Who is this feature for?
Created for all reporters who perform inspections in the field and may not always have a stable internet connection as well as for users who work on multiple devices. For example, you may start an inspection on your tablet during a visit and later continue working on the same inspection from your laptop or desktop computer.
Synchronization ensures that your work is safely stored and shared across devices when a connection becomes available again. It also provides a solution to resolve sync conflicts where changes have been made on multiple devices at the same time. However it is important to know how it works and what it requires to be able to sync properly.
Benefits from maintaining the proper synchronization include:
Continue working when temporarily offline
Prevent loss of entered information
Safely switch between devices
Automatically synchronize changes when internet becomes available
Resolve synchronization conflicts when needed
Restore previous versions of answers
Verify when data was last synchronized
How to use it in daily practice based on your way of working?
I work with stable internet connection in one or multiple tabs:
Most of the time, synchronization happens automatically in the background and requires no action. As you work on an inspection, every change is saved immediately and is visible in all tabs where you have the survey open (within a single browser and on a single device). This includes:
Text answers
Multiple-choice selections
Photos
Comments
Other questionnaire answers
I work with unstable connection or fully offline:
If your internet connection is temporarily unavailable, you can continue working normally. You will then see constantly orange "Syncing..." icon on the right side of top menu:
Once the connection is restored, the application automatically synchronizes the latest changes and the icon disappears. Make sure to connect to the internet to be able to sync the final version of investigation.
I work on multiple devices:
When working across multiple devices, it is important to ensure that synchronization has completed before opening the same investigation elsewhere. To make sure the synchronization status is not pending on the device that you run the investigation, you can:
Open advanced menu from top right corner.
Select "Syncing status".
Review the current synchronization information.
If you work offline on other device, make sure that connect to the internet to be able to sync the final version of investigation.
It may happen that you accidently opened the investigation on multiple devices or forgot to connect your device to the internet. If that happens - don't worry - follow the steps to resolve conflicted state described in this article:
Good practices
It is useful to know that you can check when a device last synced - both in the admin environment and in the inspection app itself. The displayed timestamp indicates the most recent successful synchronization. Because Report X saves every change immediately, the last sync time should normally be very close to the time you last entered information online.
To find the timestamp you should:
Open an investigation.
Stay on the first section called Imprint Section
Check the top-right corner of the section
You will then see "Last synchronized at" date and time:
Administrators can also view the last synchronization time by opening the investigation in the CMS admin panel. Information can be found in the top-right corner:
Other useful feature that supports saving your work is results history log. On the history you are able to preview all changes in answers, with indication of its sync status and gives you a clear picture of the current an historical answers. From the history you are also able to restore any answer version.
To access the history you should:
Open an investigation.
Go to any question.
Check the question title header.
Click the clock icon.
You will then see "Step history" with all versions and its date and time, that you are able to restore:
