Mobile App & PWA

What this chapter covers

The Simuwave dashboard is a real Progressive Web App (PWA). That means you can install it on your phone or tablet, launch it from the home screen, and use it like a native app — no app store, no install size, no separate download.

This chapter covers installing the PWA, what works offline, push notifications, and how the visual call flow designer behaves under your fingers. For general phone-vs-desktop tips, see Appendix A.

Install on iPhone (Safari)

1. Open the dashboard URL in Safari (must be Safari — Chrome on iOS can't install PWAs).
2. Tap the Share button (the square with the up-arrow at the bottom).
3. Scroll the share sheet and tap Add to Home Screen.
4. Confirm the name (defaults to "Simuwave") and tap Add.

The Simuwave icon appears on your home screen. Tap it and the dashboard opens full-screen — no Safari address bar, no tabs, no browser chrome. iOS treats it like an app.

Install on Android (Chrome)

You usually get a banner near the address bar that says "Install Simuwave VoIP Platform" — tap it.

If no banner appears:

1. Open the dashboard in Chrome.
2. Tap the three-dot menu (top right).
3. Tap Install app (or Add to Home screen on some Android builds).
4. Confirm.

The icon lands on your home screen. Tap it and it opens in its own task window, separate from Chrome, with its own back-button history.

What works offline

Be realistic about this — Simuwave is a live communications dashboard, so most of it needs the network to do anything useful (place a call, look up call history, save a flow). The service worker is honest about that.

What's cached for offline:

• App shell. The JavaScript, CSS, fonts, and icons that make up the dashboard itself are precached, so the app launches fast even on a flaky connection.
• Offline fallback page. If you try to navigate to a page while the network is down, you get a friendly /offline page instead of the browser's "no internet" error.
• Recently visited pages. The runtime cache holds onto pages, API responses, and images you've already loaded, so revisiting them is instant. Stale data is replaced as soon as the network comes back.

What does not work offline:

• Placing or receiving calls, sending faxes, viewing live call status.
• Loading anything you haven't already visited.
• Saving changes — edits made offline are not queued; they need a live connection.

Treat offline as "the app still opens and you can browse what's cached," not "the app fully works on a plane."

Push notifications

The PWA registers a push handler, so the platform can wake your installed app and surface notifications even when the dashboard isn't open in a tab.

What can trigger one (server-driven, set by your admin or by the platform):

• New voicemail in a box you own
• New inbound fax to a DID you're assigned to
• Missed call alerts
• Other events your tenant has wired up to push

Tapping a notification opens the app to the relevant page (voicemail, fax, etc.).

Enable notifications — your browser will prompt for permission the first time the dashboard tries to subscribe you. On iOS the PWA must be installed to the home screen first; the in-Safari version cannot receive push. On Android, accept the permission prompt when it appears.

If you missed the prompt: tap the lock/info icon next to the address bar (or in iOS, Settings → Notifications → Simuwave) and toggle notifications on.

Mobile gestures in the call flow designer

The designer is built to work on a touchscreen. The main gestures:

• Tap a node to select it. Its properties open in the right panel (on small screens the panel slides up from the bottom).
• Double-tap a node to jump straight into its properties when the side panel is hidden.
• Touch and drag a node to move it on the canvas.
• Drag from the palette to add a new node — touch a palette item, drag it onto the canvas, release.
• Drag from a node's output dot to another node's input dot to connect them.
• One-finger drag on empty canvas to pan.
• Pinch with two fingers to zoom in or out. Zoom snaps between 25% and 200%.
• Two-finger drag also pans (some browsers steal one-finger drag for the page).

A floating zoom slider sits in the bottom-right corner on phones so you can scale without pinching.

What's harder on a phone

Mobile works, but a few things are genuinely better on a laptop:

• Large IVR menus. Flows with 20+ nodes are cramped on a phone screen; lots of zooming and panning. Build the structure on desktop, tweak on mobile.
• Multi-select. Selecting several nodes at once (for bulk delete/move) is gesture-heavy on touch. Stick to one at a time on a phone.
• Reading the dialplan preview. Preview output is monospace and wide. Rotate to landscape, or open it on desktop when you need to read it carefully.
• Bulk operations in tables. Selecting many rows (e.g., bulk-deleting call records) is fiddly on touch. Use desktop for batch work.

Everything else — voicemail, call history, click-to-call, fax send, extension management, settings — works the same on a phone as on a laptop.

Tips for daily mobile use

• Always launch from the home-screen icon, not from a browser tab. You get full screen, faster startup, and push notifications.
• Turn on push the first time you're prompted. Missed-call and voicemail alerts are the main reason to install the PWA in the first place.
• Click-to-call works everywhere. Any phone number rendered in the app (extension lists, call history rows, contact cards) is tappable — your softphone or default dialer picks up the call.
• Voicemail playback is in-page. Tap the play button on a voicemail row; audio streams inside the app. No download, no leaving the page.
• Bookmark the login URL in your password manager so you can re-auth fast after the session expires.
• Pull down to refresh isn't a built-in gesture (the app uses real-time data instead) — just tap into and back out of a section if you want fresh data, or tap a list's refresh icon where present.