Writing forms on external memory card

Hi everyone,

In CommCareODK Android, before being sent to the server, forms are
stored on the built-in memory. Is it possible to write forms on an
externel SD card ?

I am aware of the "Dump to SD / Send from SD" feature, it is not what
I'm looking for. I'd like to write my forms on the external card as soon
as a form is completed so if a phone gets damaged and unusable, we could
extract the SD card and still access the forms.

Many thanks,

··· -- Charles Flèche mHealth advisor Télécoms Sans Frontières http://www.tsfi.org Première Urgence - Aide Médicale Internationale http://www.pu-ami.org +95 9 431 978 25 Skype: charles.fleche

Hi Charles,

Can you tell us a little more about your workflow and why you are worried
about the phones getting damaged before sending forms to the server? E.g.,
are your phones going to be offline for months at a time? Do you expect to
have a large number of unsent forms on the phone?

If you tell us a little more about your project, we may be able to
recommend some simpler solution.

Thanks,
Amelia

··· On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Charles Flèche wrote:

Hi everyone,

In CommCareODK Android, before being sent to the server, forms are stored
on the built-in memory. Is it possible to write forms on an externel SD
card ?

I am aware of the "Dump to SD / Send from SD" feature, it is not what I'm
looking for. I'd like to write my forms on the external card as soon as a
form is completed so if a phone gets damaged and unusable, we could extract
the SD card and still access the forms.

Many thanks,

--
Charles Flèche
mHealth advisor
Télécoms Sans Frontières http://www.tsfi.org
Première Urgence - Aide Médicale Internationale http://www.pu-ami.org
+95 9 431 978 25
Skype: charles.fleche

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Hi Amelia,

··· On 24/06/2014 20:21, Amelia Sagoff wrote: > Can you tell us a little more about your workflow and why you are > worried about the phones getting damaged before sending forms to the > server? E.g., are your phones going to be offline for months at a time? > Do you expect to have a large number of unsent forms on the phone?

We provide Android phones to rural community health workers in Myanmar.
The internet connection, when it exists, it at best very unreliable.
Fortunately our health workers gather once a month in a place where the
connection is slightly better. So once a month we should be able to
upload the forms.

However, a month may be a long time to keep forms stored on a phone. If
a phone is damaged (and with the rainy season coming it is easy to
envision handsets taking an unfortunate bath in a puddle for example),
it would be great to know that it would be possible to get the unsent
forms by taking the SD card out and plug it in another device.

But it'd obviously need to have the forms written on the SD card by
default in the first place. Is it something possible with CommCare yet ?

Many thanks,

--
Charles Flèche
mHealth advisor
Télécoms Sans Frontières http://www.tsfi.org
Première Urgence - Aide Médicale Internationale http://www.pu-ami.org
+95 9 431 978 25
Skype: charles.fleche

Charles,

This sounds very much like the sort of circumstances that we intended the
"Dump to SD" feature to be used for. I think training your users to dump
their collected forms to the SD card at the end of the day is likely the
easiest option. We don't support doing this sort of thing automatically
currently; however, you're welcome to suggest this feature on UserVoice
http://dimagi.uservoice.com/.

If you really think the SD card dump feature doesn't suit your use case,
you could look into installing the application on your external SD card
https://www.google.com/search?q=install+application+on+external+SD+card+android.
This isn't something we support or have experience with and I'm not sure
that you could install CommCareODK on an external SD card without rooting
your phone. However, in theory if you installed CommCareODK entirely on
your SD card then recovering your data would be as simple as moving the
files on the SD card onto a new phone and running the application.

As a disclaimer: if you go this route you'll basically be on your own with
any issues that may arise as this is not supported behavior.

Best,
Will

··· On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Charles Flèche wrote:

Hi Amelia,

On 24/06/2014 20:21, Amelia Sagoff wrote:

Can you tell us a little more about your workflow and why you are
worried about the phones getting damaged before sending forms to the
server? E.g., are your phones going to be offline for months at a time?
Do you expect to have a large number of unsent forms on the phone?

We provide Android phones to rural community health workers in Myanmar.
The internet connection, when it exists, it at best very unreliable.
Fortunately our health workers gather once a month in a place where the
connection is slightly better. So once a month we should be able to upload
the forms.

However, a month may be a long time to keep forms stored on a phone. If a
phone is damaged (and with the rainy season coming it is easy to envision
handsets taking an unfortunate bath in a puddle for example), it would be
great to know that it would be possible to get the unsent forms by taking
the SD card out and plug it in another device.

But it'd obviously need to have the forms written on the SD card by
default in the first place. Is it something possible with CommCare yet ?

Many thanks,

--
Charles Flèche
mHealth advisor
Télécoms Sans Frontières http://www.tsfi.org
Première Urgence - Aide Médicale Internationale http://www.pu-ami.org
+95 9 431 978 25
Skype: charles.fleche

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