🧰 Keeping Tools Organized: Dynamic Building Re-Assignment & Status Bar Fixes

If you manage a mechanical contracting business or a busy facilities department, your equipment database isn't static. Machines get replaced, spare parts get used, and service tools move from site to site. A Fluke multimeter might start the week at Pine Ridge and end it at the clinic across town.

When you create a tool, it's easy to accidentally skip the location field or leave it assigned to the general shop. Historically, once the tool was created, the assigned building was locked in and couldn't be changed after the fact.

Our latest update changes that. You can now dynamically edit and re-assign tools to any building at any time. Here is how it works, how our custom autocomplete dropdown speeds up the workflow, and the design updates we made to keep the mobile interface clear of the status bar.

Dynamically Re-Assigning Buildings

We added a new blue Edit button to the header of the Tool Details screen. Tapping it opens a complete, scrollable specification sheet where you can update any detail about the tool — from its name and brand to its serial number and category.

Most importantly, the Assigned Building is now fully editable. If a technician moves a tool to a new job site, you can open the tool's profile, tap Edit, and update the building name in a few seconds. The change updates your local database instantly and triggers a background sync to the cloud (for Pro users) so the rest of your team sees the new location immediately.

Fast Autocomplete with Inline Dropdowns

To speed up building assignment on both the New Tool screen and the Edit Tool screen, we built a custom inline dropdown menu.

When you tap the dropdown arrow next to the building input, the app loads a scrollable list of all distinct building names currently in your database. As you type, the list filters in real-time, letting you tap to autocomplete the building name. If you want to clear the assignment entirely, there's a quick 'Clear Assignment' button at the top.

Why did we build this inline instead of using a standard popup modal? In React Native, opening a modal on top of another modal (especially on iOS) can cause layout conflicts where the second dialog is blocked or hidden. Keeping the dropdown inline inside the edit screen avoids these conflicts entirely, making the autocomplete experience extremely fast and reliable.

Status Bar Layout Padding Adjustments

If you're using the app on a modern bezel-less phone, you might have noticed that headers on the Company Tools and Tool Details pages could sometimes end up pushed too high — tucked underneath the battery bar, camera notch, or status indicator.

To correct this, we increased the top padding on Android to 56px across all tool-related screens: the tools list, the new tool form, and the tool profile details. This drops the headers down slightly on native devices, ensuring all close, back, edit, and delete actions are easy to see and tap without any screen elements overlapping.

Reliable Vendor Check-In Emails

Finally, we addressed an issue where some co-worker notification emails for vendor check-ins were being blocked by corporate spam filters (like Proofpoint). Previously, the system sent a single email listing multiple addresses in the 'To' field, which corporate firewalls frequently flag as spam.

We refactored our cloud functions to send notifications individually (one email per recipient). This bypasses the spam trigger, ensuring everyone on your building notification list gets their check-in alert immediately. We also fixed a sync gap to ensure that building notification email edits made on the mobile app sync properly to the public check-in trigger in Firestore.

These updates are rolling out now via an over-the-air update. Simply restart your app to download the latest native changes!

Jonathan Curtis

HVAC Technician & Founder · Equipment Tracker Pro

Jonathan Curtis is an HVAC technician and the founder of Equipment Tracker Pro. He built the app to solve real-world property handoff challenges — including the absolute nightmare of losing years of maintenance histories and having to reprint physical asset tags.