The Sync Management screen allows you to monitor the synchronisation processes that have taken place between the Formworks portal and a device user’s iPad. You access the Sync Management screen by selecting the Admin tab, then the Sync Management tab.
The Sync User’s Table on the left of the Sync Management screen indicates the user names, Device Names, the iOS Operating System on the device, the version of Formworks on the device, and when the user last synchronised with the server.
A new entry is created on the list each time a user reinstalls the Formworks application or logs in from a different device.
The list is in descending order of login, but you can search for all instances of a User’s name or Device name by entering the details at the top of the screen in the search field. This is the simplest method of finding the correct entry. Normally you would be looking for the latest logged in instance of the user’s name. Use the ‘select’ button to select the user’s sync records, defaulting to the Submitted tab.
There are five tabs, representing blank Templates, Prefilled forms allocated to the user, In-progress-blank forms that have been started by the user from blank templates, In-Progress prefilled forms and forms that have been Submitted. These correspond to the folders on the iPad.
There are five main columns:
Page Icon
The first column contains the Page Icon. The colour of this icon varies depending on the type of document. Yellow entries are templates, blue are prefilled forms, mauve are forms submitted against blank templates. Selecting the Page Icon displays a complete history of actions performed on a form.
Server
This column represents the last action that the server took against the form. The types of icon displayed here will depend on the tab that you are viewing. For example, in the templates tab, you would normally expect to see either a green plus sign, to indicate that a new template has been created and inserted into the system database, or a yellow pen icon, to indicate that a template has been amended. The red bin icon will indicate if a template has been deleted or retired.
iPad / Device
This column indicates the last action that the user’s device performed against a form. This would normally be a green save icon to indicate that the user has submitted the form, as in the case of the fourth entry above.
Identifier
This is the template name or form reference.
Form ID (#)
This is the unique form ID given to each form by the Formworks portal.
Time
The date and time that the action represented by the table entry was performed.
Last entry indicator (circle)
Whichever location, server or iPad/device, will be indicated by a circle around the icon.
The Submitted tab will be displayed by default when you select a user. This table contains the individual Formworks forms that are part of the synchronisation process for this specific user, in descending date, time order.
Green Flag icon
This icon indicates that the form is beyond the date when it should be retired from the user’s device, and has been archived on the server. The next time the user syncs with the system, these green flag forms will be removed from their device. You can see this in the second capture.
Yellow Pen icon
The yellow pen icon in the Server column, indicates that the last action on this form by the server was to update the form on the portal.
Page icon
The colour coding of the Page icon in the first column represents the type of document:
Yellow is a Formworks Template
Blue is a Prefill form
Purple is a form that has been Submitted from a blank template.
The yellow ‘page’ icon here indicates that you are viewing a Formworks template. Place the cursor over this icon to display the template’s description, as entered in the Template Designer.
Selecting the Page icon pops up a window with the history of actions taken against the template. In this instance, the first template in the table. It shows when the template was last updated and when it was delivered to the user’s device.
Menu icon
A yellow pen indicates that the last action against the template was when the server updated it.
A green plus icon indicates that the last action taken with this template, was inserting it on the users device.
iPad icon
A green down arrow indicates that the form has just been downloaded to the device.
When forms are first uploaded, they will appear in the Prefilled tab as per the screen capture. Selecting the History icon will show that the form has been inserted into the Formworks database, but has not yet synched down to the device user’s iPad.
When the device user syncs with the server, and the iPad confirms receipt of the prefilled form, a green download arrow will appear in the iPad column of the table and a circle will appear around the tick, indicating that this is the last action to be performed against the form. Selecting the Page Icon will show the syncing history.
Page Icon
With prefilled forms, the first indication on the Page Icon will be when the form was inserted into the Formworks portal database.
These captures show the In progress-blank folder. These blank template forms have just been saved on the iPad.
The mauve Page Icon indicates they originated from a blank template. The green plus icon indicates that the last act of the server was to insert them into the database. Selecting the Page Icon displays the history of actions performed on a form.
Updating a form on the user device causes the server column icon to change from a green plus to a yellow pencil. This indicates that the last action by the server was to write changes to the previously saved instance in the database of this form.
Forms in this folder can be recognised as prefilled by the blue Page Icon.
The yellow pen inside a circle indicates that, as the form already existed on the server as a prefilled form, the last action the server performed was to update/write to it. The green download arrow in the user device column simply shows that the form is present on the user’s device.