Offline collection

Field work happens where the signal does not. CommonLynk Forms can be installed on a phone or a tablet and used with no connection at all, holding what you collect on the device until it can be sent.

Installing Forms on a device

Open the forms list in the device's browser. Where the browser supports it, a banner offers: Add CommonLynk Forms to your home screen for offline use, with an Install button and a Later button.

Choose Install and a Forms icon is added to the device beside its other apps. There is nothing to fetch from an app store: what you have installed is the platform itself, wrapped so that it opens like an app.

Getting forms onto the device

On the forms list, the device button in the top bar opens On this device (on a phone it is under More tools). It lists the forms you collect on, the version of each that the device holds, and whether each is ready. A form with a respondent list is ready only when its list is on the device too, and the window shows how many people the list holds and when it was last updated. Check for updates is there as well. The same readiness line appears on your dashboard.

On wifi, forms and their respondent lists download in the background, with nothing to answer. On mobile data, and whenever the browser cannot tell which kind of connection it has (only Chrome on Android reports this), nothing large downloads by itself: the readiness line says what is waiting and how large it is, and a tap downloads it. This is checked when your dashboard opens, when you open On this device from the forms list, and whenever the connection comes back. Opening a form that is not yet on the device while on mobile data asks you once, stating the size.

When a newer version of a form is published, a device that knows about it downloads the new version before it starts a new response; with no connection, the page says the update is needed first. A response already in progress is finished on the version it was started on.

Working with no connection

Offline, the work carries on as normal. Answers are held in the browser's own storage on that device: a response you are part way through is kept as a draft, and a response you submit is added to a queue waiting to be sent.

While the device is offline a banner at the top of the form says so and shows how many responses are waiting. Submitting offline adds the response to the queue and confirms it with a Saved offline message. A response with a required answer missing is not accepted on the device; the page shows what is missing.

A response for a new person can be started with no connection when the form and your role allow registering people. The person's details travel with the response, and the person is registered when it reaches the server.

When the form has a respondent list, the list is held on the device. Tap Fill and the page asks Who are you interviewing? You can search by national ID, phone, name or reference, with no signal. When the person is found, the form opens with answers filled in from their profile, labelled with the date of the list on the device. When nobody matches, you can register a new person where the form and your role allow it; households and establishments that are not on the list are registered online. Someone who is not on the list, or does not meet the form's criterion yet, can still be interviewed, and the page says the response will be held for a decision.

What the respondent list on the phone holds

The list holds what a collector needs to find people. Names, reference numbers and the last four characters of each ID number are visible. A profile field is on the phone in readable form only if the form fills it in from the profile. ID numbers and phone numbers travel as hashes, used only for searching: they are not shown, which hides them from a casual look and does not protect them. Protection status fields, such as population group and disability, never go on a phone.

The list is encrypted on the device. That stops someone reading its storage copied off the phone. It does not stop someone using the unlocked phone.

When the list leaves the phone

The respondent list is taken off the phone:

• when you sign out, including with no connection;
• when someone else signs in on the phone;
• when the form, or its list, is no longer assigned to you;
• when a manager marks the form's collection complete.

Once a manager marks collection complete, no device downloads the form again and no new response is started on it offline. Each device takes the form's page and respondent list off itself the next time it connects, and only once it has reported that nothing on it for that form is waiting to be sent, including a response in progress. What it takes off is kept aside on the phone for 30 days, can be restored from On this device under Removed from this device, and is then deleted. Late responses are still accepted.

A manager can tell a device that will never report, such as a lost or broken phone, to clear anyway. Responses it has not sent stay on it, and still send if it ever connects.

None of these removes a response that has not been sent yet.

Drafts and restoring them

A draft saves itself as you type, about a second and a half after you stop. You press nothing to make that happen, and it happens whether or not there is a connection.

Responses in progress are listed in On this device, under In progress on this device, and Resume continues one where you left it.

Sending what you collected

A submitted response is sent when Forms is open with a connection: when a page loads, when the connection comes back, and on a retry timer while the page stays open. In browsers that support it, such as Chrome, it can also be sent in the background. A response leaves the device only when the server confirms it has stored that response, or already had it, so a retry never makes a second copy.

Sending needs you to be signed in. A response collected under one account waits on the phone until that collector signs in again.

A response the server cannot count as it stands, for example one for someone not on the list, one with an ID number already registered, or one with a value that could not be stored, is stored anyway: either as incomplete, for the collector to finish, or waiting for a manager's decision. It does not stay on the phone.

The forms list shows how many responses are waiting to send and any the device could not send, with the reason. Sending stops after repeated failures, and Try again starts it again.

If your workspace's address has changed, responses still waiting under the old address are sent from Forms at the old address while it still answers, and Forms then takes you to the new one.

What needs a connection

A few things need a connection:

• Photo, video, file and voice questions, because the file is uploaded as it is chosen. A form with a required question of this kind is listed under Need a connection.
• On the new person form, choosing a location below the first level, and checking a phone number.
• Registering a household or an establishment that is not on the respondent list.