Setting up Dawarich on your phone — the Bamboo tracking guide

One-time setup. About 10 minutes. Do it once, at home or at the office, and after that your phone does the work on its own. Work through the sections in order — each one picks up where the last left off.

You will need: your iPhone, and the Bamboo setup screens open (on this phone or another screen nearby). That's it.

1. What this does, and why

Your phone records your work drives using an app called Dawarich. Bamboo reads those drives and drafts your mileage and your work hours for you, so there's no notebook, no guessing, and no reconstructing the week at the end of a pay period.

You stay in control. Tracking only runs between two helpers you'll set up in Section 6 — it starts when you head out and stops when you get home — and nothing is ever sent to BambooHR until you've reviewed the day in Bamboo and approved it yourself.

Your drive records are stored on our team's own private Dawarich server. They are not sold or shared with anyone.

2. Get the app and connect your account

Before you start: finish the Bamboo sign-up first (your name, email, and supervisor, then create your account). Your Dawarich account is created for you automatically — there is no separate Dawarich sign-up and no Dawarich password to remember.

  1. Open the App Store, search for Dawarich, and tap Get to install it. (It needs iOS 17.6 or newer — if the App Store tells you to update your phone first, do that, or ask your lead for help.)
  2. Open Dawarich. Swipe through the short intro until you reach the sign-in screen.
  3. Tap For self-hosters — Connect to your own Dawarich instance.
  4. Now connect using one of the two ways below — whichever your Bamboo setup screen offers you. Both do the same thing.

Way 1 — Scan the QR code (easiest)

  1. Tap Scan QR Code.
  2. Point your phone's camera at the QR code shown on your Bamboo setup screen. The server address and your personal key fill in by themselves, and the app checks them for you.
  3. Tap to confirm/connect if the app asks.

Way 2 — Type it in

  1. Tap Manual Setup.
  2. In the Server URL box, type: dawarich.saulutions.ca — if the box already starts with `https://`, don't type that part twice.
  3. In the API key box, paste your personal key from your Bamboo setup screen. Tap the copy button in Bamboo and paste it here — don't type it by hand, it's long and one wrong character breaks it.
  4. Tap to connect/sign in.

What you should see: the app opens to a map, and you're connected. If it says the key is wrong, go back to Bamboo, copy the key again, and re-paste it.

Your API key is like a password for the app — it belongs to you only. Don't share it.

3. Permissions

Right after you connect, Dawarich walks you through the permissions it needs. These are what make tracking reliable, so set every one.

  1. When it asks for Location, choose While Using the App.
  2. Leave Precise Location turned ON. This is what keeps your journeys accurate — with it off, your kilometres will be wrong.
  3. When it asks about always-on tracking (or asks again about location), choose Always Allow. This one matters most: without it, tracking stops the moment you leave the app.
  4. If it asks about Motion & Fitness, tap Allow. Our recommendation is to leave it on — it helps the app tell driving apart from sitting still.

Check it inside the app:

  1. Tap Settings — the gear icon at the bottom right of the screen.
  2. Open Permissions (under App). You should see both lines say Granted: - Location: While using — Granted - Location: Always — Granted

Check it in your iPhone's own Settings too:

  1. Open the iPhone Settings app (the grey gear) → scroll down and tap Dawarich → Location.
  2. Make sure Always is selected and Precise Location is ON.
  3. While you're there: go back to the main Settings list → General → Background App Refresh → make sure it's on for Dawarich. Our advice is to leave this on, so uploads aren't delayed.
One habit to learn now: never swipe Dawarich away in the app switcher. Swiping it closed stops recording completely, and no drives are recorded until you open the app again. You never need to keep it on screen — just leave it running in the background and forget about it. If your phone restarts, open Dawarich once to get it going again.

4. Tracking settings

All of these live on one scrolling screen.

  1. Open Dawarich → tap Settings (gear, bottom right) → tap Tracking. Work down the page, top to bottom.
  2. Tracking detail — tap the Detailed card on the left. It gets a blue outline and a checkmark. (Detailed records your actual route. The other choice, Battery saver, only records a handful of points — the same trip can come out as 169 points versus 6 — and your kilometres come out short. Set this once, now: switching it later ends the track you're recording and starts a new one.)
  3. Continuous Tracking — turn it ON (the switch turns green). This lets your phone manage tracking smartly: it pauses while you're parked and starts again when you move.
  4. Start tracking automatically — turn it ON. Tracking starts by itself whenever the app opens.
  5. Visits — tap Always on, so the checkmark sits beside it. Visits are how Dawarich notices your stops — the office, a school — and it can notice them even in moments when tracking is off.
  6. Keep scrolling to Fine-tuning and set each of these: - Accuracy — tap the row and choose the highest accuracy offered (the top choice in the list). It uses more battery, and that's the right trade: your mileage is only as good as the positions your phone records. - Distance Filter — tap 10 m. - Time Filter — tap 1 sec. - Track Breaking — tap 30 min. - Show location indicator — turn it ON.
  7. Leave everything else on the page as it is. (While Continuous Tracking is on, your phone manages some of this automatically — set the values anyway, exactly as above.)

