the purposes above, and saying so in writing. The team should know what the map shows, who can see it, and that it is off when they are not at work. Covert tracking is a fast way to lose good people and a slow way to lose an employment tribunal. Check the ICO's guidance and, if you employ people, your HR adviser before you switch anything on. [Employment practices and data protection: monitoring workers](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/employment/monitoring-workers/): The Information Commissioner's Office guidance for employers on monitoring, including location tracking: lawful basis, transparency and proportionality. ### Before you switch tracking on - ✓ Write down why — Dispatch, customer updates and safety are good reasons. Curiosity is not. - ✓ Tell the team, in writing, before it starts — What is collected, when, who sees it, and that it is scoped to the working day. - ✓ Give the map to the people it helps — A team that can see each other on the map understands what the office sees. - ✓ Keep it to working hours — The app is the tracker while the app is at work. - ✓ Review it after a month — Ask the team what it has been used for, and whether that matched what you said. ### When hardware still makes sense An app on a phone is not the answer to everything. If you need to recover a stolen van at three in the morning, a hidden hardware tracker with its own battery is the tool. If you want driver behaviour data for an insurance policy, or you need to track plant and trailers that never have a phone with them, the same applies. And a worker without a company phone is not on the map at all. For a business of two to fifteen people whose questions are the three above, the phone is enough, and the saving is the fitting cost and a fee per vehicle every month. It is honest to say the app solves dispatch and customer updates rather than theft recovery. ### App on the phone or a box in the van? | Need | Phone app | Fitted hardware | |---|---|---| | Where is the team right now | Yes | Yes | | Nearest person to a callout | Yes | Yes, if one person per van | | On-the-way texts to the customer | Yes, from the visit | Not usually | | Stolen vehicle recovery | No | Yes | | Driver behaviour for insurers | No | Yes | | Plant and trailers | No | Yes | | Cost | Included in Ultimate | Fitting plus a fee per vehicle | ### Where it lives in TradeYoke Live monitoring is part of the Ultimate plan, which is per business rather than per vehicle or per user; every plan is on the pricing page. The map runs on the web for the office and on the phone for the team, from the same data and the same connection logic described in the offline-first post. Because it is one map across every trade, a business running two trades sees both crews together, which is one of the small reasons one account for two trades works. See also: keeping a lone-working tradesperson safe See also: how live monitoring began [Image: The same map on the phone, so the team sees what the office sees.] ### Questions people ask **Does it drain the phone battery?** Location sharing while the app is at work uses some battery, as any navigation app does. It is scoped to the working day rather than running permanently, and a van charger removes the question for most teams. Test it for a week before deciding. **Can a team member turn it off?** It is their phone, so yes. The app makes clear when location is being shared, and tracking is tied to the working day. The right approach is an agreement about when it is on, written down, rather than a technical lock nobody trusts. **Is it worth it for a one-person business?** Less so for the map, more so for the on-the-way texts, which a sole trader benefits from as much as anyone. Texting customers is part of Essentials and every plan above it; the live map is Ultimate. **Do I need the Ultimate plan?** Live monitoring is in Ultimate, with your own website and the customer portal. Essentials includes the diary, customers, branded quotes and invoices, reminders, emailing and texting customers, and offline mobile. The 30-day trial is Essentials with no card, so the live map is something you switch on by choosing Ultimate. ### Put the team on the map this afternoon TradeYoke's live monitoring uses the app as the tracker, with on-the-way texts sent from the visit. Start a 30-day trial of Essentials with no card. [Start your free trial](https://app.tradeyoke.net/signup) ]]> AssemblySoft DevOps Product https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-core-many-trades-adding-gardening-and-more https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-core-many-trades-adding-gardening-and-more Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:30:00 GMT With window cleaning solid, April 2026 was about whether the core could carry other trades. Each trade is a module on the same core: its own terms, forms and colour. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Product Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/working-with-no-signal-offline-first-in-practice https://tradeyoke.net/blog/working-with-no-signal-offline-first-in-practice Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:28:00 GMT February 2026 put the offline-first idea from 2024 to work: the round on the device, changes queued, and a clear rule for when two people edit the same thing. