Replacing Cloudant – A Painful Process

[Gary Ownsby]

Good Morning All,

As many of us near the end of the Cloudant Sync Service, while my wife and I still love Tap Forms, we’re both disappointed that a more simplified approach to replacing Cloudant isn’t available by now. While I can appreciate that the best minds and experts in Tap Form usage have no doubt examined many options, the ability to sync between devices is widely used now and I’ve never had to go this level of effort to have my data available to me on various devices. IMHO there must be a better approach that requires less of a technical approach to sharing/syncing data

I never cared too much for using the Cloudant-type approach anyway as it made those that simply needed to organize their data to become technicians more than users. While I understand that Tap Forms isn’t an “appliance” mode app today, perhaps it should focus on user simplicity for acquiring/managing data and leave the “heavier lifting” to those with the technical skills (and desire) to do things like data backup/sync? Or to make those functions super simple.

I’m not sure what the long-term business model is for Tap Forms but perhaps it’s time to consider offering users the option for data sync that would be managed by Tap Forms via a subscription process. Others with the technical skills or desire to do it themselves could continue on as done now.

Please don’t get me wrong, my wife & I are avid users of Tap Forms but the sync process is a bit of a weak link in the product for wishing a more simplified, less technical approach to doing a function which is very mainstream in today’s technical world. Yeah, I’m one of those that flip the wall switch and the lights come one. I don’t care about the how so much as long as it happens and is affordable.

Thank you.

Gary

[Brendan]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for your comments about Tap Forms syncing. One of my goals with Tap Forms was never ever to have access to your data. So setting up my own server to host your data that I had full access to was never anything I wanted to be able to do. Even for a subscription fee.

Currently there are 4 different sync services to choose from. The simplest to get going is iCloud sync. Everybody has iCloud and it’s a one button click to enable. But there are of course limitations with it. For you and your wife, you would need to share the same Apple ID for that to work. But I realize it’s not practical to do that for different users. That’s why there’s 3 other services to choose from.

I agree that it’s far too technical a process to get an account setup now with IBM Cloud. It used to be fairly easy with just a username and password that you provide. Now you have to get a username and password from the Service Credentials that IBM gives to you. But I do have step-by-step instructions in the online user manual on how to do that.

I had at one time thought about offering a subscription sync service, but in general people don’t want to have to pay for that. I would also be on the hook for paying thousands of dollars per month to provide a service that I might not be able to recover from. And then I would also have access to all my customer’s data, which is something I never wanted.

I’m also a one-person company. I initially built Tap Forms as an organization app for all the junk I had in my wallet. It has grown exponentially since then based on customer requests and miscellaneous things that I’ve wanted to add to it over the years. So I don’t have the resources or person power to manage a dedicated sync service for customers. That’s why I preferred to allow customers to setup their own accounts with the service that was compatible with the Couchbase Lite database engine that I wrote Tap Forms on top of.

It’s real shitty what IBM did by switching from the relatively simple IBM Cloudant to the more complicate IBM Cloud service. But they’re IBM and I am nobody to them so I had no control over what they did.

Perhaps I’ll work on adding additional ways to sync in future versions.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Gary Ownsby]

Hi Brendan,

Thank you for your well written and thought out reply.

I understand your predicament and your rationale. I agree that IBM’s decision was a crappy thing for them to do to but they obviously have the big stick and can pretty much do what they want.

Perhaps Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon Drive, or Amazon Lightsail could be explored? You’re right that using iCloud for sharing between my wife and I has its issues. I guess I could always just buy another license for Tap Forms and have her forms set up to use her iCloud account. I could always create forms and changes and import them into her setup. A little less than optimal but workable until something better comes along.

I can’t begin to tell you how useful the fruits of your labors are to those in the Tap Form Community so keep up the good work. It’s greatly appreciated. You are a “point of light” in an often too complex technical world.

Gary

[Brendan]

Hi Gary,

You don’t need to buy another copy of Tap Forms for your wife. You can just use the copy you already bought.

Those other services are file storage services and not database sync platforms.

You can setup your own Apache CouchDB sync service using Google, Amazon AWS, and there’s even a site called 1and1.com which has a turnkey CouchDB service for $9.99 / month that I’ve seen.

https://www.1and1.com/cloud-app-center/couch-db-download#apps

That would give you your own private CouchDB sync service without any of the limitations that IBM Cloud has setup (such as the 1 MB record size limit).

[Gary Ownsby]

Hi Brendan,

Okay, I’ll bite. I have a 1and1.com server account now. Where are the instructions to set it up to connect with Tap Forms. I thought I saw some instructions but can’t seem to locate them now.

Thank you.

Gary

[Brendan]

Hi Gary,

I don’t know the specific instructions for 1and1.com, but once you get it installed there, you can use the instructions from the online manual to configure:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5/en/topic/couchdb-sync

And you’re right, one of my other customers did it too and posted here about it. I’ll try to find the thread.

[Brendan]

Here’s the thread from my other customer who made it work:

CouchDB is running on my own 1&1 Cloud

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