One SMART user reported the following issue:
Two admin are unable to both log into our SMART. The reason being (this was happening with SMART 6, hoped it would be resolved with SMART 7) is that if both of us are logged in then I receive some patrols and independent incidents and another admin receives others. We are both not receiving the same patrols/independent incidents.
Additionally, when patrols and independent incidents are cleaned, these amendments do not reflect on the other persons SMART.
The solution (thanks to Tony and Oliver) is:
This is a misunderstanding on how data should be processed when multiple users work with Desktop on the same CA.
You should never try to process the data simultaneously; that kills the whole process. That will result in loss of data.
Coordinating admin access
It’s important to ensure that where you have two admins for your Connect instance that only one admin is trying to sync with the server at any one time and that after downloading patrols that they sync back to the server so when the other admin syncs they get the full set of patrols/incidents that were collected.
If possible, have only one global Admin and other users are CA Admins only. In any case ensure coordination of access to the Connect server.
Synchronizing processing
The users should always synchronize their processing. My advice to strictly follow this procedure:
User1 wants to start processing
- User1 sync with the server to update the local copy of the CA
- User1 processes the data queue
- User1 optionally makes adjustments to the data
- User1 syncs the changes back to the server
Now User2 takes over
- User2 syncs with the server to get all the changes from User1
- User2 starts processing the queue
- User2 optionally makes adjustments to the data
- User2 syncs the changes back to the server
The reason behind that procedure is that when an item is processed in the data queue it only gets inserted in the CA of the processing SMART Desktop. Most of the time a patrol is spread around many items in the data queue, starting with a NewPatrol record, followed by Observations, waypoints, Pause- and ResumePatrol and finally StopPatrol records. Only if all of these records are processed in the correct sequence, it will end up in the database as a full patrol.
Resolving partially synced data
If you have a situation where your patrols have partially downloaded into different desktops you might go into the connect server to the data processing queue and under actions click the ‘update status (edit)’ button and change status of all the patrols that have ‘completed’ processing back to ‘queued’ status.
Then delete the patrols from your desktop and then try to reprocess all the data again so all data downloads to the desktop. Then sync back to the server so all the data is ready to be downloaded by the other admin.