Location and Data Steps Interface
Locations Menu Interface
This allows you to create and modify location data for a project. This data is associated with the "Location Details" table in our database.
The following notes relate to the items on this form:
- GPS icon is solid if the GPS data has been completed for a Location and hollow if not.
- Preview Log button is greyed out if no data for that Location is available yet in OpenGround.
- Edit Location Details icon edits the metadata for the Location and does not allow you to edit any of the child records (such as geology or samples). To edit these records, you must select any area on the blue box to the left of the delete icon.
- Locations that have data on the device that has not been uploaded to OpenGround appear with an orange exclamation mark in the centre of the sync icon.
- Locations are currently uploaded to OpenGround appear with an green check mark in the centre of the sync icon.
Data Steps Menu Interface
Creating and Editing Data
Once Project and Locations are set up and have a location selected for data collection the interface should be similar to below (Options may look different based on selected collector profile). More advanced methods to edit and interact with the data is discussed in the next article "Viewing and Interacting with Data"
Creating New Data
To create new data, we can click on the empty space for a grid step or the '+' icon for the step we want to collect data into.
In this example, we'll create new data for the "SPT" step. Once the step is opened we can then popoulate the data fields, and save the data like below.
Action Steps
In some instances, after collecting data and clicking save, a pop up appears to prompt the user to collect additional information. These are called "Action Steps", and trigger when data collection steps that have been "daisy chained" together. This allows for a complete data collection workflow to be set up. Examples of this could be to prompt the user to collect photos, or sample information details after completing an In-situ test. This is can set up within your collector profile by your OpenGround Admininstrator and can be customised to suit your data collection workflow.
Following on from the SPT example above, some typical action steps that may trigger are shown below, if you click yes the interface will take you to the appropriate form to fill in, if you click no you will return to the Data Steps menu.
Editing Data
Collected data can be edited through the "table view" button as below.
Deleting Data
Data Records can be deleted via the table/summary view.
Whilst data is stored only on the tablets local storage, users are able to delete a complete record of data. Once the data has synced into the cloud, or the record in question was originally synced from cloud to the tablet, these records can only be edited but not deleted entirely. If this record requires a complete deletion, this must be completed in OpenGround Professional, this is a safeguard to prevent accidentlal deletion of data whilst in the field.
Behavior of deleting new data (left) vs synced data (right) from the tablet shown below images.
Saving Data
Data on a Step is saved when you click the check mark at the top right-hand corner of the form, or when you enter the data for the last item on the form.
Before the data is saved the data will undergo the validation checks below:
- If data is missing for required headings (headings with a blue stripe to the left) then a message will be displayed, and the Step will not save until you add the data.
- If any of the custom warning or error messages are triggered, an warning or error message will be displayed and the step will not save until the error is corrected or warning accepted. These custome validations are setup within a collector profile by your OpenGround Administrator.
Syncing Data
Collected field data is saved on the devices memory prior to syncing to the cloud and must be manually synced before users can see the data on the OpenGround Cloud database. You will be able to see the Sync status of each project location at the "Locations Menu", each sync status is described below
Location has successfully synced, clicking on this will SYNC DATA FROM CLOUD TO TABLET.
Location has not synced, clicking on this will SYNC DATA FROM TABLET TO CLOUD.
Location has not synced and there are errors in the data, ERRORS WILL NEED TO BE CORRECTED BEFORE RESYNCING.
Syncing Behaviour
Before syncing data, users should be aware of how a sync action will interact with the database, below describes the sync procedure:
- OpenGround Cloud will identify changes in data between tablet and cloud.
- Data that has not changed since the last sync will not be updated.
- If a change is identified, and last update was performed on the tablet, the tablet data will update the cloud data.
- If a change is identified, and last update was performed on cloud database, the cloud data will update the tablet data. This ensures that the device is operating on the the latest version of all the data.
- After data has synced photographs/documents get synced.
- Photo file sizes can be large and If you are working on a weak mobile connection or a data plan you may want to upload these only when connected to WIFI. You can tap on the sync button at any future time to upload photo
Important Note: As it is always good practice to sync your boreholes before starting to collect data, in rare instances users may run into the scenario where office staff have accidently/intentionally updated location data in the office without communicating to the field team. This sync action on the tablet will bring unexpected data into the tablet potentially causing dataloss and confusion, particularly if the sync status is already showing green (Tablet does not check for updated data on the cloud). It is therefore strongly advised that whilst project location is "Live" in the field, users should not edit the location in question within the cloud database unless explicitly communicated to the field team, this is to avoid data loss and confusion.