Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, though that answer comes with a couple caveats. As far as access, viewing, and report navigation goes, smartphones & smaller tablets are certainly on equal footing with desktop computers, laptops & larger tablets. With that said, actually editing large amounts of data on smaller screens is going to be a little tougher, partly due to the obnoxious nature of the average popup keyboard. But it is something one can become proficient at, with practice. Plus, the mobility is unmatched!

As with most workspaces, more is usually better. And in that regard, nothing beats a desktop computer (or laptop) for flat-out efficiency, control, and visibility. Of course, that also means you're generally nailed to a desk, or some other stationary place. Phones offer the best mobility, obviously, but can be a little unwieldly when it comes to editing. Tablets, on the other hand, offer the best of both worlds - mobility & a little larger work space, allowing much greater ease of use, insofar as editing data. We definitely envision the average person, through the course of a regular workday, leveraging the advantages of all types of devices to help move them along & ease their workload! Field consultants, for example, could start their day on their laptops, generating some forms & partially completing them. Then move into the data van for a frac, using their tablet to keep the frac summary, fluids, and costs reports up to date. As this is happening, someone from management could be reviewing those same forms using their smartphone, all while at their favorite sporting event!

Welljournal has been designed to work as nicely as possible with four free web browsers - Google Chrome, Opera, and Firefox (for all devices), and Safari (for iOS devices only). Internet Explorer is NOT supported, in any way. Small issues may surface occasionally with a browser, but usually nothing show-stopping (usually display-only type issues, if anything). During the development of Welljournal, the browsers in heaviest use for testing were Opera, Firefox, and Chrome on desktop & laptop, and Safari & Chrome on tablets & phones. This is certainly a dynamic environment however, and we intend to continually maintain (and improve as possible) the performance of Welljournal across all four platforms, and on all devices.

Every single design decision made during the development of Welljournal, begins from a perspective of simplicity. It doesn't always end up as easy as it was intended, but we really try. With that said, if you have ever filled out an online form, or did any online banking, then you should quickly feel comfortable in the editing department. There will, of course, be familiarity issues for anyone new, but we hope that pages are presented in a fashion to be mostly self-explanatory. Like we've stated, it has been a focal point throughout the entire development to keep the learning curve as small as possible. Unfortunately, certain compromises had to be made along the way, sacrificing a bit of user-friendliness in the name of greater security. A few sessions playing around in the system though, and it'll become second nature, surely.

Editing data within Welljournal is very straightforward. Any page you are on that has editable data (or fields) will have a Locked/Unlocked button at the top of your screen (if you are authorized to edit the data on that page). Simply toggling that button from Locked to Unlocked will allow you to directly click on the data (or fields) you wish to edit. In almost all cases, clicking a field will create a popup window, in which you can make the desired edits, before submitting.

Nothing locally, no. Each time you submit data from within the popup window, the page you were editing should refresh, displaying the change(s) you just made. Once you see the changes actually displayed on the refreshed page, it means everything was saved to the database. However, due to inconsistent connections to the internet, slow or sporadic transfer speeds, and other factors, it may take some moments for an edit to finish saving and the page to refresh. If the popup window remains after submitting an edit, and it doesn't seem to be doing anything, it will never hurt to click submit again. In practice, a couple good habits would be to submit frequent, smaller edits (rather than lengthy essays), and never walk away from your work until you know that the edit was successfully submitted!

If you are an individual user, you will need to first register. Upon completing the registration, you will gain access to the system, but will be limited to your own personal control panel page. Also, once registered, you may then be added by a company to their own roster, granting you certain levels of access to their assets within Welljournal. There are no current limitations on the number of companies you may be active with. Registration is free, as is an individual's use of Welljournal.

If you are an authorized representative of either an energy company or a management company, you can reach us via the Contact form. Adding your company to the system is a short matter, provided you have already confirmed your personal registration with Welljournal.

We want to be as economically attractive as possible, and do not believe a customer should continue paying for something they're not using. Therefore, we only charge an initial creation fee per well (which includes cloud storage for attachments, etc), followed by a daily rate during actual operations on that well. This pay-as-you-go model ensures that your company is only paying for what it is creating, and also allows our costs to be applied directly to a job AFE, if needed. Outside of actual operation days, all access to wells, jobs and data therein is free, with no hidden or recurring fees. There are additional services available, for one-time fees, that are basically time-saving data entry options (cost codes, vendor list, company details, etc). None of these services are essential or exclusive though, as any authorized user within the company can enter all required data, as needed. If the choice is made to not use any of these services, enrollment of a customer company is completely free.

For starters, the standard login applies - username & password. That just gets you past the velvet rope, though. All companies, wells (or facilities), and the jobs within those are all instanced & isolated, with no unintentional interconnectivity between any two jobs or wells. Multiple simultaneous logins of an account are disallowed. Authorization levels (controlled by company) of each user is checked before every page load, as well as prior to each edit, just to make sure people are doing only what they're permitted to. Login timeouts are strictly enforced throughout the entire system, to safeguard your data should you leave your device unattended. In addition to this, the entire Welljournal web application is protected by SSL technology. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between the server (website) and the client (your web browser).

Not at this time, although developing a self-syncing app is an item on our to-do list, going forward. This system is still in its infancy, all things considered, and we hope to tackle the implementation of an offline version as soon as we squash the remaining bugs of the primary web-based app. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes, in the interim.