Set Manual Date for Uploaded Photos

[Jacob - TRIG]

Title: Prompt for photo date when uploaded photos are missing capture-date metadata

When photos are uploaded into CompanyCam rather than taken directly within the app, CompanyCam appears to use the upload date if the original “date taken” metadata is missing.

This creates a problem with project timelines. For example, if someone texts or emails us photos from a job and we upload them several days, weeks, or months later, those photos can appear in CompanyCam as though they were taken on the day they were uploaded. This can make the project history inaccurate and potentially misleading.

It would be very useful if, when CompanyCam detects that an uploaded photo does not contain a reliable original capture date, it prompted the person uploading it with something like:

“CompanyCam could not determine when this photo was taken. Use today’s date or enter the actual date?”

The user could then either:

• Use the upload date; or
• Manually select the actual date the photo was taken.

Ideally, there would also be a way for authorized users to correct the date of an existing photo afterward if the wrong date was assigned.

This would be especially useful for contractors who receive project photos from employees, subcontractors, customers, consultants, or other trades and need CompanyCam to maintain an accurate chronological project record.

 

[Megan M.]

Jacob, this is a really well-laid-out request!

Straight answer: there’s no way to set or correct a photo’s date today, and we don’t have a prompt when capture data is missing. We avoid the ability to manually add dates so the data we do have can be used as a reliable record of when a photo was taken. However, we understand there is a gap there when metadata is missing. Here’s exactly how it works right now so you know what you’re dealing with: If an uploaded photo still has its original EXIF data, CompanyCam does use that original capture date, not the upload date. The upload date only kicks in when that EXIF data is gone.

There are ways to avoid missing EXIF data. EXIF usually gets stripped by how the photo travels, not by CompanyCam. A few things that help:

• Text messages are the biggest culprit. Most messaging apps compress photos and strip metadata. If you can get folks to send originals (email as “actual size,” AirDrop, or drop them in a shared cloud folder) the capture date usually survives the trip.
• Upload from the original source when you can. If a photo gets moved from a phone to a desktop and then uploaded, the date can get rewritten along the way. Uploading straight from the device it came from gives you the best shot at the real date.
• For photos where the date is already lost, drop the actual date into the photo’s description and add a tag for it. It won’t fix the sort order, but it puts the real date permanently on the record. This matters a lot if that project history ever has to hold up for an insurer, inspector, or customer dispute.

I’m passing this to our product team as written, because the “prompt me when you can’t tell the date” framing is a great idea. It solves the problem at the moment the person actually knows the answer, instead of asking them to go hunting later. I can't make any promises on development, but requests like this are a real part of how priorities get set, so thank you for putting it together so clearly.

 

[uamarketing]

I second this. We uploaded a screenshot of a satellite view of a project and because of this it didn't have any date meta and so it sits at the top of the project even though it was one of the first elements added to the project.