We're looking at an issue where photos attached to checklist items aren't appearing in the PDF export of completed work orders. In my experience, this tends to surface when teams are trying to generate customer-facing documentation or compliance records, and what I typically recommend is understanding why this happens before attempting any workarounds.
Summary
Photo attachments within checklist responses are excluded from PDF exports due to image processing timeouts on the server side.
Symptoms You'll Notice
- The PDF generates successfully and shows all text responses
- Checklist items that should contain photos display "Photo attached" or a placeholder icon instead of the actual image
- The exported file size is smaller than expected given the number of photos
- No error message appears during export — the PDF simply completes without the images
Affected Platforms and Versions
This currently affects all versions of FieldPulse through 3.2.1, across web and mobile-generated PDFs. The limitation exists in both the standard export and bulk export workflows.
What I Typically Recommend — The Root Cause
In my experience working with field teams, this isn't actually a bug in the traditional sense, though I understand it feels like one. The PDF generation service has a hard timeout of 30 seconds for any single export request. When a checklist contains multiple high-resolution photos (which is increasingly common now that most technicians are using newer smartphones), the image processing pipeline cannot resize and embed all images before that timeout fires.
The system is designed to fail gracefully — it completes the PDF with text content rather than failing entirely. What I typically recommend is understanding this trade-off: we get a usable document rather than a broken export, but the photos aren't included.
Resolution Options
There are a few paths forward depending on what your use case actually requires:
Option 1: Reduce photo resolution before upload
What I typically recommend for teams where customer-facing PDFs are critical is configuring the mobile app to capture photos at a lower resolution specifically for checklist attachments. This is found under Settings → Photo Quality → Checklist Attachments. The "Medium" setting usually allows 4-6 photos to process within the timeout window.
Option 2: Use the photo report instead
For compliance or documentation purposes where the photos are the primary deliverable, what I typically recommend is generating a separate Photo Report from the work order detail page. This creates a ZIP archive rather than a PDF, bypassing the image embedding limitation entirely. In my experience, most teams actually prefer this once they understand the workflow — the photos are original resolution and organized by work order.
Option 3: Export from the web interface with individual photo download
If you need a single consolidated file, what I typically recommend is using the web interface's print-to-PDF function after opening the work order. This renders the checklist in browser-native HTML where photos load asynchronously, then you can use your browser's print dialog to save as PDF. It's not as elegant, but in my experience it preserves the visual layout with photos intact.
What We're Doing About This
The product team is aware that the 30-second timeout is increasingly constraining as photo quality expectations rise. In my experience, there's active work on a background processing model that would generate PDFs asynchronously and email them when complete, similar to how bulk exports already work. I don't have a committed timeline, but what I typically recommend is watching the mobile app updates channel for announcements.
If your workflow absolutely requires embedded photos in PDF exports and none of these options work, what I typically recommend is opening a support ticket with your account manager. There are some configuration options around timeout thresholds that can be adjusted for enterprise accounts, though they do require engineering review.
