How can I find out what happened to my data? ...

Rob_atYahoo · 02-19-2018 04:00 PM

How can I find out what happened to my data?

For weeks I have been using, and slowly refining an app. It updates records, adds photos, generates an email report and all the while working from and updating an Excel spreadsheet. During the day I use the app on a phone to update the data and in the evening I have been adding new records to the spreadsheet

Although not perfect yet it has been working fine but today I don’t know what happened. All the reports came through with all the details and the photos are all saved to Google Drive, as expected. I then added about a dozen new records and realised that NOTHING that was done today has updated on the spreadsheet. I checked for conflicted copies and there aren’t any.

So now I am left having to re-enter all the data for the day, including GPS coordinates and photo links.

How can I find out what happened, and is there a way to stop this?

Rob_atYahoo

Yeah I found the reason but not a solution. And the fact that it has happened again today means that I cannot rely on the mechanism. Even if I get an email confirmation that a task has been completed, complete with photo and GPS coordinates, it does not mean the information will have stuck to the Excel spreadsheet.

I now have to check every entry at the end of every day. And that’s with only me using it. I was hoping to bring others on board updating the same spreadsheet but that’s no longer an option.

I love AppSheet and what it can do, but Excel sync via Google Drive is not reliable.

Steven_Coile

Perhaps your phone has not synced the app?

pravse

This article may be useful. help.appsheet.com - App Changes Are Not Captured in the Spreadsheet or the App App Changes Are Not Captured in the Spreadsheet or the App help.appsheet.com

Aleksi_Alkio

I have kind of experienced this once… then the reason was then option “Delayed sync”. If you have used the app with another device and you then open the app from mobile and if you don’t sync the app before using it and the key column is not well constructed, it can overwrite records. Can this be the reason?

Rob_atYahoo

Thanks for your comments.

I think I discovered what happened. The last sync from the phone to Google on the cloud was done at 2:40 PM (I was able to restore from Google Drive). The PC I use is set up so the screen turns off after 10 minutes but NEVER sleeps so when I got home at 9:40 PM, I just moved the mouse to wake up the screen and started work. Looking at the Google logs it seems that, only after I started work again, did Google on my PC try to sync with the cloud so by the time it did its first sync I had already made some changes on the PC and somehow it just concluded that was the latest version and dropped the version that was timestamped 2:40PM on the cloud.

I’ve now reinstalled the 2:40 version and have to re-do the work I did last night. Unfortunately it seems that Google Drive is not very good at syncing Excel Sheets and Windows doesn’t know the meaning of NEVER.

Aleksi_Alkio

Glad you found the reason

Steven_Coile

Perhaps your phone has not synced the app?

pravse

This article may be useful. help.appsheet.com - App Changes Are Not Captured in the Spreadsheet or the App App Changes Are Not Captured in the Spreadsheet or the App help.appsheet.com

Aleksi_Alkio

I have kind of experienced this once… then the reason was then option “Delayed sync”. If you have used the app with another device and you then open the app from mobile and if you don’t sync the app before using it and the key column is not well constructed, it can overwrite records. Can this be the reason?

Rob_atYahoo

Thanks for your comments.

I think I discovered what happened. The last sync from the phone to Google on the cloud was done at 2:40 PM (I was able to restore from Google Drive). The PC I use is set up so the screen turns off after 10 minutes but NEVER sleeps so when I got home at 9:40 PM, I just moved the mouse to wake up the screen and started work. Looking at the Google logs it seems that, only after I started work again, did Google on my PC try to sync with the cloud so by the time it did its first sync I had already made some changes on the PC and somehow it just concluded that was the latest version and dropped the version that was timestamped 2:40PM on the cloud.

I’ve now reinstalled the 2:40 version and have to re-do the work I did last night. Unfortunately it seems that Google Drive is not very good at syncing Excel Sheets and Windows doesn’t know the meaning of NEVER.

Aleksi_Alkio

Glad you found the reason

Rob_atYahoo

Yeah I found the reason but not a solution. And the fact that it has happened again today means that I cannot rely on the mechanism. Even if I get an email confirmation that a task has been completed, complete with photo and GPS coordinates, it does not mean the information will have stuck to the Excel spreadsheet.

I now have to check every entry at the end of every day. And that’s with only me using it. I was hoping to bring others on board updating the same spreadsheet but that’s no longer an option.

I love AppSheet and what it can do, but Excel sync via Google Drive is not reliable.