Advice needed please regarding syncing data with iCloud

[meddle]

Hi,

First of all just wanted to say thank you for the fantastic app. I have been using this for a few years now on both the iPhone and iPad and have always found it rock solid in terms of looking after my personal data.

I have a few questions about how I could possibly get this to work in my office environment. We were originally looking at developing a database specifically to record inventories and maintenance records. I thought how easy would it be to use Tapforms rather than try and create something with Access etc..

Wanted I wanted to ask is your advice on how I could get this to work between a team of say 6 people. What we would like to do is purchase a copy for the MAC so we can set custom layouts etc.. but do most of the day to day work using our iPads or iPhones. I was not sure how quick the iCloud sync would be, for instance if I am updating a record on the iphone, how long does it take to sync that update to the database on the MAC.

In addition when using iCloud am I correct in assuming that the database will only sync with Iphones/Ipads/Macs that are all owned by the same user. Or is their a way to allow syncing a database to perhaps 6 people each with their own personal IOS device.

Also would there be a way to customise a printed list of stock, using only certain fields or photos so that a PDF catalogue could be produced to share with work employees whom do not have the software.

I was hoping that Tapforms could do something along the lines of Filemaker server, with the iCloud almost acting as a server. Filemaker seems like a solid option but its so expensive and I am already so familiar with Tapforms.

Could I also ask is it possible to have more than 1 database stored on an IOS device. I don’t want to share personal data in Tapforms with other users if we go down this route and would rather have seperate databases for personal/work.

Hope I have made sense and would greatly appreciate any feedback.

meddle

[Leo]

Hi,

first, the catalog could be made easy with custom form layot in the mac version of TapForms. Her you can choose your own design of fields and additional text/pictures

second, syncing can only be done with all user share the same icloud account. You can create an account for jus the use of this. The only mishap is that every user must change between account when purchasing apps or email/calendar syncing for instance.

We use this in our business. But then again we use google mail and calendar not the iCloud account for mail and calendar.

This works like a charm once you get used to switching for app purchase.

Leo

[Brendan]

Hello Meddle,

Thanks for commenting on this post Leo. It’s great to hear that you’ve been using Tap Forms successfully in your business.

Meddle, Leo is correct. You must all be using the same iCloud account in order to sync with Tap Forms. The reason for this is because when you’re logged into iCloud, there is one Mobile Documents folder linked to the login account. If you want to use a different iCloud account, then you must logout and then log back into the different account. This will replace the local Mobile Documents folder with the one in iCloud associated with the different account. So it’s a bit impractical to be switching between your own account and your “shared” iCloud account. It would be great if Apple allowed different iCloud accounts per app.

My original idea for Tap Forms was to simply use it to store all the junk you have contained in your own personal wallet. It has certainly come a long way since my initial idea for the app. But it was never really designed to operate as a server platform. That being said, it’s quite possible that down the road I will be able to implement some better sharing services between different users.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Allison Nelson]

Thank you meddle for posting this question. It is the exact scenerio that we have with our business. We have 5 people working in an ACT database via a network. I would love to get rid of the Windows machines and get all nice brand new Macs with 27″ screens, but I have never found anything that would come remotely close to replacing ACT. There are a ton of ACT users out there begging for a Mac alternative. I use ACT not just as a CRM but also as a database (we have several databases for different things all of which are accessible by my employees through the network.)

Is TapForms something that could be networked the old fashioned way (forget iCloud) if each machine had it’s own license? I had considered iCloud too but have friends with iCloud issues, so am not overly comfortable with that idea. I do hope that this is a direction that you will seriously consider as there are many ACT users out there waiting for something like this to happen. I must say I am very impressed with your work to date.

[Brendan]

Hi Allison,

Well, I’m getting more and more requests to be able to network Tap Forms with other users. It was built as a single-user database app, so adding multi-user support is a large job. It’s definitely doable as I have lots of experience developing multi-user web applications from days past. Although translating that experience to local area networking without a server will be challenging. Nevertheless, when I have thought about it, I’ve always thought about it working similar to iTunes Music sharing. So you could pick a form and tell Tap Forms you’d like to share it. Other users on the same network would see that you’re sharing a form and could select it to view and edit records, add new records, delete records, etc. Where it gets tricky is if you’re editing a record and someone else tries to delete that same record. There has to be lots of checks to make sure things like that can’t happen.

Sorry for going into details like that. It helps me to work things out sometimes.

No promises, but just know that I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve also been thinking of a ton of other new features too. :-)

Thanks!

Brendan

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