KeyLink for Field Reps

The mobile companion for reps in the field — your route for the day, what to do at each store, shelf audits, suggested orders, and wrapping up a visit. About 9 minutes.

KeyLink is the field side of KeyOne, built for phones and one-handed use while you’re standing in a store aisle. It delivers the right tasks to the right store and captures what you did, so head office can see the result. KeyLink is part of the main KeyOne app and is role-gated to field reps — if you have a rep role, it’s there for you. You can install it to your phone’s home screen straight from your browser (it’s a PWA), so it opens like a native app, full-screen, with no address bar in the way.

Getting around

KeyLink is built around a bottom tab bar — large, thumb-friendly targets you can hit without looking:

• Route 🗺️ — your stores for the day, in visit order
• Store 🏪 — everything to do at the store you’re in
• Orders 📦 — suggested orders to place
• Stats 📊 — your performance

A bar across the top shows the current screen’s name and a pending-sync badge — a count of changes you’ve made that haven’t uploaded yet. The number ticks down to zero as things sync. If you lose signal, a banner appears:

“You are offline. Changes will sync when reconnected.”

You can keep working exactly as normal — capture audits, resolve tasks, adjust orders — and KeyLink holds it all locally, then syncs automatically the moment you’re back online. You never have to remember to “save.”

Your route for the day

Open Route to see the stores assigned to you, ordered for an efficient run, with a lightweight map overview so you can picture the day at a glance.

An honest note on routing. The visit order is optimised using straight-line (as-the-crow-flies, Euclidean) distances, and the map is a lightweight overview — not turn-by-turn navigation. It’s a genuinely useful running order, but it does not yet account for real road distances, one-ways, or live traffic. Treat it as a smart suggestion, lean on your local knowledge, and reorder in your head where it makes sense. For actual directions, use your usual maps app.

Tap a store to open it and start your visit. The route is your spine for the day — you’ll come back to it after every store, and finished stores read as done so you always know where you are in the run.

At the store

The Store screen is your checklist for the visit. A header KPI row shows the store’s headline numbers — total decision value (the rand on the table here), OSA % (on-shelf availability), and the open action count — followed by sub-tabs:

Win List | Audit | Orders | Notes | Summary

Win List

Your prioritised actions for this store. Each is a card showing the action type, a title, the estimated weekly rand value, and a priority score bar so the biggest, most urgent wins sit at the top. Work down the list and, as you handle each one, mark it resolved — or dismiss it if it no longer applies (already fixed, product discontinued, store closed that bay). This is the same Win List engine that drives the office side; you’re just closing those decisions out in the field instead of at a desk.

Audit

Run a shelf audit by capturing a photo of the shelf for a category. KeyOne reports back what it sees — out-of-stock (OOS) gaps, your share of shelf, planogram compliance, and competitor presence — and can automatically create follow-up tasks wherever it finds a problem. An audit score is shown as a ring so you get an at-a-glance read on the category.

An honest note on image recognition. The shelf-photo analysis is currently simulated. The capture, the write-back to KeyOne, and the automatic task creation are all real and working — but the part that identifies what’s actually in the photo is a placeholder. KeyLink labels simulated results clearly so you’re never misled into treating a placeholder reading as a real measurement. When the real recognition model is switched on, it drops straight into this same workflow — same buttons, same tasks, same audit ring — just with real numbers behind it.

Orders

Suggested orders for the store, with quantities pre-filled from the engine’s recommendations. Review each line, adjust any quantity that doesn’t match what you see on the shelf or hear from the manager, then place the order. The pre-fill is a head start, not a mandate — your eyes in the store always win.

Notes

A free-text field for anything worth recording about the visit — a conversation with the store manager, a one-off issue, a promo that’s landed badly, or context for the next rep who walks in.

Summary

Your end-of-visit debrief: the score ring, the count of items you resolved, the orders you placed, and your notes, all in one place. When everything’s done, tap End Visit to complete the store and return to your route. That’s your signal that this stop is wrapped.

Stats

The Stats tab is your own scoreboard — a quick read on how your day and your run are going: stores visited, actions resolved, orders placed, and how your numbers are trending. It’s there to motivate, not to micromanage; glance at it between stores to see your progress add up.