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Mobile Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/trails-and-replay-a-days-route https://tradeyoke.net/blog/trails-and-replay-a-days-route Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:27:00 GMT January 2026 added trails to the live map and a way to replay a device's day. What a route can settle, and why it is worth having. AssemblySoft DevOps Product Engineering Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/where-is-the-van-live-monitoring-begins https://tradeyoke.net/blog/where-is-the-van-live-monitoring-begins Tue, 11 Nov 2025 10:25:00 GMT Every business with more than one van asks the same question sooner or later. November 2025 began live monitoring: the team on one map, with the phone app as the tracker. AssemblySoft DevOps Product Engineering Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/google-maps-across-tradeyoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/google-maps-across-tradeyoke Tue, 14 Oct 2025 09:24:00 GMT By October 2025 TradeYoke needed maps in many places. We built one shared set on Google Maps, so a customer, a job and the whole team all use the same map. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Product Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/getting-the-address-right-postcodes-and-pins https://tradeyoke.net/blog/getting-the-address-right-postcodes-and-pins Tue, 12 Aug 2025 10:22:00 GMT Everything on a round depends on the address. August 2025 added type-ahead address search, UK postcode lookup and a pin on a map for every customer. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Window cleaning Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/inspections-checklists-with-evidence-and-sign-off https://tradeyoke.net/blog/inspections-checklists-with-evidence-and-sign-off Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:20:00 GMT June 2025 brought inspections: a checklist you build once, work through on site marking each item pass or fail, with evidence for every fail, signed off and sent as a report. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Guides Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/searching-inside-your-documents-not-just-their-names https://tradeyoke.net/blog/searching-inside-your-documents-not-just-their-names Tue, 15 Apr 2025 09:21:00 GMT A library is only as good as your ability to find things in it. In April 2025 we made the library search inside the files, not just at their names. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Product Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/the-page-a-customer-accepts-a-quote-on https://tradeyoke.net/blog/the-page-a-customer-accepts-a-quote-on Tue, 11 Mar 2025 08:17:00 GMT March 2025 gave the customer somewhere to say yes: a secure link to the quote, no login, with lines they can untick and a way to tell you when suits. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Product Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/an-invoice-ledger-that-cannot-be-quietly-edited https://tradeyoke.net/blog/an-invoice-ledger-that-cannot-be-quietly-edited Tue, 12 Nov 2024 08:13:00 GMT November 2024 was about trust. The invoicing ledger only ever adds entries: a correction is a new line, not an edit. Here is why that makes the books easier to trust. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Payments Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/getting-an-existing-round-in-import-and-duplicates https://tradeyoke.net/blog/getting-an-existing-round-in-import-and-duplicates Tue, 10 Sep 2024 09:11:00 GMT Nobody wants to retype four hundred customers. September 2024 was about import: check the file first, show what will happen, never silently merge, and flag the duplicates. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Guides Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/signatures-photos-and-filing-the-paperwork https://tradeyoke.net/blog/signatures-photos-and-filing-the-paperwork Tue, 30 Jul 2024 10:10:00 GMT Once customers and jobs worked, the paperwork started to pile up: photos, certificates, notes and PDFs. In July 2024 we built a document library that files things where you will look. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Guides Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-codebase-and-offline-first-the-early-decisions https://tradeyoke.net/blog/one-codebase-and-offline-first-the-early-decisions Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:08:00 GMT Two decisions made in the first half of 2024 shaped everything since: one shared codebase for the web and the apps, and a phone that keeps working when the signal drops. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Mobile Building TradeYoke https://tradeyoke.net/blog/designing-jobs-that-repeat https://tradeyoke.net/blog/designing-jobs-that-repeat Tue, 14 May 2024 08:06:00 GMT A window clean happens again and again. May 2024 was about designing a job that repeats: its frequency, its next-due date, and what happens when it is paused or skipped. AssemblySoft DevOps Engineering Window cleaning Building TradeYoke