Using WIFI Direct to Sync

[alex...@morethanme.org]

Hi all!

We are looking for instructions on how to sync via Wifi Direct and have searched the Help Site and not found anything relevant, which seems odd (see below).  Can anyone share or point me to step by step instructions for how to use Wifi Direct to download data from one phone to another when they are out of network area?

Also, do both phones need to have the same CommCare app installed for this to work?

Thanks so much!
Alex

[Kai Cowger]

Hi Alex,

We do not recommend using WiFi direct to transfer data between phones. This feature is not completely safe for use, and we are still working to improve this feature. 

Can you outline what the particular scenario where you believe you need Wifi Direct? 

Thanks!

Kai

[Alexandra Fallon]

Hi Kai,

Thanks for getting back to us.

We have principals taking daily student & teacher attendance in rural schools that are far from cell coverage.  Our field staff visit these schools 2-3x per month and we want them to be able to collect the data from the principal phones and then sync it to the network when they return to cell coverage.  We described this use case to our account rep and were specifically told that Wifi direct would work for this particular scenario.

Do you have any recommendations on what else we might do?

thank you!
Alex

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[Kai Cowger]

Apologies if you got mixed messages -- we will try to make sure all our teams are aligned on what is safe or not for our clients to use. If possible, I would definitely steer toward having the teachers send the forms themselves from their phones. Remember, it is OK to go weeks (or longer) at a time without syncing the phones if needed. 

If the teachers will never be in internet service, the last option I would consider is doing an SD card dump. This is similar to the WiFi Direct method of transferring forms from one phone to another, but it is manual through the use of an SD card rather than using Wifi Direct. 

The way this works is as follows:

In deployments with infrequent or weak general access to data networks it might be necessary for a "supervisor" to manually collect forms from many mobile workers and then send them to the server later from some home base with reliable internet. This functionality enables that workflow.

Please note that this only works for CommCare Android devices that accept external SD cards.

General Workflow Outline

1. Both the mobile worker and the supervisor must have phones running CommCare version 2.6 or later on an Android device. The supervisor must have an SD card.

2. The CHW completes a number of forms that have not been sent to the server

3. The supervisor brings an SD card to the mobile worker, and they insert an external SD card in the phone

4. They complete the "SD Dump Process" below

5. The SD card is removed from the mobile worker's phone and returned to the supervisor

6. The supervisor repeats this with as many mobile workers as necessary

7. The supervisor returns to the location with reliable internet, inserts the SD card into her phone, and completes the "SD Send Process" below

SD Dump Process

1. The SD card is in the mobile worker's phone

2. Navigate to the CommCare Home Screen

3. Press the Menu/Settings button

4. Select "Advanced" then the "Manage SD" option

5. Proceed past the warning prompt

6. (Optional) verify that the screen lists the number of forms you'd expect to be on the phone

7. Press the "Dump Forms" button

8. When this process completes successfully you can remove the SD card

SD Send Process

1. The SD card is in the supervisor's Android device. The supervisor has reliable data.

2. Navigate to the CommCare Home Screen

3. Press the Menu/Settings button

4. Select "Advanced" then the "Manage SD" option

5. Proceed past the warning prompt

6. (Optional) verify that the screen lists the number of forms you'd expect to be on the SD card

7. Press the "Send Forms" button. This part of the process could potentially take a while depending on the connection strength and number of forms on the SD card

8. When this process completes successfully you can remove the SD card

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[Alexandra Fallon]

Hi Kai,

Thanks for your help on this.

We've looked into the SD card transfer before and ran into issues because our phones are have the OS Android 4.4 Lollipop which doesn't allow for the SD transfer.

When you say that wifi transfer "isn't safe" what exactly do you mean?  We experimented with this a bit before and it seemed to go well so if we take a risk and go for it again, I'm curious to know exactly what sort of issues which should keep an eye out for.  Is it data disappearing completely?  Or data getting swapped around?

thank you!!
Alex

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[Kai Cowger]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for following up. The way I described Wifi Direct wasn't quite accurate or clear, and I apologize for that. What I should have said is that we had a bug recently which led to unrecoverable data loss while using this feature. We have continued to improve the feature in the latest versions of CommCare, and that particular bug was patched in CommCare 2.40. If you go with this option, we would recommend making certain that your users are on the most updated CommCare versions at all times.

Furthermore, because Wifi Direct involves moving around forms from user to user, it complicates form ownership hierarchies and we would recommend keeping ownership restrictions and case sharing as lax as possible.

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

-Kai

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Kai Cowger

Senior Support Analyst

Dimagi, Inc | 585 Massachusetts Ave | Suite 3 | Cambridge, MA 02139
(857)-265-4193
http://www.dimagi.com/

[Alexandra Fallon]

Thanks Kai - super helpful.  Two quick follows up.  When was CC 2.4 released?  Also, I can't seem to access the confluence Wifi Direct link you shared.  Is there a link on the https://wiki.commcarehq.org that you could direct me to?

appreciate it!
Alex

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[Kai Cowger]

Hey Alex,

2.40 was release in late October, and here is an updated link to our wiki page. Sorry about that! 

Regards,

Kai

[Alexandra Fallon]

Thank you!!

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