A visit, start to finish

A typical stop, step by step:

1. Open Route and tap the store you’ve arrived at.
2. Read the header — decision value, OSA %, open actions — to know what kind of visit this is.
3. Work the Win List top to bottom. Resolve what you fix; dismiss what no longer applies.
4. Run an audit on the key category: capture the shelf photo, review the gaps/share/planogram/competitor read (remember: simulated for now), and let it auto-create any follow-ups.
5. Place orders from the Orders tab — accept the pre-filled quantities or adjust to match reality.
6. Add notes for anything the system can’t capture on its own.
7. Open Summary, sanity-check the debrief, and tap End Visit.
8. Move on — KeyLink returns you to the route for the next store.

How your work feeds back

Everything you do in KeyLink completes KeyOne’s loop. When you mark a task resolved, the decision behind it is recorded, the engine re-checks that store × product, and the outcome is verified later — did availability actually recover, did the order land, did the gap stay closed. Your fieldwork directly sharpens the next day’s recommendations: what you do in the aisle becomes the data that makes the whole system smarter.

DiagramYour store visits are the 'Act' step that closes KeyOne's loop

To see how a single decision travels from suggestion to verified result, read Working a Decision. To understand where these tasks come from on the office side, see the Decision Inbox.

Reps & coverage

Behind your daily route sits the People view, which records rep coverage — which reps look after which stores and territories — and rep activity. It’s how the right tasks reach the right rep: your route is built from the stores you cover.

Managers can see their team’s coverage and activity here, and push a task directly to a rep.

Honest scope. People is a coverage and activity view. It is not a full team-management console — there is no in-app flow yet for inviting, removing, or changing teammates’ roles. Those changes are handled by your administrator (see Account & Settings). KeyOne won’t show a control that doesn’t do anything.

A worked example

Illustrative figures and a made-up store — not a real customer.

You arrive at “Riverside Mini-Market”. The header reads R1,840 decision, OSA 86%, 4 open actions.

• Win List, item 1: Resolve OOS — 2L cooldrink, est. R620/week. You spot empties in the back, face them up onto the shelf, and mark resolved.
• Win List, item 2: Resolve OOS — 410g canned beans, est. R380/week. The store’s out entirely, so you note it for the order and mark resolved.
• Audit: you photograph the snacks bay. The (simulated) read flags a planogram gap and share of shelf below target, and auto-creates a follow-up task for the next visit.
• Orders: the suggested order has the canned beans pre-filled at 2 cases. You bump it to 3 after talking to the manager, and place it.
• Notes: “Manager wants extra facings on snacks ahead of month-end — flagged for follow-up.”
• Summary: score ring up, 2 resolved, 1 order placed, notes saved. You tap End Visit.

Two OOS items worth roughly R1,000/week addressed in a few minutes, an order placed, and a follow-up queued — all captured and ready to sync.

Tips for in-store use

Install it first. Add KeyLink to your home screen so it opens full-screen and loads fast — no hunting through browser tabs in the aisle.

Trust your eyes over the pre-fill. Suggested order quantities are a starting point. If the shelf or the manager tells you different, adjust before placing.

Watch the sync badge, not your signal bars. As long as the pending-sync count is dropping, your work is landing. If it’s stuck, you’re probably offline — keep going, it’ll catch up.

Resolve as you go. Mark each Win List item the moment you handle it, rather than batching at the end. It’s easier to remember and the Summary stays accurate.

Common pitfalls

• Treating the route map as navigation. It’s an overview built on straight-line distances. Use a real maps app for directions.
• Reading simulated audit numbers as gospel. Until the real recognition model is live, the photo analysis is a labelled placeholder — use it as a prompt to look, not as a verified measurement.
• Forgetting to tap End Visit. A store isn’t wrapped until you do; the Summary is your last checkpoint.
• Placing orders without checking quantities. The pre-fill is a recommendation, not a final answer.
• Assuming nothing saved while offline. It did. Reconnect and the badge clears itself.

For terms used here, see the Glossary. For quick answers, see the FAQ.

Next: Account & Settings