DroneOps is the operations hub for your drone business: planning and running jobs, capturing flight logs, managing safety and compliance, and billing clients. The left-hand navigation lists the modules available to you. On a phone, Dashboard, Plan and Flights are tabs along the bottom and More holds the rest. Back goes to the Dashboard first, then leaves the app.

The core loop is job-centred: Create job → (optionally quote it) → do the work and upload the logs → close the job, capturing what was used → raise an invoice. Almost everything ties back to a job.

Roles control what you can do. Admins set up your organisation under Settings (users, billing, compliance rules and more) before day-to-day work begins. Clients and Aircraft have pages of their own, for everyone.

Your account. Select your name at the foot of the navigation (on a phone, the organisation name at the top, or More) and choose Account: your profile, sign-in security, preferences, this guide and feedback. Sign out is there too.

Alerts. The bell in the navigation holds your alerts. For you lists what has happened to your own work, such as a corrective action assigned to you; a row opens it. Admins also see Compliance: what needs attention across the organisation, such as certifications and documents expiring, and a row opens the place to fix it.

Your landing page. The tiles headline organisation-wide numbers: jobs upcoming or under way, total flight hours, flights logged and distance travelled. Upcoming and under way opens Plan on those jobs (Status: Upcoming) and Flights logged opens Flights. Two charts break all-time flight time down by aircraft and by pilot. The pilot chart is an organisation view, the same for every member.

This week lists the jobs scheduled from Monday to Sunday, in New Zealand time, and a job over several days shows its range. Click a job to open it. Click a row under Recent occurrences to open that occurrence.

Quick actions jump you straight into common tasks: Create job, Upload logs, New quote and New invoice (where billing is on for you), Log occurrence, Report a defect and Upload document. Closing the dialog without saving brings you back here.

Jobs are listed under Plan, the heart of the app. A job records the client, location, flight type, crew, aircraft, risk assessment and everything else about a piece of work. Search by job, number or client, filter by status or client, and use Sort to reorder the list. The Status filter also has Upcoming (jobs still ahead or under way), Notice owed (spraying jobs not yet closed with someone still to tell, or a notice period and nobody listed) and Records owed (flown spraying jobs whose spray diary is not complete). Right-click a job (long-press on a phone) for Edit, Clone, Quote this job, Cancel job and Delete, whichever your role allows, and Display flights on a job with logs.

