Smap Consulting now has a permanent company address in Canberra.  However one of the objectives of this move is to allow a more flexible physical location.  So although the company will be located in Canberra we may be working out of co-working space in Manila or Nairobi etc depending in the work we are doing and the location of our customers.

The company address is now:

PO Box 4644
Kingston,
Canberra, ACT, 2604
Australia

Our current physical location is at Brainspace a co working space in Kingston.

[osm_map_v3 map_center=”-35.316,149.142″ zoom=”14″ width=”100%” height=”450″ post_markers=”1″]

You can now export data for import into SPSS.  This complements the existing formats of:

1. xls
2. csv
3. kml
4. shape
5. Stata
6. Openstreetmap

On the Smap server go to the analysis module and select “Export”, then select SPSS as the format. A Zip will be downloaded containing a CSV file for the data and an SPS file for the variable names.

Within SPSS import the CSV data file. Then load the variable names by selecting:

File > Open > Syntax

Then select:

“Run All”

Any suggestions on improvements to the information that is written to the SPS syntax file would be gratefully accepted.

What is it with map providers! You may see something like this when you open a map view:

The changes Map Quest have put in place mean that they no longer support OpenLayers which is the mapping API that Smap uses in many places on the server. fieldTask is also affected.

More details on their announcement here: http://devblog.mapquest.com/2016/06/15/modernization-of-mapquest-results-in-changes-to-open-tile-access/

There is an updated version of the Smap Server to address this problem available on the downloads page.  http://www.smap.com.au/downloads.shtml

A fix for fieldTask should be available soon.

From the 22nd June 2016 you once again need an access key in order to use the google maps API.  This is a return to the situation as it was before version 3 of Google Maps.   However this change currently only applies to new web sites which is why I hadn’t noticed it up until now.

Smap does not use the Google Maps API directly to draw maps, instead we use Openlayers and Mapbox, however we do use it to retrieve google street maps and google satellite base maps.  If you have recently installed a new Smap server you may find these base maps no longer show up.

The problem has been addressed in version 16.06.11 of the Smap Server which is available from the downloads page of the Smap website.  This version has an extra tab on the users page labelled “Server”.  You will need the “Organisational Administrator” role to see this tab.

To get the google maps back you only need to set the google maps key. However you can also set the server level mapbox key and email configuration from this tab.

New Features

Online Editor

1. Info Dialog

There was a problem with the editor in the previous release that it would not show that you had created a new form that shared a table with an existing form.  An “info” dialog has been added under the “file” menu to show this sort of information.

Info Dialog

The “Based On” text in the dialog shows the survey name and the form name that the new survey was based on.  These names are separated by double colons “::”.

2. Make questions read only

You can now make questions read only or convert them to writable when in the online editor.

Referencing data from other form

1. Specify a unique key for each record

Previously the only unique keys associated with a record of data were generated when the data was collected.  These are the “prikey” and the instanceId.  However if you then edit the previously collected data new versions of these keys are created.   Now you can specify a “Human Readable Key” as a combination of answers to questions in the form plus an internally generated number to make sure it is unique.   Its these questions from the form that make the key “Human Readable”, for example a key could be “Zambia-2016-11”.  This key will not be changed if the data is edited.

2. Link a question to data in another form

In the online editor you can specify that a question links to a “Human Readable Key” (HRK) in another form.  Then if you answer that question by entering an HRK the data can be linked in reports.  For example you may have a form that maintains assets and another form to report a fault.  If you enter the HRK for the asset into the form recording a fault then reports can be created on the faults per asset.

You can enter the HRK as a text question, using a Barcode question or a select_on question.

3. Referencing data collected by other forms

Previously it has been possible to load CSV files containing data that can be referenced, or used to create choice lists, while filling in a form.  It is possible to:

1. extract previously collected data
2. edit it into a suitable CSV file
3. Then upload that CSV file for use by another survey

This new features simplifies that whole process by allowing you to reference other surveys instead of CSV files.  The latest data is then automatically extracted when you refresh fieldTask.

