Browse Items

Drill down through your inventory like folders to find a specific piece of equipment.

Browse Inventory lets you explore your equipment visually instead of scrolling one long list. You start at the top level of categories and tap to open each one, the same way you would open folders on a computer. Container items — bags, cabinets, kits — can also be opened to reveal the gear stored inside them, and tapping a regular item opens its full detail page. Browse is read-only and works offline.

Overview

The screen has a header reading Browse Inventory, a breadcrumb strip underneath it, and a two-column grid of tiles.

Element	What it does
Breadcrumb trail	Shows your path, starting at Home, with > between each level. Every name is a button.
Category tile	A card with the category name in bold, the word Category underneath, and a chevron arrow on the right. Tap to open it.
Item tile	A card with the item name in bold and either Container, or Status: and Serial: lines.
Uncategorized	A folder that appears automatically at the top level whenever items exist with no category assigned.

Tiles are laid out two across, so long names wrap onto a second line. The grid scrolls vertically; the breadcrumb scrolls sideways and jumps to its right-hand end each time you go a level deeper.

Reading a tile at a glance

Tile shows	Meaning
Name, then Category, with a chevron	A category. Tapping it goes one level in.
Name, then Container	An item marked as a container. No status or serial is shown for containers.
Name, then Status: … and Serial: …	A regular item. Missing values show as a dash (-).

Getting Here

1. Open the Account tab and tap the Inventory module.
2. On the Inventory landing screen, tap Browse.
3. The screen opens with the header Browse Inventory and a breadcrumb starting at Home.
4. Tap the Back arrow at the top left to leave Browse and return to the landing screen.

An agency administrator can also reach this screen from Agency Settings → Inventory → Browse.

Navigating Through Categories

1. At the top level — Home — you see all of your agency's main categories as tiles. Only top-level categories appear here; anything nested under a parent shows up once you open that parent.
2. Tap a category tile to open it. What happens next depends on what is inside:
   • If the category has sub-categories, those appear as the next level.
   • If it has no sub-categories, its items appear instead.
3. As you go deeper, the breadcrumb trail at the top grows to show your path, such as Home > Vehicles > Engine 1. The level you are on is shown in bold; the levels above it are in lighter text.
4. Tap any name in the breadcrumb to jump straight back to that level without backing out one step at a time. Tapping Home returns you to the top.

note

A category that contains both sub-categories and items shows only its sub-categories. Items filed directly under such a category are easier to find on the Items list.

Opening Containers and Items

1. Some items are marked as containers on the item form. A container tile reads Container instead of showing a status and serial number.
2. Tapping a container that holds other items opens it like a folder and shows its contents — the items whose Parent Item is set to that container.
3. Tapping a regular item, or a container with nothing inside it, opens the Item Details screen instead.
4. Tap Back on the details screen to return exactly where you were browsing; your breadcrumb position is kept.

The Item Details screen

Item Details is a plain, scrolling list of labels and values. Every field is shown, in this order:

Field	Notes
Item Name:	The item's name.
Description:	Free text.
Serial Number:	As entered on the item form.
Model Number:	As entered on the item form.
Status:	In Service, Out of Service, Maintenance, or Retired.
Status Reason:	Optional note explaining the status.
Assignment Type:	frontline, backup, spare, or reserve.
Is Container:	Yes or No.
Expiration Date:
In Service Date:
Purchase Date:
Lifespan (Months):	A number. Shows 0 if not set.
Location Detail:	Free text, such as a bin or slot.
Category Name:
Manufacturer Name:
Storage Location Name:
Vehicle Name:	The vehicle this item is assigned to, if any.
Child Count:	How many items sit inside this one. Shows 0 for non-containers.
Cost:
Warranty Expiration:

Any field with no value shows N/A. Long values wrap onto as many lines as they need. The Item Details screen is view-only — there is no edit button. To change anything, go to the Items list and tap the blue pencil button on that item's card.

Finding Uncategorized Gear

1. If any item has no category assigned, an extra tile named Uncategorized appears at the top level alongside your real categories.
2. Tap it to see every item with no category.
3. The Uncategorized folder is created on the fly each time Browse loads — it is not a real category, so it never appears on the Categories screen and cannot be renamed or deleted.
4. It disappears on its own once every item has a category.

info

Browse is read-only. You cannot add, edit, or delete equipment here — use the Items and Categories screens for changes.

Loading, Empty, and Offline States

Situation	What you see
Opening while online	Saved items and categories paint first, then a spinner runs and the grid refreshes from the server.
Opening while offline, with saved data	Your saved items and categories appear right away. No error message.
Opening while offline, never synced	The grid is blank. Go online once and reopen it.
Online but the server does not answer	Whatever was already on screen stays there with no alert. If there was nothing saved, the app shows the error it received.
A category is empty	You open it and see an empty grid. Tap a breadcrumb name to go back up.
Refreshing while deep in a category	Your breadcrumb position is kept — a refresh does not throw you back to Home.

tip

Items and categories you created offline still appear in Browse right away. Browse reads from the same saved data as the Items and Categories screens, so all three stay in step. Items you deleted offline disappear from Browse immediately too.

How This Connects

• Where the data comes from. Browse has no store of its own. It reads the same saved item and category copies that power the Items and Categories screens, then asks the server for a fresh copy when you are online.
• What updates it. Any save on the Items or Categories screen, from any device in your agency. The tree you see is built from three fields on each record: a category's Parent Category, an item's Category, and an item's Parent Item.
• Which fields build the folders. Parent Category nests categories inside each other. Category files an item under a category. Parent Item, combined with the Is Container checkbox, nests items inside container items.
• Storage locations and vehicles. Browse organizes by category, not by place. An item's Storage Location Name and Vehicle Name are shown on its details page, and the locations themselves are managed on Storage Locations.
• Counts elsewhere. The same item records are tallied into the tiles on the Inventory Dashboard, so a piece of gear you find here is also one of the numbers there.
• Offline and reconnect. Because Browse reads the local copy, items and categories created offline show up here before they have reached the server, and offline deletions vanish straight away. When you reconnect, the server copy is merged in and any renames or edits from teammates appear.

Troubleshooting

If this happens	What to do
The grid is blank at Home	Either your agency has no top-level categories, or this device has never synced. Connect once and reopen.
A container will not open	Containers only open when something is inside them. If nothing has that container as its Parent Item, tapping it opens the details page instead.
An item you know exists is nowhere to be found	Check the Uncategorized folder at the top level, then look on the Items list, which shows everything in one place.
Items are missing from a category	A category that also has sub-categories shows only the sub-categories. Look inside them, or use the Items list.
Every value on a details page reads N/A	The fields were left blank when the item was created. Edit it on the Items screen to fill them in.
The breadcrumb is too long to read	Swipe it sideways, or tap Home at the far left to start over.
You want to edit something you found here	Note the item name, then open Items and tap the blue pencil on its card.

Related Pages

• Items
• Categories
• Inventory Dashboard
• Storage Locations

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