Beginning in Smap version 14.03 you can add forwarding to a survey template.  This will result in each submitted result being forwarded on to the target server.

Key characteristics

• Each forward link sends results from a single survey template to a single remote server
• You can add multiple forward links to a template allowing you to forward results to many remote servers
• Submissions are sent in one direction only. Hence if the target server is receiving results from multiple sources it will have a different view of the results than each of the sources
• Forwarding links can be added to the target server as well. These can point back to the original source server but it ahs to be to a different survey on that server
• Existing results will be forwarded if you add forwarding to a template that already has submitted results
• Results will queue until there is a network connection before being forwarded
• The target server can be another Smap server or any server that supports Java Rosa such as ODK Aggregate

Offline laptops

One way of using this forwarding feature is to install Smap on a laptop.  This laptop can be used to aggregate and analyse data collected on mobile phones in areas that do not have a reliable Internet connection.  You can upload the results from the phones to the local laptop over a wi-fi hotspot.  Once you connect the laptop to the Internet it can forward the results onto a cloud server so that they can be worked on by a distributed team.

Community Laptops

Community laptops are an extension of the “offline laptop” concept.  Each community can maintain its local view of data collected on the phones.  However they can set up a forward link so that a consolidated view of all the data from all the communities can be aggregated.

Demonstration

The following video shows the forwarding of results from a Smap Server to an ODK Aggreate server.

How to add a forward link

1. Create the same survey template on the local and remote server.  These templates can have different names on each server but should be the same template.  A good way to do this is to download the template as an XML file from one of the servers and then upload it to the other.
2. On the source server, find your template on the template management screen and click the upward pointing arrow next to its name
3. Click the button “Add Forward”
4. Enter the url of the destination server
5. Enter a user ID and password.  You should use a user id that only has privileges to complete surveys (enum) as the password is stored in the database. So don’t use your Admin user id!
6. Press the button to refresh the list of available surveys on the remote server
7. Select the survey that you want to update
8. Save

You can monitor forwarded results on the monitor page by selecting the “forward” radio button.