• Create job opens with a choice: send the client a site questionnaire (only the client is needed, and the link goes to the email on record) or enter the details yourself. The steps run in two parts: Enquiry (client, flight type, dates) and Plan (Overview, Location, Flight, Risk assessment). The forecast for the job's dates shows on its card. A draft needs only a client. Submit job asks for the rest and lists everything missing at once, and a draft's Continue draft button opens the first step with something missing. Where your organisation requires approval, a submitted job waits for an admin or job approver to approve it or send it back.
• Flight type classifies the work: spot spraying, broadacre spraying, survey, inspection or photography. Spraying types unlock the spray fields (target, planned products, water rate) and drive spray metrics. The type is also what your charge-out rules key off.
• Stages: a job's heading names where it stands: Enquiry, Plan, Notify, On the day, Records or Close, with what is owed (such as Notify: 2 not told). Each tab carries the mark of its stage: done, current, needs attention or not needed. Stages are worked out from what is recorded and never force an order. A phone opens the tab for the current stage.
• Crew & aircraft: assign a pilot in command, other crew and the aircraft. Readiness rules (below) can flag or block an assignment if someone isn't qualified or current. A pilot or aircraft booked on another job on the same days is flagged as double-booked.
• Location & airspace: draw the operational area on the map, with cut-outs for ground you won't fly over. A job with logs and no area can draw one around its flights: Set location from logs, in Edit job on the Location step. Airspace checks flag jobs in controlled airspace or near an aerodrome, with each zone's heights as the AIP publishes them (metres in brackets), and NOTAMs that touch the area are listed on the job. Record permission on a zone, on the Location tab, keeps the permission you arranged elsewhere: who granted it, reference, dates and document. Changing the area or the dates re-checks the job's flights against the new plan, and a breach of the earlier plan stays on record.
• Risk assessment: score chance and effect for each hazard, or mark it as not applying. The matrix grades it Go / Manage / No-go. A spraying job needs only the desk hazards, judged from the plan, to submit; the site hazards are assessed on the day (Assess site hazards). Other jobs assess every hazard in the catalogue. A hazard the client reported, and on a spraying job each agrichemical and drift hazard, needs a short reason to be marked as not applying; the reasons show on the Risk assessment tab and in the Job report. Once a hazard is assessed, Mark the rest doesn't apply clears the other undecided hazards in one go, never those two kinds. On a phone an assessed hazard folds to one line, Edit opens it again.
• Planned products (spraying jobs, Flight tab): Add product records product, active ingredient, ACVM number, rate and unit, supplier, whether the label allows aerial use, and re-entry and withholding. Products from a client's questionnaire arrive marked from client, not checked. They are optional to submit.
• Notify (spraying jobs, Flight tab): Add person records who was told, how, when and what they said; Add sign records a sign put up at the site, where and when it went up and came down; No one needs telling records who said so and when, and Undo takes it back. It is offered only while nobody is listed, and adding a person takes it back. While a job waits for approval the block says Notify after approval. The card warns when someone was not told inside the notice period (hours and distance, set under Settings › Organisation › Spray notifications). It never blocks, and signs complete Notify only where that setting counts them as notice.
• Checklists: complete a pre-flight, post-flight or custom checklist against the job from the Checklists tab, on a phone at the aircraft. Each item is answered pass, fail or not applicable, and a failure needs a note. A saved checklist is a fixed record: it is never edited, and an administrator correcting one records an amendment with a reason, keeping both versions on the job. A readiness rule can require a checklist before a job goes live or closes out.
• Site details: the client's site questionnaire answers and the block they marked. Use this puts that block on the job, asks first if the job already has an area, and Undo puts the old one back. Use all answers does that for every part not yet decided, asking once. The link, who it went to and the buttons for it are one row under the answers. A completed, invoiced or cancelled job sends no questionnaire, and keeps the answers it has.
• Flight logs: upload logs against the job (see Flights below). They populate flight time, spots treated, distance and the map track. Each flight is also checked against the job's area, dates and height limit, and the flight and the job say what was breached.
• Spray diary and job report: on a spraying job, the spray diary records the products and rates, the target, re-entry interval, withholding period and conditions at application. It opens prefilled from the plan, one unconfirmed row per planned product with the mix recorded on the day beside it: confirm or change each row and add batch numbers. The proof shows where applied differs from planned. Application times come from the flights, and the product used from the rate and the litres the logs recorded. Each product also records whether its label permits aerial use. The card says Record complete or what is missing, and closing or completing the job warns about gaps without stopping you. A closed-out diary is locked: only an admin amends it, with a reason. Download job report and Email job report to client give a spraying job's proof of application, with a map of the block, the flown track and the spray points, who was told, the signs, and the on-site check. Other jobs get a job report without the application sections.
• On-site check: on a spraying job's Flight tab, Start on-site check runs your organisation's on-site checklist at the aircraft, just before spraying. Each item is answered pass, fail or not applicable, and the check is stamped with who made it and when. Hazard found on site scores what you found and adds it to the job's risk assessment, marked as found on site with your name and the time. An admin picks which checklist is the on-site check in Settings › Checklists, and edits it like any other. The proof of application lists the check and the hazards. Once a job is closed out, a hazard can't be added as found on site. Record mix and Record conditions note the tank mix made up and the conditions measured on site (wind, gusts, temperature, inversion), per day flown. Assess site hazards scores the hazards your risk template leaves for the day, once per day; a flown day without them shows on the job as needing attention. An admin can add a missed check afterwards with Record late check, for a past flown day with a reason; it is stamped as recorded late. An admin marks which hazards are assessed on the day in Settings › Risk assessment.
• Closing a job: when the work is done, Close job (offered once the job has a flight log, unless your organisation allows completing without one) records the resources used and the time each person spent, then marks the job complete. That record feeds the invoice. Organisations without billing use Mark complete. Closing warns about a missing on-site check or spray diary; Settings › Organisation › Closing spray jobs can require either, and then closing is refused until it is recorded.
• Cancel job (admins and job approvers) ends a submitted job that isn't invoiced. Pick a reason; the job is kept on record and can't be reopened. A draft nobody submitted is discarded instead, and a job with flight logs can't be deleted.

With quoting and invoicing on, a job's status runs Draft → Quoted → Open → Invoiced → Completed (or Cancelled), with Pending approval where your organisation requires sign-off. Status is separate from the stage heading.

Upload flight logs from the Flights page (Upload logs) or directly against a job. DroneOps parses each log for the flight track, spray on/off events, duration and distance. Those metrics roll up into the dashboard, reports and, for spraying, your charge-out. Always attach logs to the right job so the numbers land in the right place.

Finding flights. Pick a job to draw its flights on the map, or filter by date, pilot, aircraft and client; Select all and Unselect all act on the list. Flights remembers the job you last picked. On a phone it opens on your jobs: tap one to see its logs. Each flight has a ... menu (or right-click, or long-press on a phone) with Details, Delete and Bulk edit. Details shows the flight's pilot, aircraft and job, whether it stayed within the job's area, dates and height limit, and a timeline of events. Bulk edit changes many flights at once and asks first. The map's Export button gives the visible flights as KML, a map PDF or a spray-points CSV, named after the job and day.

