Hi,
Is there a way to control which data is being imported in SMART Desktop?
We work with 2 CAs and the team collects data in datamodels from both CAs. When you hit the export button on models from a different CA, data from both models will be important in the first CA. Meaning that you lose the data that actually is supposed to go into the second CA.
Is there a work around?
A bit more detail:
We have a carnivore and a giraffe CA. Our tablets have both models. The team collects carnivore and giraffe data in the field. It often happens that you accidently hit export, before you are actually exporting. If both the giraffe and carnivore model have exported data on the tablet and you start importing data in the carnivore CA, also the giraffe data will be send. But the giraffe data will get lost as the CA doesn’t recognize the data.
Of course you can try to export them one by one, separating the giraffe and carnivore data. But I noticed that in the field people often accidently hit the export data, which normally isn’t a big problem. But in our case with 2 CAs it is.
I was thinking about having two SMART Mobile apps on the tablet, but I guess the same problem will happen as soon as you hit export.
Another option is merging the CAs, but ideally we keep them separate.
Hi - SMART is designed with the assumption that users are collecting data on a device for one conservation area or model. As long as the data is associated with the correct CA, then importing data should work. Could you provide more detail about your setup. I have also reached out to SMART mobile contact about this in the meantime. Thanks - Padma
Each team member goes out and collects carnivore and giraffe data on the same tablet with SMART Mobile.
As the giraffe work is a separate project in collab with partners we would like to keep the database separate.
At the moment, when we connect our tablets with SMART Desktop, all data from the tablet is imported in one database. Both giraffe and carnivore. This means that the giraffe data will fail in the carnivore CA and the carnivore dara will fail in the Giraffe CA.
Is there a way to separate import of data of different databases?
This is very strange behaviour. Each CA has a unique ID and the SMART Mobile packages are assigned with this ID meaning data cannot go into any other CA, at all.
The only way I could think of this having happened is if the same CA was exported to a new machine, the name of the CA modified and then put in use. In this case CAs may have the same ID because they actually were the same CA. You can check this in the conservation area properties of each CA.
To fix this you need to create a new / unique database for each CA. You can use the option to use an existing CA as a template but it must have a unique CA ID.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for your reply.
I had a look at the CA properties and they have different IDs. I also created them as different CAs.
I tried before to have the same CA twice in one instance, but that was not possible due to identical IDs. Each must have their own unique ID to be able to add it to the same instance.
So it must be another issue.
I talked to @justinsteventon at the ER conference and he has some ideas to solve this problem.
Either adding a password to the export button, to control which data from which CA is being exported. In this way, we can manage import of data to 2 different CAs from the same device.
The other, and preferred option, is to make sure the download operation does not download anything that it cannot import.
Would be great if this is possible!
Kind regards,
Elke
The issue is that I do not get a error because (in our case) the carnivore CA is still importing the giraffe data. But when you open the observation in the carnivore CA you only see the location and time for the giraffe data but not the actual data (because it’s based on a different data model).
Which screenshots would you/the team need?
I understand the purpose of the unique IDs but does SMART Mobile also copies those in the packages? Does SMART actually check the data coming in from SMART Mobile for the CA ID? Looks like in our case it is not, as the CAs have different IDs, but Mobile is still importing all data.
I am happy to share our CAs and packages, so others can test as well.
Yes, SMART should be able to read the ID of the CA which is included in the SMART Mobile data packages so it’s really strange that it would not do this. Perhaps we have an issue with SMART not reading the IDs or the IDs not being properly communicated from Mobile.
We’ll have to have someone dig into this. Yes, please. If you can send the CAs (with login details), any error logs, indicate which packages you’re using and a bug report from the SMART Mobile device(s).
Just confirming. You’re using SMART 7.5.7 with SMART Connect and Mobile version 478?