How do you solve problems for frontline employees? (offline mode)

[Wojciech_Sz]

Hi!

We have AppSheet monitoring and performance log analyzer which is great. But what we can do with Android app crashes and other things? We don't see many things in our offices.

My users are frustrated because when they are working in the field, terrible things happen to the app. Crash, images and XY maps are not loading, sync for a long time.

When they come to the office (and the Wi-Fi) everything is okay. So I think that the internet is the problem. But what can I do with that? Do you know the problem with app crashing? 

And other thing. I still don't know that do I need to turn on the "store content offline" if I want to use XY with custom backgrounds offline? I want to save maybe 50 images of background which is okay, but I have thousand of other images which I don't want to.

[Aurelien]

Hi @Wojciech_Sz 

"I want to save maybe 50 images of background which is okay, but I have thousand of other images which I don't want to."

The option "store content offline" is correct.

You may want to limit the amount of data loaded on the devices with a security filter.

For reference:

Security filters: The Essentials 

[Wojciech_Sz]

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@Aurelien wrote:

Hi @Wojciech_Sz 

"I want to save maybe 50 images of background which is okay, but I have thousand of other images which I don't want to."

The option "store content offline" is correct.

You may want to limit the amount of data loaded on the devices with a security filter.

For reference:

Security filters: The Essentials 

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This is a good idea. But Is it possible to limit only the columns with images?

Perfect way would be to not load the images but to show if they exist or not (now I'm using format rules and isblank()

[Hugo_Cesar]

We face these issues constantly. I've never been able to completely solve it, but there are some things that I did and might have helped. I'm not sure which helped more, less and which didn't help at all because I don't have many people to do trials, but in general, I got less complaints:

1 - Be sure that AppSheet is allowed to run in the background (usually that's in battery settings of the device);

2 - Turn on airplane mode when there isn't a good connection;

3 - Turn on delayed sync

4 - Turn off sync on start

5 - When possible, I use SVG images (https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Tips-Tricks/Dynamic-SVG-graphics/m-p/367578) instead of URL images, so I can load specific images offline without store content - but I don't think its possible for XY background.

6 - I try to create a rule that filter as much as possible rows using security filter rules - which in my case is tricky because I need to try to predict which data they will need before they go completely offline. I've noticed that more data means more crashes. For example, in my case, the security filter filters only equipment for the specific client we are working on at the moment. When working on clients that have a big inventory, the app crashes more than when working on the ones with a small inventory. So I try to be creative to create a rule to filter not only by client, but try to predict the specific equipment that will work on that day (sometimes it does not end well - its a work in progress).

Also, there are this Feature Ideas:

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/SVG-Code-for-XY-Background-Image/idi-p/259419

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/Store-content-for-offline-use-for-specific-tab...

[Wojciech_Sz]

Good to hear that I'm not the only one.

1. Yeah, I did that,

2. This could be helpful because my users told me that the problems appear when there are connectivity issues (going to the basement, etc.)

3. Done

4. Good point. I turned it off now.

5. SVG are not possible in my case

6. Security filters are okay but as you said, also tricky.

I think that AppSheet team should focus more on offline mode.

[Wojciech_Sz]

After reducing the number of images loaded, my application still crashes. Tech support said I have too many images - what is the limit?
I'm trying to add more security filters, but I still don't have accurate control. Is the cause of the crashing simply the number of images? I think not.

[Steve]

I'm not aware of a numerical limit (if there is one, I'd expect it to be in the billions). The limit is likely the amount of memory your device has available. For offline use, your app is going to try to download all of the images it knows about, so it's absolutely critical you have effective security filters in place to omit rows that reference images the user needn't use.

[1minManager]

Some pointers from me:

• App crashing is rare and I've only seen evidence of it a few times.  In my experience it was always either the user or phone clearing the Appsheet cache whilst the app was open and minimised.  Specifically what we saw was that iPhones have a process that tries to reclaim space on the phone.  So if the phone has less than 30%-40% free space it would run every few days and clear the cache of almost all apps.  What the user saw was that they minimised the app, then when they went back to it, it asked them to login, once back in the app all the work they had done (but not synced) was gone.
• IMHO offline apps are a nightmare with long sync times and huge storage requirements.  Also its the leading cause of data loss since the user often forgets to manually sync it
• If it must work offline then consider putting all the photos in a sub-table so that as @Steve said, you can then use a security filter.  But if the images are just a column in the same table as the data then you can't stop them getting syned.  Since Security filters only remove entire rows of data and not columns

Simon@1minManager.com 

[Avyukt]

Hello 

Can you share a sample app with me on the construction industry? I need to work on a project and I need a start as it is 1st attempt of mine.