The Access Care Planning mobile app and the web console both support form completion, but they do not render forms in exactly the same way. This article explains the known differences and what to check when a form looks or behaves differently on mobile compared to the web.
The mobile app renders a simplified view of forms
The mobile app is optimised for use on smaller screens by care staff in the field. It renders forms using a layout adapted for touch interaction and variable screen sizes. This means that some visual formatting present on the web console — such as section styling, column layouts, and certain label arrangements — may appear differently or more simply on mobile.
This is by design and does not indicate a problem with the form or the device. If a care manager has configured a form that looks a particular way on the web console, carers on mobile should expect to see a functionally equivalent but visually simplified version.
If the difference affects whether carers can complete the form correctly (for example, if a required field is not visible), this is a configuration issue rather than a display difference. Check the form's condition rules and mandatory field settings.
Hidden field logic may behave differently between platforms
Condition rules that hide or show fields are evaluated server-side when the form is submitted, not in real time as the form is completed on the device. On the web console, some field-hiding behaviour may appear to respond more immediately because of how the browser processes the form. On mobile, the hiding may not visually update until a sync or submission occurs.
If a field that should be hidden is appearing on mobile when it should not be, or vice versa, check the condition rule expression for the field in Configuration > Forms. Confirm the component ID and the condition value are correct. See Form condition rules for troubleshooting steps.
A specific known scenario: if a mandatory field is hidden by a condition rule, it may still block form submission on certain platforms if the server does not correctly register the field as hidden at submission time. A fix was shipped in ACP Server 8.2.8. A separate Android-specific variant remains open. See the Form condition rules article for details and workaround steps.
Images may not appear in forms on mobile
Forms that include images — such as photos uploaded via the Photo component, or images embedded as labels — may not display those images on mobile in certain scenarios.
The most common cause is that the Download Images tenant preference is disabled. When this preference is set to No, images are not downloaded to the device as part of the sync payload. To enable it, go to Configuration > Tenant > Preferences and locate Download Images under App preferences. Set it to Yes and ask carers to sync their devices.
A second cause is device storage. If a device has limited storage available, the app may skip downloading image attachments to preserve space. Ask the carer to free up storage and perform a clean sync.
📌 Note: Enabling Download Images increases the data usage and sync time for devices. For organisations with a large number of image-heavy forms, consider whether this preference needs to be on for all services or only specific ones.
Paragraph fields showing \n characters instead of line breaks
If carers or administrators report seeing \n\n or \n characters appearing in paragraph fields on the mobile app instead of actual line breaks, this is a known display bug that was resolved in ACP Server 8.2.9 and ACP Mobile 7.8.0.
The issue occurs when a paragraph field contains text with line breaks entered on one platform, and the other platform does not correctly interpret the newline characters.
To resolve this:
Confirm the server version is 8.2.9 or above. If it is below 8.2.9, the fix is not yet applied on the server side.
Confirm the carer is using mobile app version 7.8.0 or above on both iOS and Android. Ask them to update via the app store if needed.
After both the server and app are updated, ask the carer to perform a clean sync. Existing form submissions that already contain \n characters will retain them in stored data, but new submissions will display correctly.
Form components that are not supported on mobile
A small number of form components are web-only and will not appear on the mobile app by design. These include:
Client Picker — allows selection of a service user record from within a form. Not supported on mobile.
Employee Picker — allows selection of an employee record from within a form. Not supported on mobile.
If your form uses either of these components and is intended to be completed on mobile, the carer will not be able to use those fields. Consider whether the form needs to be split into a web-only version and a mobile-compatible version, or whether the information can be collected another way.
All other standard components — text boxes, paragraphs, dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons, dates, numbers, photos, signatures, barcodes, and body maps — are supported on both platforms.
When to raise a support case
Raise a support case via the Access Digital Assistant if a form component that should be supported on mobile is not appearing, or if forms are displaying in a way that prevents carers from completing required fields. Include the form name, the component type, the server version, and the app version the carer is using.