Tag Archives: android

FieldTask5 Beta Now Available on Google Play

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FieldTask5 is now available as a Beta Test download on Google Play. This is a major upgrade with significant improvements to performance, reliability and Android compatibility while retaining all the Smap features you rely on.

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If you are interested in the code it is available in GitHub at https://github.com/smap-consulting/fieldTask5.

What’s Changed from FieldTask4

ODK Collect Upstream Merge

FieldTask began life as a fork of Collect, we then modified it to add case management and the many other capabilities that make it a better M&E tool. It is a good idea to keep forks of software in sync with the upstream source so that enhancements and bug fixes to that code can be included however this was difficult in this case for the following reasons:

  • The Collect team have been progressively re-writing the Java code into Kotlin making automatic identification of Smap changes difficult.
  • Collect have been migrating code into modules. So a file modified by Smap moves and it is again hard to detect Smap functionality and automatically merge it.
  • Collect like implementing the latest fashion in design patterns so single files get broken up into multiple files or vice versa again making automatic merge difficult.
  • Low motivation. Each merge does not usually bring obvious improvement. However over time the change do reach a critical mass of usefulness much like upgrading infrastructure components.

The result was that FieldTask4 has not been merged with Collect for 4 years. For FieldTask5 we started from scratch with a fresh fork and then reapplied all of the Smap features.

From now on we expect to keep FieldTask5 in sync with Collect using AI coding tools. This is the sort of problem that these tools are good at and human programmers are bad at.

Changes:

  1. FieldTask5 now targets Android 15 (SDK 35) and compiles against SDK 36, ensuring compatibility with the latest Android devices and security requirements.
  2. Adoption of Jetpack Compose for new UI components, providing a smoother, more responsive experience
  3. Updated Material Design 3 components throughout the app
  4. Improved form entry navigation and validation — answers are now validated without requiring a save, giving faster feedback
  5. Scale bar added to Google Maps and OpenStreetMap map views
  6. Improved OSM max zoom levels for better detail
  7. Refactored map fragments for better stability and performance
  8. Enhancements to entity form processing — creation, updating, editing, approval and locking
  9. Improved reliability of barcode scanning across devices

New Smap Features in FieldTask5

The focus of this release was just to include the existing FieldTask4 functionality in the new FieldTask5 fork. However we did find time to add a few enhancements:

  1. You can now refresh your forms and tasks by dragging down on the Form list or task list page. This is standard Android behaviour for initiating a refresh.
  2. Completed instances that cannot be sent to the server because the form on the server has been blocked or deleted will now be shown as orphans with a grey icon. They will not be sent to the server until the form is unblocked or undeleted. This contrasts with fieldTask4 behaviour where these instances were sent and a “403 – forbidden” error would then be shown. This message will however still be shown the first time you refresh with that instance and it finds out that it is an orphan.
Instances view with an orphan instance for the survey Barcodes NFC shown in grey and a couple of cases.

Accessing the FieldTask5 beta

FieldTask5 has not yet replaced FieldTask4 in the Google play store. But you can access it by joining the beta program.

Step 1 — Join the Beta Program

  1. Search for fieldTask in the play store, tap on the name/icon to open its detail page, scroll down to the “join the beta section” and tap join.

Step 2 — Install FieldTask5

  1. After joining the beta program, go to the FieldTask listing on Google Play
  2. You should see a note indicating the beta version is available
  3. Tap “Update” or “Install”

Step 3 — Provide Feedback

As a beta tester your feedback is invaluable. If you encounter any issues or have suggestions:

Important Notes

  • The beta version will replace any existing FieldTask installation on your device since it shares the same application ID
  • Your existing data and settings should be preserved during the upgrade
  • Beta releases may contain bugs — we recommend backing up important data in the app before upgrading
  • You can leave the beta program at any time from the same testing link and revert to the stable release

We look forward to your feedback as we work toward the stable release of FieldTask5!

Release of Smap HTML / iPhone Evaluation Tools

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Announcing Smap Evaluation Tools Server version 13.09.  New functionality includes:

  1. Support for completing surveys on a web browser. Browsers need to support HTML5 and can be on a laptop, iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile .
  2. Automatic dropping of duplicate surveys.  Previously the duplicate would have been marked as “bad” so that it did not appear in exported results or graphs however these duplicates could still be seen in table views.
  3. Calculate questions are now shown in the exported spreadsheet in their correct position relative to other questions in the survey.  So if you add a question to calculate the age in months after a date of birth question, then age in months will appear after DOB in the exported results.
  4. If you explicitly specify a “start time”, “end time” or IMEI question in your survey then these are no longer automatically added by Smap as well

