Thought I understood sync….guess I don't!

[Jim Burgess]

I maintain a form for cash expenses primarily on my iPhone. I maintain a synced copy on my Mac to interface (via export) with my accounting app.

Let’s say I enter several transactions into the iPhone app. A couple of days later I start the Mac app. I expect the databases to automatically sync the new transactions on the iPhone to the Mac version. But they don’t! Everything just sits there.

Is this sync process automatic or not? If not, what do I have to do to keep the apps in sync?

I really thought the whole idea of syncing via the cloud would eliminate manual steps on my part to keep everything in sync, but that’s not happening. What’s up?

Where’s the documentation for this process?

[Brendan]

Hi Jim,

The documentation for this process is available from the Help menu in the Mac version. There’s also a video which demonstrates iCloud sync in action.

You can read about it and watch the video here:

http://www.manula.com/manuals/tap-zapp/tap-forms-mac/2.0/en/topic/icloud-sync

The gist of it is that iCloud sync in Tap Forms is half manual, half automatic. So to get your data from your iPhone to your Mac, all you have to do is pull down the list of forms on the Forms tab. That will initiate an upload of your data to iCloud. Then just wait for your Mac to auto-sync.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Jim Burgess]

Thanks for the pointer to the documentation. That helps. So to be totally clear:
When you make changes to a form on any device, you must manually initiate a sync to update the cloud with the changed data. The changes will then be automatically downloaded to all other registered devices.
Do I have this right?

Here’s another reason I was having problems, and this seems like a bug:
If the displayed form list is only 1 or 2 items there’s space below the list. If you pull down with your fingertip on that space, the “Initiating sync to iCloud” message and the icon are displayed. But the sync does not actually take place! You have to pull down with your fingertip on an item in list for the sync to actually happen. The message displayed is pretty misleading since the sync doesn’t take place. So to fix this, either (1) the message should not be displayed, or (2) actually perform the sync regardless of where your fingertip is when you pull down the list. The 2nd option would be preferred, obviously. It took me many tries to figure out why the data on my phone was not syncing to any of my other registered devices.

Thanks for your help.

[Jim Burgess]

After messing with this some more, I need to clarify the pull-down issue. It seems that the actual initiation of the sync is dependent on how far you pull down the list, rather than where your finger is. My suggestion would be to only display the message and the icon when the sync actually begins. It currently displays the message before the sync event actually starts.

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