Short answer

Any reasonably current Android phone or iPhone will run Civic.ly. You do not need expensive or specialist hardware, and budget Android handsets (around the £120 mark) work perfectly well.

If you are choosing between a phone and a tablet, get a phone. A tablet works, but it is not a practical thing to carry round a site, and a phone lives in a pocket. The exception is where someone needs the bigger screen, in which case buy for the person rather than the rule.

On the buy-versus-use-their-own question: the approach that works best for most councils is to let staff use their own phones and pay them a small monthly allowance, typically £5 to £10, towards their bill. It is usually the most cost-effective option by some distance.

Detail

Phone or tablet? Civic.ly runs on both, and a tablet will do the job, so if a tablet is what the council has already decided to buy, it is not a wasted purchase. But a phone is the better field device for one plain reason: someone doing a round has gloves, a clipboard, tools or a barrow already, and a tablet needs a hand and somewhere to put it down. A phone goes in a pocket between assets. The camera on a mid-range phone is also usually better than the camera on a tablet at the same price, which matters because photos are your evidence.

A tablet earns its place in the office rather than on the round: reviewing a list on a bigger screen, or a supervisor going through defects at a desk. If you want one for that, buy it for that, and put the field team on phones.

Where a tablet is the right answer. If a member of staff finds a phone screen hard to read or hard to operate, a tablet is the better device for them and practicality comes second. Text size and the other accessibility settings on a phone will cover a lot of people, so try those first, but do not put someone on a device they struggle with to keep the estate tidy. Buy for the person.

What the app actually needs. A phone running a current version of Android or iOS, with a camera and location services switched on. That is genuinely it. Location matters more than you might expect, because photos taken with GPS enabled drop your assets onto the map automatically instead of you placing each one by hand. The setup steps are in How to Configure Your Mobile Device.

Why an allowance usually beats buying handsets:

  • People already have better phones than a council would buy. A staff member's own phone is typically newer, faster and better-cameraed than a bulk-procured work handset.
  • They upgrade more often. Your "estate" stays current on its own, with no refresh cycle, no budget line, and no drawer of ageing phones.
  • Staff are generally happy with it. A few pounds a month against a bill they are already paying is welcome, and it avoids the nuisance of carrying two phones.
  • No upfront capital and no procurement exercise, which for a smaller council is often the deciding factor on its own.

Practical points worth settling before you roll out:

  • Agree the allowance properly through payroll or expenses so it is documented, rather than an informal arrangement.
  • Keep a couple of council handsets as a fallback. Some staff will not want to use a personal phone, and that is a reasonable position. Do not make BYOD the only route.
  • When someone leaves, what matters is the account, not the phone. Remove or reassign their Civic.ly user and their access goes with it. There is nothing council-owned sitting on the device afterwards.
  • If a crew shares one phone, give each person their own login anyway, so the record shows who did what. See giving shared-device workers their own login.

Watch-outs

  • Check your own BYOD or acceptable-use policy. Council data on a personal device is something most councils cover in their acceptable use policy, and it is worth a word with whoever handles data protection for you before you roll it out. This is a policy question for your council rather than a Civic.ly one, but it is far easier to settle up front than after the fact.
  • Do not over-specify. Councils sometimes assume field work needs rugged or specialist devices and spend accordingly. For Civic.ly it does not. An ordinary phone in a decent case covers it.
  • If you do buy a tablet, buy the cellular model, not wi-fi only. Wi-fi-only tablets often have no GPS chip at all, so photos taken on them carry no location and your assets will not place themselves on the map. They also have no signal once the team leaves the depot. A phone on a normal mobile contract avoids both problems.
  • Make sure location and camera permissions are actually granted on each phone before the team goes out, whoever owns the device. This is the most common reason a first day in the field goes badly.