MirrorSync: Newbie scenario question

[Greg Hains]

Good afternoon,

I have a client that has 7 technicians that move from site to site servicing equipment. They attend jobs that have been setup in advance by their head office, so all the job details are there ready for them before they attend site - and they just complete a few forms whilst onsite.  The majority of the time they have Internet access whereby they can access the hosted solution.
Sometimes they work in areas where there is no access to the Internet and cannot complete the forms in the solution, whereby they have to return to an area with Internet coverage to complete the form - usually after the job - which is not ideal. 

Correct me at any point here, but I am thinking I may be able to use MirrorSync to work it so these technicians have the ability to complete an offline version (local copy on the device) of the form, then when in coverage again, simply sync the changes to that specific job back up to the hosted solution.  Would it be a case of pre-downloading the job's details from the hosted solution to the local copy, working in that local copy whilst offline, then syncing the job form data back up to the hosted solution again? (dusts hands, job done)

Am I missing any important and/or relevant key steps here that might foil my plans of above?

Greg

[Ocean West]

My client is doing this very thing - inspectors will sync while in the office on wifi and get local copy on their device, we have set it up to download most tables to the device however we only push inspections one way back to the server they seldom need to take with them past inspections - this saves time on initial sync. 

The initial sync will download a clone of the file then sync the data set. ( you can even restrict per inspector if they don't need to see each others) 

We also take photos and only push photos back to the server you would need to make sure you move attachments to their own table and not to include containers in your main data files unless necessary. Or you could have a link on a record that will OPEN the hosted file if they have network access to review data on the server that isn't being synced. - you will just need to use Get(HostName) visually inform the user what platform they are using. 

You could setup multiple sync operations if you needed to sync specific tables depending on your need. 

If the users has good 5g coverage they could even sync over cellular. 

The first 30 seconds shows our solution relying on MirrorSync  in action there are so many places in the Airport that has no connectivity. 

Cheers

 

[Greg Hains]

Hi @Ocean West

Thankyou for this.

Yes, its exactly what I'd be doing.  The iPads all work off 5G now, and whilst we have good coverage overall, coldrooms and some environments have none.

The solution they use would download the job details for all the jobs they do that day, into their local copy.  Once they finish the job, it would sync back up to the hosted solution, then wipe that job from their local device.  As this is a constantly growing solution for this client, there are changes being made every week to the hosted solution, so there would also be changes being made to the local copy too. To this end, we would have something in place whereby the technician downloads the latest version of the local file to their device - I'm working on streamlining that so it is a seamless as possible.

Thankyou again as always for your contribution.

Greg

[Ocean West]

there is a MirrorSync table you add to your system and when you make layout or schema changes you revise the version number - after the end user syncs they will be prompted that a new version is ready they can download the new clone and an initial sync happens again. 

Highly recommend using UUID's  - And hopefully you don't have to deal with timezones - that can be something you have to account for. 

 

[Greg Hains]

Oh even better - version management as well!

Thanks @Ocean West - I can see this is going to be a great project.

Timezones aren't a problem as technicians, head office and the server are all in the same timezone - and we don't have daylight savings!

Thanks again.
Greg