WebForm Evaluation Tool

webform

Screen shot of web form in Chrome browser on a  Mac laptop

Features

  • Uses the open source Enketo forms engine
  • (Should) work in any HTML5 capable browser
  • GPS coordinates
  • Multi- choice and single select questions
  • Integer and text questions
  • Uploading of photographs (on some browsers, those with better HTML5 support)
  • Repeating groups
  • Relevance
  • Works offline and saves results for submission later when there is a network connection

Issues

The web forms feature is really a beta release so you can expect to find some issues.  Report any you find and we will try to get them fixed in the next release.  Known issues include:

  1. Some odk 1.4 functions that depend on javarosa do not work.  For example the new date time functions.
  2. Surveys that have images in their questions or options will not work with webForms
  3. Large surveys may be slow particularly when downloading or expanding a conditional group
  4. Safari on iPhone has some additional restrictions:
  • File uploads are not supported on Safari / iPhone
  • Expansion of conditional groups that are made relevant based on responses to prior questions do not work

Phone Browsers

iphone

Situation Assessment using Safari on an iPhone

android

Situation Assessment using Chrome on Android

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Applications for the web forms feature

The ability to complete forms on web browsers adds a lot of flexibility to your data collection. For example it is now possible to send out an email or tweet with a link to a survey that the recipient can complete on their browser.

Installation

This is straightforward and very similar to previous installation.  Updated instructions are in the README file.  If you have an existing smap installation you should be able to just run the webformsInstall script to update the platform to support webForms (MySQL and PHP).  You can then deploy the updated application code as before.  Contact me if you have any issues.

If you are installing your own server you can get it from here.

Deployment onto Smap Managed Servers

I will progressively deploy this release onto the servers managed by Smap Consulting over the next few days.  However the ability to complete surveys using WebForms may not suit everyone.  Hence I will disable this functionality by default on each server unless you request that it be switched on.

Acknowledgements

Web Forms uses the excellent Enketo toolkit. This toolkit has been integrated into Smap by the following undergraduate students from RMIT who have done an excellent job.

  • HeeSien Ooi
  • Kar Ming Clement Kam
  • Kiman Sze
  • Mohamad Bahaa Maarouf
  • Shishir Chawla
  • Teck We Kee

 

Release of fieldTask v3.0

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Announcing fieldTask version 3.0. This release includes the changes in the odkCollect 1.4 release (thanks to the ODK team) along with the ability to send partially completed forms back to the server. You can download version 3 from google play and from the smap development server. It will be deployed onto other servers as they get upgraded.

ft3

fieldTask v3.0 Home Screen

1) Change Location. [Provided by ODK 1.4] There is a new ‘placement-map’ appearance for location questions.  If you use this “appearance” setting on a question of type “geopoint” then your current location will be shown on a map and you can do a long press on the map to change the position that will be recorded. The meaning of the 4 icons on the map is:

        1. Exit map without saving location
        2. Save location and exit map
        3. Place marker at current location
        4. Zoom to marker

location placement

2) New functions for date processing. [Provided by ODK1.4] Refer to the survey editing guideline and the example xls template.

3) Improved styling for phones with Android 3+. These will show an action bar with icons for some of the menu options. On smaller phones only one or two of the icons will be shown, the other menu options are accessible though the menu button.

icons

Android 2.2 phone menu showing all the icons. Android 3+ phones will show some icons on title bar, remaining menu options will be text when accessed through menu.

4) Access to question responses within repeating groups. [Provided by ODK 1.4].  This allows you to create one repeating group to get all the names of people in a household, then in a second repeating group you can ask detailed questions about each member of the household and refer to the name recorded for that householder. Refer to survey editing guideline and the example xls template.

5) Ability to defer constraint and “required” validation to the end of the survey. [Provided by ODK 1.4]. This can be enabled in the settings.

6) Sending partially completed forms back to the server.  If you have to save a survey half way through because it cannot be completed you can optionally send those results to the server.  After selecting “submit finished data” from the menu, press the menu button again and select “change view”. This will have two options “Show Complete Forms” and “Show Complete and Incomplete Forms”.  If you select the second option you will be able to see the saved incomplete forms and send them back to the server.

There will be an update to the server released by the 18th of October that will mark these incomplete surveys as “bad” with a reason of “incomplete”.  Hence they will not be included in exported spreadsheets or graphs unless the analyst marks them as “good”. If it is critical for you not to allow incomplete forms to be sent until the server is updated to mark them as bad by default, then defer use of fieldTask 3.0 until after the 18th of October.