Browse Results

The results browser is available from the webforms module. Features include:

1. Select the columns to show
2. Filter on all “select one” type questions
3. Search for text in the results

View Logs

It is now possible to view logs showing various events such as deleting or erasing forms and also viewing the data in forms.

Access the log by selecting the new module called “manage”.  There should be a high volume of logs generated, you can sort them and filter on survey name, user and event type.  You can also do a text search.

Bug Fixes

1. Smap Uploader was failing to upload data using https.
2. If no data had been submitted for a survey then a blank survey template could not be generated.

Features

New Features

Required Message

You can now specify a message to be shown to the user if a question is “required” and they try to skip it.  Enter the message in the column with a heading “required_message” in the survey template. (update) You can now also add the required message using the editor.  Select required as the attribute you want to modify and enter the message next to the button that sets the question as required.

Take a new picture

When the user answers an “image” type question in fieldTask they normally have the option of taking a new picture or selecting a picture already on the phone.  Adding the “nochoose” appearance value removed the option of selecting an existing picture.  This capability has now been expanded to “annotate” questions.    To use this:

• Create a question of type “image”
• Add an appearance of “annotate nochoose”

In the previous version of Smap this would only work no normal image questions that did not have annotate.

Autoplay of Video and Audio

If you include video or audio as part of the question then you can set these to play automatically when the question is shown to the data collector.  This can be done in the XLS survey template by specifying “video” or “audio” in the “autoplay” column.  You can also specify this in the online editor.

Times shown in local time rather than UTC

If you delete a form and then view the list of deleted forms the name of the form will include the date and time it was deleted.  For newly deleted forms this time will now be in the local time of your browser.  Interestingly if you are discussing deleted forms with somebody in a different time zone then you will each see a different form name (at least the data/time part of it).

FieldTask 3.14 Included on the server

This is the latest version of fieldTask that is also available in the google play store.  Details on new functionality.

Other Changes

1. Importing of data into a survey has been moved from the task management page to the analysis page.  To import data from a CSV file create a table view, open the “aside” and then click on the import button.

You can now specify a question in a form to read the ID of NFC chips using fieldTask.   To this:

1. Create a question of type “barcode”
2. Set the appearance to be “read_nfc”

New Features

Adding notes to a survey

You can now record notes while you are completing a survey on fieldTask.  Notes can also be added after a survey has been saved as complete and before it it submitted to the server. You will need version 3.13 of FieldTask for this feature.

Adding notes while conducting a survey

Notes

• To add a note start the survey or task then select “menu” | “add comment”. Press the button “Save Changes” to save the comment or press the back button to discard it.
• The name of the question currently being answered is automatically added to the note
• When adding notes to a completed survey most of the questions will be marked as readonly and cannot be modified.  However, currently, some question types will still appear capable of modification. Despite this appearance, the changes to questions will not be saved, only the changes to the notes
• Also when adding notes to a completed survey make sure you save the survey as well as each individual note or the notes will not be updated

Important.  Only surveys added after version 16.03 of the server will have the notes saved.  If you need this feature applied retrospectively to existing surveys let us know and we can make a quick database change that will allow that.

The following video illustrates the functionality

Security Considerations

Some people may consider it a security issue that the answers to completed surveys can now be reviewed on the phone.  If this is an issue to anyone let us know and we will rush out a patch allowing the feature to be disabled on the server.  It would also be possible to add a password to the form on the server that needs to be entered to review the completed survey.

Security Controls that can be enabled on the phone now are:

• A PIN to prevent access to unauthorised users
• Encryption of the sd card using Android native tools
• Remote wipes of the sd card using third party Android management apps
• Ensure “auto-delete” of survey results after submission to the server is enabled

The above controls are more critical for ensuring security than preventing some people, who already are authorised to access the phone, from seeing the completed data.  However as stated if you have a requirement for this we will add it.

