Submitting a report

What happens when you click Submit — encryption, the preview dialog, the email format, and the local archive.

Clicking Submit at the bottom of any tab triggers the same five-step flow. Knowing what each step does makes the standardised email format much easier to understand.

The Form Submission modal that opens after Submit.

What happens on Submit

1. Validate

   The form runs every field’s validation rule. Required fields with empty values get a red inline error; values outside the configured Min/Max get an orange warning (non-blocking — see Validation). Submit is blocked if any required field is invalid.

2. Serialise

   All visible inputs, selects, textareas, and table arrays (BDN rows, upcoming ports, port activities, etc.) are collected into a JSON object. Hidden identifiers — IMO, vessel name, vessel code, principal ID, client IDs, form identifier, ref ID, isBarge, client name — are pulled from hidden inputs.

3. Encrypt

   The JSON is encrypted with AES-128-CBC + PKCS7 padding. The key and IV are both the same 16-byte UTF-8 string from the form configuration. The result is base64-encoded.

   const key = CryptoJS.enc.Utf8.parse(AES_KEY);
   const iv  = CryptoJS.enc.Utf8.parse(AES_KEY);
   const plain = CryptoJS.enc.Utf8.parse(JSON.stringify(formData));
   return CryptoJS.AES.encrypt(plain, key, {
     iv, mode: CryptoJS.mode.CBC, padding: CryptoJS.pad.Pkcs7
   }).toString();
   

   The encrypted block is wrapped in markers:

   ---------- BEGIN MW FORM DATA ---------------
   <base64 ciphertext>
   ------------- END MW FORM DATA ----------------
   
4. Show the preview dialog

   A modal opens with two views:

   • Email Body — the readable preview block (vessel info, voyage info, etc.) followed by the encrypted payload. This is what you copy into your email.
   • Form Submission — the encrypted block alone, for advanced cases.

   Each section has a Copy button. There’s also an Open Mail button that triggers a mailto: link with the subject pre-filled and the body URL-encoded.

   The mailto: button only works if the body is short enough for the OS clipboard to fit in a URL. Large submissions can exceed the limit. The reliable path is Copy + paste into Outlook manually — described below.

5. Archive locally (if linked)

   If the vessel has linked history.json via Settings, the submission is appended to it before the modal closes. A toast confirms Archived (insert/update). N rows in history.

   See Setting up history.json for the archive flow.

Sending the email

Once the modal is open, the standard process is:

1. Click Copy next to Email Body.
2. Open a new email in Outlook.
3. Set the format to Plain Text (Format Text → Plain Text). HTML or Rich Text formatting will corrupt the encoded block.
4. Paste into the body.
5. Set the email header:
   • To: the fleet-specific Metaweave inbox (configured in Settings — confirm with the office on first use)
   • Cc: Performance mailbox + any additional party your operator requires
   • Subject: the standardised format Vessel Name // Report Type // Date — for example MT ABC // Noon Report // 13 April 2026
6. Make sure the body contains only the pasted block — no signature, no disclaimer, no extra text.
7. Send.

The verifier (the pipeline) reads only the block between BEGIN MW FORM DATA and END MW FORM DATA. A single missing or modified character will make the submission unreadable. Don’t edit the encoded block.

Subject line format

The standardised subject the office expects:

Metaweave Forms: <Vessel Name> - <Report Type> - <DD.MM.YYYY>

Examples:

Metaweave Forms: MT ABC - Noon Report - 13.04.2026
Metaweave Forms: MT ABC - Bunker Report - 13.04.2026
Metaweave Forms: MV XYZ - Statement of Facts - 13.04.2026

The mailto: link auto-fills this. If you compose the email manually, type it exactly — the pipeline’s subject regex is strict.

Order of submission

Reports must be sent in chronological order:

• Noon every day
• Arrival at EOSP
• Departure at COSP
• Bunker after each lift
• SOF after each port operation

Out-of-order submissions will be ingested but may break per-voyage analytics that assume sequential reports.

What lands in the inbox

A typical email looks like this (truncated):

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Metaweave Forms: MT ABC - Noon Report - 13.04.2026

------------ BEGIN FORM DETAILS ---------------
Vessel: MT ABC
IMO: 9999999
Voyage: 33L
Date/Time: 2026-04-13 12:00 LT (+03:00)
Location: At Sea
...
---------- BEGIN MW FORM DATA ---------------
U2FsdGVkX19V5j8z2K... <base64 blob, ~5–20 KB> ...mP8=
------------- END MW FORM DATA ----------------

The pipeline reads only the encrypted block. The readable header is for crew / ops sanity-checking.

Saving a copy

The form has a Save a Copy button next to Submit. It saves an HTML snapshot of the filled form to disk — useful for evidence or audit, but not a substitute for sending the email or for the local archive. The pipeline doesn’t read these saved files.

See also

• Validation — what blocks Submit and what merely warns
• Setting up history.json — the local archive that fires on every Submit
• Pipeline ETL stages — what the parser does with the encrypted block