Hi everyone, We switched tablets for our supervisor during offline data collection; Tablet 1 had roughly 90 completed interviews awaiting approval (they were not on the server yet). The interviews were then transferred to the Interviewer tablets. We then deleted the Supervisor app on Tablet 1 and reinstalled it on Tablet 2. We only have one Supervisor user and we logon to the new tablet. We have tried to sync these 90 interviews from the Interviewer tablets (3 different users) to the new tablet_2 and we have LOST all 60 from 2 interviewers. The interviews were not received on the new tablet. We haven’t synced the 3rd interviewer yet.
Has anyone experienced this?
Very concerning to see the word ‘lost’. Could you clarify that after syncing the interviews are NOT shown neither on supervisor’s nor on interviewers’ tablets?
What does it mean “transferred to the interviewer tablets”? Specifically which buttons did you press and what did you see on the screen?
See also the warnings on this page regarding un-installation of the app:
@zurab, Yes the interviews are not on both tablets (interviewer & supervisor).
@sergiy, the interviews were rejected back to the interviewer tablets before we uninstalled the Supervisor app. Currently, we have one more tablet with the rejected interviews and we are concerned that if we synchronize the tablets using horizontal communication then we might lose the interviews as well. There was no data on the supervisor tablet when we did the uninstallation but all you could see was data sent to the interviewer.
Synchronization protocols currently implemented in Survey Solutions make certain assumptions on what is stored on each of the three components of the system (i.e. Headquarters, Supervisor, or Interviewer apps) this allows to control that only relevant data, accessible to the current user are exchanged. Also, to minimize the network traffic, only parts of the interview that are new, and are not expected to be on the recipient side is sent.
Unfortunately, in this architecture, we haven’t covered the case when the whole Supervisor application (with its stored data) is wiped.
Therefore, the information regarding this particular supervisor and 3 interviewer is currently in an unexpected state, and any further actions by these 4 user may further worsen the situation.
@memo_mhembere it would be best if you are able to freeze any work under those 3 interviewers, and instead, create new 3 users, and assign any new work to those users, on different tablets. Since we’ll need access to the backups of affected devices/data I have sent you an email and let’s move to the direct communication to see how to resolve the issue with these particular interviews.
For all other users reading this topic - we have opened an issue and will start working on it right away.
When the changes are implemented I will come to update this answer, but meanwhile the following warnings are in effect:
- Reinstalling, migrating or otherwise changing Supervisor tablet while working in offline mode is not supported by Survey Solutions and therefore must not be performed.
- If Supervisor tablet is lost or damaged, if application data are deleted or corrupt, do not try to synchronize interviewers attached to this supervisor, but instead contact us immediately.
@zurab, thanks so much. I haven’t received your email. Could you please resend it?
Please check your spam folder if there is any emails from support at mysurvey dot solutions