No signal in the paddock? Choose the log anyway. It is saved on your device and uploads on its own as soon as you have a connection. An indicator in the bottom corner shows how many logs are still waiting; tap it to see the list, why anything has not gone yet, and to try again straight away. Keep that device to hand until the list is empty, because until then it holds the only copy. Sending the same log twice is harmless: DroneOps recognises it and keeps one flight.

You can also install DroneOps on your phone: Account › Preferences › This device, or More › Install app on a phone. It opens full screen from the home screen and still tells you how many logs are waiting on the device, though signing in needs a connection. On an iPhone, use Share › Add to Home Screen (behind the ... button on newer versions), then sign in again inside the app.

Admins: switch on quoting and invoicing under Settings › Billing. Everything here is built around jobs.

• Quotes are raised for jobs that are open, draft, waiting for approval or quoted (or from a job's Quote this job); invoices for completed or invoiced jobs. Pick the job and the client comes from it automatically, or choose No job to raise a standalone document against a client. Both start as drafts, then progress through their own statuses. Each list has counts, status chips and a search, and every row has a ... menu.
• Tiles at the top show Quotes awaiting reply (sent and not expired), Invoiced, Paid, Outstanding and Overdue, each with its count. Outstanding and Overdue open the invoices behind them.
• Changing and ending documents. An accepted quote's lines, tax, client and job are locked until you set it back to Sent, and a quote with a live invoice stays locked. Convert to invoice turns an accepted quote into a draft invoice once, and closes its job when the job can be closed. Once an invoice leaves draft, its lines, tax, client, job and issue date are fixed: cancel it and raise a new one to correct it. Its status, due date, paid date and notes can still change, and each change is recorded. Only a draft invoice can be deleted. A sent or overdue invoice is cancelled instead and kept on record, and a paid one stays as it is. Quotes can be deleted, except one with a live invoice: delete a draft invoice or cancel a sent one first. A quote whose invoice is paid stays on record with it. Cancelling does not void the copy in Xero. A job can have more than one live invoice (a deposit, then the final): the invoice and Convert say when it already has one.
• Charge-out rules are your pricing matrix, set by admins under Settings › Billing. Each rule adds a line to an invoice when its conditions match a job: a flat call-out, a per-hour or per-flight-hour rate (optionally by aircraft model), per-spot or per-hectare, or a surcharge for extra compliance burden (e.g. BVLOS, NOTAM). When you raise an invoice for a job, the matching rules and the resources logged at close-out prefill the lines.
• Billing defaults set a default quote-validity and invoice-payment period, your country, your GST number (the ABN for an organisation in Australia; printed under TAX INVOICE) and payment details (printed at the foot of every invoice). New documents prefill their valid-until / due dates from these.
• Auto-invoice on close can raise a draft invoice automatically the moment a job is closed, unless the job already has one.
• Per-user hourly rates, set by admins under Settings › Users, price the labour lines that flow from a job's close-out.
• PDFs and email: Download and Email send the same quote or invoice PDF, and emailing asks first, naming the recipient.
• Xero: a one-line strip shows the connection. Invoices can be exported for Xero (Export for Xero leaves out cancelled ones), or pushed directly once connected. An invoice already there reads Update in Xero.

A map of controlled airspace, aerodromes and NOTAMs. Zones are labelled by their AIP code (such as NZA132). Click anywhere to list every zone, aerodrome boundary and NOTAM under that point, then open one for its limits, hours, frequencies and contacts. Map type picks Hybrid, Satellite or Topographic, and Airspace view switches between the vector zones and the eVNC charts. The time bar shows airspace and NOTAMs at a time you choose, in New Zealand time.

Relevant to drones NOTAMs are on by default and Other NOTAMs can be added. A NOTAM whose text describes a corridor or a boundary is drawn with that shape, and its popup says so. Outline NOTAM-activated zones draws the zones a NOTAM activates as outlines. It never touches H24 zones.

Each job's drawn location is checked against airspace and NOTAMs, and any conflicts are flagged so you know when an authorisation is needed. A job with no location says so. Record permission on a zone, on the job's Location tab, keeps a register of permissions arranged elsewhere. Nothing is sent from DroneOps.

A library for your certificates, manuals, insurance and chemical safety data sheets, with renewal and expiry tracking so nothing lapses unnoticed. Expired documents come first, then the soonest to expire, and the Type, Belongs to and Expiry dropdowns narrow the list. Upload document adds one, and a row's ... menu (or right-click) edits it (title, category, expiry, notes or a replacement file) or deletes it. Everyone in your organisation can read organisation documents; attach a document to a person and it stays private to them and your admins. Readiness rules can require your organisation's documents to be valid before a job proceeds.

Documents > New report: pick the report, its pilot, job, client or aircraft, and the dates. The PDF opens when generated and is filed under Reports in Documents, with who generated it and when. Filter reports by type, author and when they were generated, and Run again repeats one. A pilot logbook is filed under that pilot's own documents. Job reports can also be emailed to clients from the job.

