Product Update

We're excited to share that we've introduced a Mobile Forms App since this post was published. This makes it even easier to eliminate paper forms, and you can learn more about it here.

The digital oilfield promises to maximize oilfield recovery, eliminate downtime, and increase profitability. But with a majority of producers still relying on pumpers to manually collect production data in the field, digital transformation can feel like a distant reality.

Whether your operation is fully automated or just entering the early stages of automation, we believe that easy access to operational data is the first step in every producer’s digital journey. That’s why today, we’re excited to share with you the release of Samsara’s Manual Entry feature. With Manual Entry, operators can benefit from all the power of the Samsara cloud and Dashboard to collect, analyze, and share data readings collected by pumpers alongside telemetry data. Here are three ways the solution helps streamline production reporting.

Boost worker efficiency

Paper remains one of the biggest contributors to inefficient production reporting. In a typical workflow, pumpers run their routes recording their readings on paper, and at the end of the day they submit their paperwork to a central office. Given that a single pumper can be responsible for servicing anywhere from one to one hundred wells, summarizing and submitting this paperwork can be a huge time sink.

With Samsara’s Manual Entry, pumpers are freed from the burden of filing paperwork so they can service more wells faster. By simply logging into the Samsara Dashboard on their mobile phones or tablets, they can submit entries for each well immediately. In a similar vein, office workers can take the time they would have used to rekey and aggregate that data into excel spreadsheets and focus it on more productive tasks.

Get your numbers faster, in one place

After pumpers submit their readings, collecting and organizing the data can create major slowdowns. Often, production management teams will have to wait anywhere from a few days to a full week to get accurate readings in spreadsheet format. These delays make it challenging to hold purchasers accountable for accurate payments and can result in even more time spent resolving any discrepancies.

With Samsara, supervisors get visibility into pumper recordings the minute they’re submitted. The readings are automatically displayed alongside telemetry data in intuitive charts and graphs, no additional grouping or processing required. The data can also be easily shared with other team members or production systems through the Dashboard or via the Open API. Finally, because reports are also grouped by date and pumper, it’s easier for supervisors to hold their team accountable and for pumpers to quickly review a well’s full production history whenever necessary.

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Improve production data accuracy

Accuracy is another common challenge when it comes to pumper collected data. Whether due to a hurried inaccurate reading, messy handwriting, or a miskey by an office worker, reporting errors are all too commonplace. Moreover, given the time it takes supervisors to get a complete view of production numbers, pumpers are not made aware of these errors until it’s too late to accurately correct them.

Samsara allows supervisors to customize manual entry forms to provide instant feedback to pumpers when a recorded value is out of the expected range. This data validation helps ensure that pumpers double-check irregular entries while they’re still on-site.

Further, text, phone, or email alerts can be set up for unexpected values giving supervisors the opportunity to investigate further without the time delay of paper records. Finally, because submissions are synced directly with the Samsara Dashboard, there’s no additional transcription required and no risk of a miskey by an office worker.

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Try it yourself today

Samsara’s Manual Entry solution allows production supervisors to keep track of all of their pumper-generated data, from tank levels to sales numbers, alongside their telemetry data in one centralized Dashboard. If you’re interested in trying out Samsara Manual Entry or any part of our full suite of oil and gas solutions, reach out here for a free trial

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