Nik,
One more thought is that if you are using a multi-port hub, you can plug in a number of phones at the same time. If you are using Android Debug Bridge, you can create a bat script with the Device ID # of every phone in your arsenal, and a ‘pull’ command for each one. ADB can talk to more than one phone at a time.
Here’s a little more about how to use ADB.
To get the ID for each phone, plug them in, open a command line, and type “adb devices”. This will give you the serial number for each device.
To use ‘pull’, you normally just do it like this:
adb pull
But, if you are using multiple devices, you have to specify the device serial number. For each device, you need a line in the bat with the switch “-s”.
For example, my phone tells me it’s serial number is SH06EPB01400 when I use the command ‘adb devices’.
So, If I want to make sure I am talking to that phone when I pull my data, I specify it like this:
adb -s SH06EPB01400 pull /sdcard/odk/instances/ C:\Users\Neil\Sync\
To make it clear, this command is saying "Android Debug Bridge, check the connected phone with the serial number SH06EPB01400, get everything out of the /sdcard/odk/instances/ directory and copy it over to my
C:\Users\Neil\Sync\ directory.
I can make a bat command with a line like that for every device in my arsenal.
adb -s SH06EPB01400 pull /sdcard/odk/instances/ C:\Users\Neil\Sync\
adb -s QL06EPB03294 pull /sdcard/odk/instances/ C:\Users\Neil\Sync\
adb -s PR06EPB40243 pull /sdcard/odk/instances/ C:\Users\Neil\Sync\
adb -s ZZZ06EPB76403 pull /sdcard/odk/instances/ C:\Users\Neil\Sync\
If you have 50 phones in your arsenal, you can’t plug them all in to the same hub (unless you have the world’s most magnificent USB hub), but it doesn’t matter. Your BAT file has all the phone’s serial numbers in it, if only ten of them are connected, the rest of the lines nothing happens, you sync your 10 connected phones anyway. Then you connect 10 new phones and run the same BAT.
A word of caution. If you are collecting enough data you can run into a conflicting name. By default, KoBoCollect names each completed survey instance with the name of the survey plus the date and time to the second.
“KoBo_Demo_2012-05-30_23-13-10.xml”
If you have a lot of people doing surveys at the same time, it is possible that two phones will create a survey at the same second. If that happens, you will end up with two surveys with the same name. If that happens, using the above method one survey will over-write the other survey and you will LOSE DATA! This is the worst thing that can happen. This may seem far fetched, but it has happened to us in the field when we had a very large sample size (4500) and 50 phones in the field collecting data every day for six weeks. Out of that group, there were about 8 sets of survey instances that happened on the same day, at the same time to the second.
In order to avoid this, KoBoSync changes the name of the survey when it synchronizes the data by adding the device ID to the name of the instance, so that it is impossible to have two surveys with the same name because it is impossible for the same phone to make two surveys at the same second. You get a name like:
351771046714334_KoBo_Demo_2012-05-30_23-13-10.xml
~Neil
☞§※☼:airplane:
~Neil
···
On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:37 AM, ゴー・ニコライ nikol...@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks again Neil.
If that doesn’t happen, the options are:
- Run a local ODK dropbox server, ask each enumerator to sync with it while debriefing. (multi-tasking, meet while synching in the background)
- Direct USB hookup for every handset and sync using ADB (or Automount app) on USB cable - (surefire method, need to spend time on each handset)
local FTP server and FTP clients run on android (somewhat tedious) and connects using local wifi - slow, and would require too much fiddling on the handset. (I just tried this, and though wireless works, it’s just too slow)
I’m okay with CLI, that’s not going to be any hassle. And I agree that reliability tops convenience. I’m hoping to learn from your experience here for an optimal way of handling 40-50 handsets (for the pilot, may double in other pilot tests) with the least amount of pain and heartache o_0.
I’m scouring the archives for comments and feedback about your experience on this.
On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, Neil Hendrick wrote:
Nik,
You might try Bluetooth File Transfer. That would give you a local wireless connection. Establishing the BT connection, however, would be no quicker than plugging in a USB cable.
There are some other options, you could use Android Debug Bridge, which still requires you to plug in a cable but allows you to use the ‘pull’ command to sync your data without having to mount your SD card. It’s makes it fast, if you are comfortable on the command line.
If you don’t like command line, or don’t want to go to the trouble of using ADB, you can save yourself a couple of clicks and swipes by using an apcollectsp to auto-mount your SDccollectsard when you plug in the cable.
Those are some ideas, but keep in mind that no matter what you have to push your data in some way, and it can be a little tedious, but it is the most important part of the whole process, so if you have to put some effort, a method that is tedious and reliable is better than a method that is easy and unreliable.
~Neil
On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:25 PM, ゴー・ニコライ nikol...@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you Patrick, Neil for your responses.
Yes, pretty nice, only if you have some “level of connectivity” which is my concern. I wonder if KoBo is working on non-Internet alternatives to KoBo Sync, without fiddling with USB connections (i.e. adhoc WiFi on notebook?)
On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, Neil Hendrick wrote:
To add a little further to Patrick’s comments; Dropsync is a good solution to keep your data synchronized to a remote server in a way that is not difficult to set up, does not require a special server, and is reliable.
It does require you to have some level of connectivity. You can configure dropsync to run in the background all the time, or to run on a schedule, like once an hour or once a day.
It has the limitation that it will upload your completed surveys, but it will not download new forms, for example if you had made changes to your survey and put them in a dropbox folder. So, it’s good for synchronizing data, not so good for updating your survey.
~Neil Hendrick
On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Vinck, Patrick pvi...@hsph.harvard.edu wrote:
Hi Nik,
Dropsync works with your existing DropBox account, but the difference is that the dropbox app on your phone does not let you specify what folder you would like to add (i.e. your “ODK” folder on the phone.). Dropsync does…
Sometime we would like to look further into this and build a KoBocollect that includes a dropsync function.
Best,
Patrick
From: kobo-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:kobo-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of ???
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 8:43 PM
To: kobo-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [KoBo Users] KoboCollect/KoboSync vs droidSURVEY
Geesh.
I thought I read “DropBox” (like in the DropBox component of ODK) but reading Neil’s message one more time and clicking on the link he provided, it was obviously something else.
Sorry for the bother.
P.S.
Any comments about the question is welcome, though.
On Tuesday, June 19, 2012 8:38:54 AM UTC+8, > > > > > ニコノコ wrote:
Neil,
You mentioned you’re using DropBox, and this is a fairly recent message.
I’m trying out that particular option right now but stuck with an error from Collect RC2: "Error Getting Form List:
Form listing failed. ContentType: text/html; http://192.168.2.102:8080/ formList is not text/xml. This is often caused a network proxy. Do you need to login to your network?"
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