Suitability of MirrorSync

[[email protected]]

Hi there

I was wondering if I could check a couple of things in order to assess the suitability of MirrorSync for one of our solutions? Thanks in advance if you can help.

Here's a simplified scenario that outlines how we work in our inbound telephone call handling centre. We also have sales agents who are mobile and visit customer premises. We have a FM solution with a table that includes information about our customers / data subjects. The table contains fields such as Name, Address, Telephone Number, Email Address.

We have multiple staff users. 5 or so of our office-based staff will update information via a FMA12 desktop Client connected live to our local FMA Server on a variety of Mac and PC devices. Another 50 or so mobile sales agent Users will update information via iPads with FMGo 12 using a locally-stored database. They will sync that database using MirrorSync when they get back to the office later in the day.

My concern is as follows:

Say that an iPad user synchs at the start of the day and leaves the office. Midday, a Desktop client user receives a call from a customer and updates a record for a customer called 'Annie' by changing her telephone number. Later in the day, an iPad user (who still hasn't synched their device since the morning), visits Annie who tells our agent that she has a new email address. The sales agent updates Annie's email address but doesn't know about the updated telephone number. The iPad user then gets back to base and synchs their device using MirrorSync. Will MirrorSync recognise that both Annie's telephone number AND email address have been changed today by two different users and keep both bits of data safe (essentially, merging the changed records and keeping the rest of the data intact), or will it simply look at which version (the Server or iPad) record was updated last, and replace ALL of Annie's record with the iPad data as it was the last modification? If so, we've lost Annie's updated telephone number, and that'd be problematic for us.

Can anyone help me by answering how MirrorSync would handle this situation? And if it isn't good news, is there a workaround? I'm guessing we'd have to change our DB design into 1NF or something.

Many thanks

Oli

[sarah360works]

Hello Oli,

Thank you for your interest in MirrorSync! Conflicts are an interesting topic in synchronization, and there are few methods you can use with MirrorSync to resolve them. Prior to MirrorSync version 1.2, conflicts as you describe would use the last edited record timestamp and that record would "win," overwriting any changes on client or server. MirrorSync 1.2 introduced a new feature for conflict management, user controlled conflict resolution. With this feature, users are notified when a conflict occurs. The syncing device then is presented with the option to cancel syncing, use the automatic win rules, or manually pick which record should win.

Please note that this is on a per record basis, not per field. In your example, you could choose to keep either the email or the phone number, but not both for that particular record. Field level conflict resolution is a possible feature for a future version of MirrorSync, and if it is important, please let us know by sending an email to [email protected].

I've attached some screenshots to better show you the process in MirrorSync. Please feel free to contact me with any other questions or concerns you may have!

Regards,

Sarah Mulligan

[[email protected]]

Hi Sarah

Thank you, I've taken your advice and have emailed the address you provided.

Per field conflict resolution is definitely a must-have feature for us.

Best for now

Oli