Screen/Media Recorder
Records audio, video or a screen capture from the browser and attaches it to the record.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Data:
- Datastores — the datastore, then Table Designer to add or edit a field
Architect Panel → Data:
- File Stores — where recordings are held
- Large Uploads — the path for larger files
Where it earns its place
- Fault reporting. Somebody showing a problem in thirty seconds beats a paragraph describing it badly.
- Site and field notes, where speaking is faster and safer than typing.
- Support and training, where a screen recording demonstrates the actual sequence.
- Accessibility, where speaking is easier than writing for some users.
Recordings are not searchable
The important trade. Text can be searched, reported on and read at a glance. A recording must be watched or listened to, in real time, by each person who needs to know what it says.
So a recording is excellent as supporting evidence and poor as the only record. Where the content matters operationally, capture a short text summary alongside it.
They are large
Far larger than anything else you store. A few minutes of video is bigger than thousands of records, which affects storage, backup times and how long an upload takes on a poor connection.
Set an expectation of length in the interface — people record until told to stop, and a five-minute cap changes behaviour more than a note in guidance.
Browser permissions
Recording needs the user's permission for the microphone, camera or screen, requested by their browser. That prompt is unfamiliar to many people and is the commonest reason the feature "does not work".
Tell users what to expect before they hit it, and remember a refusal is often permanent until they change a browser setting.
Screen recording captures whatever is on screen
Including other applications, notifications and anything sensitive that happens to be visible. Warn people to close what they do not want captured — this is a real disclosure risk and it is entirely foreseeable.
Recordings are personal data
A voice identifies somebody; a video shows them and often others. Where recordings capture people who did not consent — a customer in the background of a site video — that needs thinking about, not assuming.
Set retention. Recordings kept indefinitely are the largest and most sensitive thing in your store.
Worked example
A maintenance application lets engineers record up to sixty seconds of video at a fault, alongside a required one-line text description. Supervisors read the descriptions to triage and open the video only when it matters. Recordings are retained for twelve months, the text indefinitely.
Recommendations
- Always capture a text summary too.
- Cap the length in the interface.
- Warn about the permission prompt and about screen contents.
- Set a shorter retention than for text.