Two registers for Health & Safety, on their own tabs in Documents & Reporting. The hazard register records hazards with a likelihood × consequence risk rating, shown as you pick, and corrective actions (each with an owner and due date). Occurrence reporting logs incidents and near-misses, with evidence files you can add to the record; when one is closed, an outcome and the closer are recorded. My actions lists the actions assigned to you, and an overdue one says so. Both registers filter by status, risk or severity, and search, and say how many match.

Anyone can report a hazard or occurrence (Log hazard, Log occurrence). Editing or closing them is limited to admins and users with the Health & Safety role.

Your details are under Account › Profile, and your password, two-factor and devices under Account › Security.

• Signing in: email and password, then a code from your authenticator app where two-factor is on. Forgot your password? Ask your administrator to reset it. Lost your phone? Use a recovery code, from the link under the code box. An invitation link opens a page to set your name and password; it stops working after a while, and an administrator can send a new one.
• Email: Change email asks for your password. You stay signed in, and use the new address from then on.
• Password: changing it signs your other devices out, kept-signed-in ones included. If your organisation sets a password rotation period, you are asked for a new password when it is due.
• Two-factor: an authenticator app on your phone gives a code at sign-in, so a stolen password is not enough. Your organisation may require it. If your phone is lost or replaced, choose Replace authenticator in Account › Security. Two-factor is off until you finish. Replacing it or turning it on signs your other devices out.
• Recovery codes: each signs you in once if you lose your authenticator app. Your password is still required. Store them away from your phone.
• Keep me signed in: tick it at sign-in to stay signed in on that device until it goes 30 days unused. With two-factor on, that device also skips the code. Password still required at sign-in. Signing out ends it. Devices listed under Account › Security, Signed-in devices. Remove a device from Account › Security at any time.
• Sign out everywhere: ends every session on every device, this one included, and removes your signed-in devices. Use it if a device is lost.

Register your fleet on the Aircraft page, each aircraft tied to an aircraft model. Anyone in your organisation can add and edit aircraft; admins retire them and record maintenance. Set maintenance intervals and the aircraft list flags services that are due or coming up within your configured look-forward window. Readiness rules can block assigning an aircraft that's out of airworthiness or overdue.

Defects. Anyone can report a fault on an aircraft, from Report a defect on your dashboard or from the aircraft itself. Say what's wrong, how serious it is, and whether it stops the aircraft flying. A defect that stops it flying grounds the aircraft straight away: it can't be assigned to a job, and only an administrator can sign the defect off and return it to service. Open defects show against the aircraft in your fleet list and in the fleet and per-aircraft reports.

Maintenance log. Admins record the work carried out on each aircraft (services, repairs, inspections, component changes and firmware) on the Aircraft page. When a piece of work clears a defect, link the two when you resolve it, and the aircraft's history shows what was found and what put it right.

Admins: manage people under Settings › Users. Roles grant access:

• Admin: full access to the organisation, users, billing and settings.
• Pilot: can be assigned as pilot in command.
• Ground crew / Payload operator: assignable to job crews.
• Billing: access to quotes and invoices.
• Health & Safety: edit and close hazards and occurrences.
• Job approver: approve submitted jobs when your organisation requires sign-off before they go live.
• Send site questionnaires: send a client a site questionnaire, and manage the links they fill it in with.

Each person can have an hourly rate (used to price labour on invoices) and a set of certifications with expiry dates that compliance rules check against. Your own certifications are listed under Account › Profile.

Admins: set the rules under Settings › Compliance.

• Readiness rules gate the operation, for example "a pilot must hold a current certificate", "the aircraft must be airworthy", "the job needs a recorded risk assessment", or minimum crew. They are checked when people or aircraft are assigned, when a job goes live (Submit or approval) and when it completes. Each rule either blocks the action or warns (allows it but flags it).
• Airspace limits check each job's planned altitude, distance and location. A blocking limit stops a job going live until the plan changes, an approval is added or, for a zone, permission is recorded. Standing arrangements record a permission for a zone that covers every job in it while it is valid.
• Readiness violations lists every current breach of a readiness rule across your people and jobs. Airspace findings show on each job.

Account, under your name in the navigation, is yours:

• Profile and Security: your details and certifications, your password, two-factor and devices.
• Preferences: theme, map display, email and your job calendar link. Saved to your account, they follow you across devices. This device, in Preferences, is the one exception: it is about the phone or computer in your hand.
• Help: this guide, and Feedback to send an idea or report a problem.

Clients and Aircraft are pages of their own, shared with your organisation.

Settings is for admins only: Organisation, Users, Billing, Compliance, Risk assessment and Checklists. They apply to everyone in your organisation.