Control When Handhelds Sync, and Sync from Off Site
Choose when phones send their records and when failed sends are retried, then see where off-site sync through a relay is set up.
What you will learn
- Choose Automatically, Only on Wi-Fi, or Only when the worker taps Sync
- Set a sync rhythm, working hours, a minimum number of waiting records and charging-only sync
- Have the server retry failed sends on a schedule
- Find Off-site sync in Server settings and paste an invitation from whoever runs the relay
Transcript
In this guide you will choose when the phones send their records, and you will see where to set up off-site sync, for phones that are away from your network.
This app, Count Sync, collects an Item and a Quantity. Open Data, then Send data. On the right is the Sync settings card. It belongs to this app, and it decides when the phones that use the app send their records to the server.
The first choice is, Phones send their records. Automatically is the default: phones sync whenever they are online, every minute, after each save, and when the network comes back. Only on Wi-Fi makes phones wait for Wi-Fi, so they never use mobile data. And Only when the worker taps Sync keeps every record on the phone until the worker syncs by hand.
With Automatically, you can also set a rhythm. Under Phones sync on their own, choose how often, for example every fifteen minutes. A worker can always press Sync now, whatever you choose here.
Tick Only during working hours, and choose when the day starts and ends. Here, from six in the morning to six in the evening. Outside these hours a phone does not sync by itself, and a night shift that crosses midnight works too.
You can also wait until enough records are ready. Under Only when at least this many records wait, type a number, such as five. Phones then sync by themselves only once five records are waiting. And Only while charging means phones sync by themselves while they sit on the charging cradle.
The sentence at the bottom of the card says the result in words. Check that it matches what you meant. These settings reach the phones when you publish the app.
Below that, Retry failed sends is about the server, not the phones. When a send fails, for example because the database is down, the record waits. By default it waits until you press Retry. You can choose a schedule, such as every fifteen minutes, and the server tries again by itself.
Now off-site sync. Normally a phone syncs over your own network. For phones on the road, or at another site, there is the relay. Open the account menu at the top right, choose Server settings, and then Off-site sync.
A relay is a go-between on the internet, which you or your IT team host. The server and the phones both connect out to it, so you open no port. What the phones send is locked on the phone, so the relay passes it on but cannot read it. Off-site sync is off until you turn it on, and there is no relay by default.
Whoever runs the relay sends you an invitation, one long line that starts with svinvite1. Paste all of it into Paste your invitation. Studio reads it, and fills in the relay address and the access code for you. If the invitation is cut short or damaged, Studio says so in plain words, and changes nothing. Here is one that was not copied correctly.
If you were given an address and a code instead, type them into Relay address and Relay access code. The code stays hidden, and after you save it only shows as Saved. If this PC must use a proxy to reach the internet, open the proxy section and enter its address.
Test connection tries the address and the code without saving anything. Turn on the Off-site sync switch, and press Save off-site sync settings to finish. The status line at the top then tells you whether the server is connected to the relay. Finally, let each phone sync once on your own network before it leaves the site, so it learns the relay address.
That is how you control syncing. The Sync settings card sets when phones send their records and when failed sends are tried again, and Off-site sync lets phones reach the server through a relay. Remember to publish the app, so the phones get your settings.
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