There are only a few changes in this release.

New Features

Times shown in local time

Previously all times were shown as GMT but now some times are shown in the local time of the user’s browser.  Where this is done the label will include the words “(Local Time)”.  These local times are shown in the following places:

• Monitor page:  Upload Date
• Analysis page on table views. Upload Date, Start Time and End Time
• Reports page.  The published time of the report.

On the analysis page, the start and end time of the survey is only shown in local time if you have not set your own start or end preload question.

Times in exported files remain GMT.  However if you export to XLS you can easily add a new column to show the time in another time zone.   You just need to add (offset in hours) / 24 to the date / time column.

Multi-Language Support

More of the web pages are available in other languages now.  However only the Spanish translations have been provided so far.   I’m waiting on the translators for French, Hindi and Portuguese to provide translations for these new pages.

Automatic Browser refresh when the version changes

Previously you had to press refresh on browser pages after a new version of Smap was released.  This is no longer required as the browser will refresh automatically to get the new code.  However there is a catch, for this feature to work it requires the browser to be refreshed!  So you you will need to do that again for this release but only once more (for every page!).

Bugs Fixed

• When setting up an email server for an organisation the email port was not being set.
• Various fixes to the editor approach to sub forms.

In this release the online editor is a little more stable, although still Beta.  We have also started to add some new features that make use of the potential of the online editor.

New Features

Multiple Forms updating a single table of data

With this feature you can have a single table of data and multiple forms contributing to it.   Each form can have unique questions so that it is the only form that provides answers to those questions but each form can also answer questions that are also answered by other forms.  To help you work out whats going on in your results there is a new “informational” column that shows the name of the form that contributed each row of data.

If seems a bit confusing then you probably don’t need it.  For assessments it is still good practice to only have one version of one form used by all data collectors.   However some potential uses for this new feature are:

• Validating or annotating survey results.   In the validation form you can set the questions that also appear in the data collection survey as “read only” and then add some additional questions for the reviewer to answer.
• Performing follow up surveys where an issue identified in the first survey is addressed.
• Having a different survey for each region where most of the questions are common but some are specific to the region.  You can achieve something similar by using “relevance” on questions however this requires the user to enter correctly the region they are using.  If there was a separate form then they would not be able to answer questions for the wrong region.

The following You Tube video demonstrates how to use this feature.  The scenario is for a medical clinic where the patient first enters some of their details and then the doctor expands on the patient record with a diagnosis.

Key steps to share a table are:

1. Create a form
2. On the admin page select “Create New Form”
3. Select the checkbox that says “Base on existing form”
4. Select the form to share with
5. Select the checkbox that says “Store results in a shared table”
6. You can then modify the second form, deleting questions, adding new ones etc.

Basing a new form on an existing form

When you create a new form in the editor you can select a checkbox to base it on an existing form.  By default this form’s data will go into its own table, unless you further select the checkbox to “share results”.

Kobotoolbox API

Some of the services from the KoboToolbox API are now supported.  More information is available form the Smap koboToolbox API help.  If you are developing applications that have to work with both Smap Server and kobo then this API may be useful.  Contact us if there are specific API endpoints that you need for your application.

This feature enhances Smap’s conformance to standards.  The main standard we use is JavaRosa which specifies the services that a mobile device uses to connect to the server.  This means that you can use any ODK compatible device with Smap including odkCollect and GeoOdk as well as fieldTask.  The kobo toolboxApi specifies services to access collected data and administer the server.  Hence you should be able to use software built with these services with the Smap server.

Bugs Fixed

• Scheduled Time was not included in tasks, only the date.
• If you had a quotation character in a form name then when you exported the results for that form it would not allow you to include the question text in the first row of a results export.
• If you had more than one “select” question with the same name then when loading from an XLS file the choices for one of the questions were dropped.
• The order in which questions were shown was not consistent between the dashboard and the export.