Turn tracking on once, to check it works:

  1. Tap Map at the bottom of the screen.
  2. Tap the card at the bottom of the map to open it, and switch Tracking to ON.
  3. You should see that tracking is active, and a small blue location arrow will appear near the top of your phone screen. Both are normal — that arrow is how you know tracking is running.

5. Upload settings

Uploading is how your drives and stops get from your phone to Bamboo.

  1. Tap Settings (gear, bottom right) → tap Upload.
  2. Turn each of these ON: - Upload points automatically — sends your points while you drive. - Upload visits — sends your stops. Bamboo needs these to build your day, so this one must be on. - Upload when tracking stops — the moment tracking stops (Section 6), anything still on your phone is sent up. This is why your finished day is ready in Bamboo as soon as you get home.
  3. Batch size — set it to 100.
  4. Keep scrolling to Settings Sync and turn on Sync tracking & upload settings. The Status line underneath should say Synced.
  5. Leave Upload all visits and Re-upload points alone — those are one-time repair tools, not everyday settings.

If you ever lose signal — a rural road, a basement, a dead zone — don't worry: points are stored on your phone and upload on their own when you're back in coverage. Nothing is lost.

6. The two Shortcuts: Start tracking and Stop tracking

Two tiny helpers control tracking so you never have to think about it:

First, install both shortcuts:

  1. In your Bamboo setup, tap the Start tracking link. A Shortcuts page opens — tap Add Shortcut.
  2. Do the same with the Stop tracking link.

Then set up the automations. Open the Shortcuts app (a standard iPhone app, blue with colourful loops) → tap the Automation tab at the bottom.

  1. Start when you leave home: tap + (top right) → Create Personal Automation → Leave (under Location) → choose your Home address → choose Run Immediately → tap Next → Add Action → search for Run Shortcut → add it → tap where it says "Shortcut" and pick Start tracking → Next → Done.
  2. Start when you drive: first, in the iPhone Settings app → Focus → Driving, set it to turn on automatically While Driving. Then back in Shortcuts: Automation → + → Create Personal Automation → Focus → Driving → Turns On → Run Immediately → Next → Add Action → Run Shortcut → pick Start tracking → Next → Done. This is a backstop: even if the leave-home one misses, starting to drive starts tracking.
  3. Stop when you get home: Automation → + → Create Personal Automation → Arrive (under Location) → choose your Home address → Run Immediately → Next → Add Action → Run Shortcut → pick Stop tracking → Next → Done.
  4. Leave one automation OFF, on purpose: do not create an automation for "Driving Focus turns off." Stopping is the arrive-home automation's job (step 5). A Focus can switch off at a long light or a mid-day stop, and we don't want tracking to stop then.

The first time an automation runs, Shortcuts may pop up a message asking permission to run it. Tap Allow — you only have to approve it once, and after that the automations run on their own.

That's the point of all this: work drives get captured for mileage, and tracking stays off at home.

7. Your first work day

On a normal work day, there's nothing new to do:

  1. Head out like always. Leaving home — or starting to drive — starts tracking by itself. You don't need to open anything.
  2. The blue location arrow near the top of your screen is normal. It just means tracking is running. Dawarich pauses on its own while you're parked at a school, and starts again when you roll.
  3. At each stop, do nothing. Your visits are noticed automatically.
  4. When you get home, the Stop tracking automation runs, tracking turns off, and the rest of the day uploads right then.
  5. Open Bamboo and pick today's date. Your drives and stops are there, with suggested times filled in. Check the times, mark anything that wasn't work (a personal stop, say), fix anything that's off — and only when it all looks right do you approve it and send it to BambooHR with your sign-in code. Nothing is ever sent without your approval.

8. If something looks wrong

My day isn't in Bamboo.

Did you swipe Dawarich closed today? That stops recording until you reopen it. Open Dawarich, go to the Map, and wait until the tracking card says Synced — then check Bamboo again. Also make sure you actually got home: the day finishes uploading when tracking stops.

Tracking stopped in the middle of the day.

Check the permissions from Section 3 again: in Dawarich, Settings → Permissions should show both location lines as Granted, and in the iPhone Settings app, Dawarich's Location should be Always with Precise Location on. Then reopen Dawarich and leave it running in the background.

Points aren't reaching the server.

In Dawarich, go to Settings → Server Connection and tap Test Connection — it should show the server address and version. If you saw an Upload failed banner on the map, tap Retry. Then tell your lead if it's still stuck.

The times look wrong.

That's fine — Dawarich's times are a starting point, not the final word. You can fix every time in Bamboo using the time selectors (the tap-to-pick time boxes) before you approve the day.

One drive's kilometres look short.

Usually this means the app was swiped closed, or the detail setting got changed. Check Section 4: Tracking detail should be Detailed. Flag the day to your lead — Bamboo cross-checks against your odometer, and the day can be corrected before anything is sent.

A whole day has no tracking at all (phone died, phone left at home).

Bamboo has a manual mode for exactly this. Open that day in Bamboo, enter the kilometres and the start/end odometer readings by hand, and carry on — the day is simply flagged as manual. Ask your lead to show you the first time.

My battery is draining faster. (A tip from us, not from Dawarich.)

Detailed tracking does use more battery — that's the trade for accurate kilometres. Keep a car charger handy on long days, and try to avoid Low Power Mode on work days, since it can slow the app's background work down.

Back to onboarding or build a day.