Sharing forms

[Calion]

Is there a way to share forms or documents with other people?

[Brendan]

Hi Calion,

You can use the Send Document function to send a copy of your document to another Tap Forms customer. You can also use the Export Tap Forms Archive to send a .tfarc file to another Tap Forms customer. They can then import that into their document. The .tfarc file will contain just the contents of the selected form and any related forms.

If you want to sync, then you’ll have to use one of the non-iCloud sync options. iCloud requires all devices be logged in to the same Apple ID account. So that’s why iCloud is not a good solution for syncing with other users.

See the Syncing section in the manual for information:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5.3/en/topic/syncing

Thanks,

Brendan

[Calion]

Do I read this correctly that in order to sync a database with anyone else, we must both have our copies of Tap Forms open at the same time?

[Sam Moffatt]

If you go down the export/import pathway then they both don’t need to be open at the same time, the “Send Document” function is best when both copies are open at the same time because it’s sending the document via Air Drop.

[Brendan]

And if you’re using Nearby Sync, yes, you need them both open at the same time for the sync operation to complete. This is because the sync operation happens directly from device to device without a server involved.

[Calion]

That doesn’t seem to answer my question. I’m talking about

Before you can sync, you must have a copy of the same document open on each of your devices.

.

[Sam Moffatt]

For nearby sync, both instances of Tap Forms must be open because it’s peer to peer sync. For iCloud, Cloudant or CouchDB based sync there is a third party service provided by either Apple, IBM or yourself (in the case of CouchDB) that the devices will use to reconcile changes against.

[Brendan]

@Calion, that just means you need to somehow get a copy of the document from your device to another device. You can use the built-in Send Document function. Or you can make a backup file and email it to them. Or if you have Dropbox or some other service you can upload a copy of the file to that and send them the link to download it. Then they can copy that file to their copy of Tap Forms. There are lots of ways of sending a file from one device to another.

[Calion]

So it is not in fact the case that the document must be “open” on both devices?

[Brendan]

Well, for Nearby sync, yes, that is the case otherwise there would be no communication between devices. But for cloud or Apache CouchDB based syncing no because the server is always on.

[Calion]

Okay, let me be a little more clear. For IBM sync, it is not the case, as it states, that the document must be open on both devices?

[Sam Moffatt]

For IBM Cloudant, sync works with the IBM servers and the document doesn’t need to be open on both devices. Each device will communicate with IBM’s servers in the cloud and handle the sync.

On that note, if you are in an environment where you might have a flaky internet connection (or no internet connection entirely), you should check to see when the app last sync’d with the server. On the Mac, this will be in the bottom right corner as “Last Uploaded” or “Last Downloaded” (you can toggle). On iOS, this will be under Tools with the sync times listed under the “Sync” row. I generally try to make sure everything is pushed from each device before making changes on other devices and I also try to make sure Tap Forms has completed downloading any sync’d updates on start up before making any changes.

[Calion]

>For IBM Cloudant, sync works with the IBM servers and the document doesn’t need to be open on both devices.

The documentation, which says it does, should probably be changed, then.

[Brendan]

You’re right. I had the word open in the IBM Cloud documentation in the info note, which didn’t need to be there. I’ve removed it.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Author]

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