Using the Upshot Mobile App Offline
The Upshot Mobile App is a Progressive Web App (PWA) which allows users to:
- Manage and submit Registers
- Add new attendees or review the information on attendees such as medical conditions, emergency contact and consent to media
- View and complete Survey responses
The Upshot Mobile App can be accessed by going to https://app.upshot.org.uk/mobile/ on any device when connected to Wi-Fi or via Mobile Data.
Once logged in, it is the possible for users to go Offline, or lose connection. While offline, users can continue to submit registers, create new or manage existing attendees and complete survey responses. These actions will then be stored on the device, and synced with the Upshot data when going back online, or re-establishing a connection.
Accessing
To access the Upshot Mobile App, users must always initially be online, either via an internet or mobile data connection, as all users are required to log-in in order to access their Upshot account. Authentication of a user's login details is not possible when offline. For this reason, it is highly recommend that before travelling to, or delivering work in, an area known to not have a readily available connection, users log into the Upshot Mobile App while they have an internet connection. Users can then either deliberately go offline, turning off their connection, or lose connection, and the App will switch to the Offline mode.
By default, Upshot accounts when using the full site have a timeout of 45 minutes. I.e., if a user is inactive for 45 minutes or more, they are automatically logged out of Upshot. This is to ensure the security of Upshot accounts, for instance so that a user's account can not be accessed by another individual if their device is left unattended.
When using the Upshot Mobile App, the session cookie is extended to 14 days. Therefore, once an individual goes offline while using the App, they will not be signed out of Upshot automatically within these 14 days. This should ensure that users do not lose access to the offline App when delivering work in areas where no internet connection is available.
All users making use of the offline Upshot Mobile App feature should be aware that if they deliberately sign out of Upshot while offline, they will not be able to sign back in to the account until they have access to an internet connection.
Once offline, the App will display a header to notify users that they are currently offline.
For more information about access the Upshot Mobile App see here.
Registers
While using the Upshot Mobile App offline, users are able to add attendees to and submit their Registers. This data will be stored locally on the device used, and be synced with the Upshot account when going back online. There are a few indications that data has been stored ready to be synced with the account.
When a users selects submit on a register while offline, they will be notified that their register will be synced once connected to the internet.
If a user submits any registers while offline, there will be a main banner on the Sessions page noting that Changes will be synced when you go online. Each individual register which will be synced will also then display an icon to indicate this.
Those attendees who have been added to a register while online will appear within a register accessed while offline. Any further attendees added to the register while offline will be indicated with the text ADDED next to their name. For example, below Georgia has already been added to this register while online, whilst John has been added by the user when offline, and is waiting to be synced to the account.
It is strongly advised that only one user is responsible for updating each particular register on an account, particularly when it is known that some users will be making use of the offline functionality. However, it is possible that multiple users could make changes to a register at the same time, with some users online and others offline. This would result in a conflict between the different updates provided to the system by the different users.
In the case of a conflict caused by multiple users submitting the same register, Upshot will compare the timestamps of when these amendments were made. The version of the register with the latest timestamp will be saved to the system. For example:
- Scenario 1 - User A is using the Upshot Mobile App offline while User B is logged into Upshot at their computer and is online. User A submits a register at 10:00. User B then submits the same register at 11:00. User A then comes back online on the App at 12:00. In this instance, Upshot will not sync User A's register with the system, as User B has submitted the register with the latest timestamp.
- Scenario 2 - User B submits a register at 11:00. User A then submits the same register while offline at 11:30 and comes back online at 11:45. Upshot will then sync User A's register, overwriting what User B has submitted, as User A submitted the register with the latest timestamp.
Attendees
As with registers, users are able to create new Attendees while offline, who are then synced to the Upshot account when switching back online. This can be done in the same manner as while online, by clicking on the + in the bottom right-hand corner of the App, followed by Create new attendee.
Once an attendee has been created, the user will receive a notification that they will be synced to the account when back online.
When a user reconnects to an internet connection, they will then receive a notification to indicate that a new attendee has been created.
In the event of a user adding an attendee with the same details as an existing attendee on the account and then attempting to sync this attendee, rather than creating a duplicate profile, Upshot will warn the user that some of the attendees added while offline were unable to be created, as well as indicating the name of those attendees so that the details of the existing attendee can be checked.
Surveys
The Upshot Mobile App allows users to see their organisation's active 'standard' surveys, view survey responses and complete surveys with their attendees.
These functions can all be carried out while offline. As with the online functionality of the Mobile App, the survey page while offline will show active surveys, defined as those surveys which are currently accepting responses.
Offline users can view and submit survey responses in the same manner they do while online. Once a survey is completed offline, the user will receive a notification to confirm that responses will be synced when back online.
Responses collected offline which are waiting to be synced will be indicated until the user goes back online.
If a response to a survey has been completed by an online user while the offline user has been offline, they will receive an error message when going back online to notify them that a response has already been submitted for this attendee.
Key Terms
Progressive Web App:
A Progressive Web App (PWA) is an application that is accessed through a web browser, but provides a functionality similar to a downloaded app. The Upshot Mobile App being hosted as a PWA allows users to access the app without the need to download an additional application.
Session Cookie:
A session cookie is a method of temporarily storing information while accessing a website. Upshot uses a session cookie to allow users to navigate between pages without having to resubmit their login details for each page, until the session ends, either through logging out or the session cookie timing out. The session cookie for the PWA is extended from the default of 45 minutes for the main site, to 2 weeks.