two users editing the same DB: is there a workaround?

[Patricia Martin]

Is there any workaround I can implement to share a database with another member of my team so we can both view and edit it?

I bought Tap Forms after reading wonderful reviews and starting developing my database when I came across a post in this forum mentioning that it is a single user DB application. If so, I can’t use it for my work. It wouldn’t make any sense having to export and reimport the whole thing between users each time one updates a record.

Please let me know if there is something I can try, maybe with Dropbox. I can’t believe I spent my money on an application I won’t be able to use.

[Leo]

Hi,

The only way to do this is share the same apple ID. Maybe you can create one just for that purpose?

Dropbox would be a great alternative. I know because the app “The vault” is using it this way and I believe it also uses the same database engine.

Maybe Brendan could look in to this….or not :-)

Leo

[Patricia Martin]

Hi Leo,
Thanks for answering.

Let me see if I understood correctly: Provided that we both have Tap Forms installed in our computers, I create an Apple ID (and therefore an iCloud account) just with the purpose of sharing, editing and syncing the same DB (form), right?

My doubts are:
1- The actual forms, records, etc will be stored in the original computer where they were created and the other user would access them via iCloud or they will be stored on the new iCloud account? (I ask that in case I find this log in, log out process too cumbersome and decide to eliminate this setup)

2- The Dropbox alternative would also require and I cloud shared ID? Can’t just save the DB actual file (as if it were an spreadsheet file) each of us could access it through our respective copies of Tap Forms? (I must say I somehow assumed this could be done when I bought Tap Forms in the first place. It never occurred to me that such an interesting piece of software could not be multiuser….

Thanks

[Leo]

Patricia,

mmmmm, yes you need to switch accounts if you use iCloud for other purposes.

The dropbox version is iCloud independent, at least for the Vault. But tis isn’t implemented in Tapforms….yet?

The other work around is to backup your database to dropbox and restore it from dropbox but then again, you doesn’t always have the accurate data and it needs a lot of backing and restoring.

No solution for different iCloud users for now. sorry. Here where are using the same iCloud ID and switch whenever needed to purchase an app.
(Where not using iCloud for mail or contact etc.)

Leo

[Patricia Martin]

Thanks Leo.

It would be great to hear from Tap Forms developers if this Dropbox solution is feasible in the near future or not.

The possibility of team work on a DB is definitely an important functionality, at least for me. As it is now, I am afraid it won’t be as useful as I thought it would be. On the other hand to move to such an expensive and complex application as FileMaker just to share a simple DB seems a waste also. TapForms has a niche. It just needs a tweak.

Thanks

Patricia

[Brendan]

Hello Patricia,

My apologies for not answering sooner. Thank you Leo for helping out Patricia!

Tap Forms was built with a single user in mind. The original vision started with the iPhone version to try and gather all the stuff you have in your wallet into a convenient place. It has come a long way since then!

I do realize the need for a multi-user version of Tap Forms and it’s definitely something on my radar. There are just so many different ways to accomplish it. Right now iCloud is the only way to share data with different devices. But it’s also a half manual, half automatic process. That is, when you make a change on one machine you need to click on the upload to iCloud button to send those changes up to iCloud. Then a little later on (a few seconds or a few minutes), your other devices will auto-sync those changes.

Adding multi-user support into Tap Forms is more than just syncing the data. Imagine you’re working on a record and someone else changes it right in front of you. Or deletes it! Those kinds of things need to be considered when making a multi-user database.

Dropbox is an alternative to iCloud syncing. The benefit of that as Leo mentioned, is you can have a separate login from your iCloud account that multiple users could share.

So, some customers want multi-user, some want Dropbox sync, some want WiFi sync, and some want their data accessible from a website. There’s a lot of things that I’m working on adding to Tap Forms. I’ll get there over time. But multi-user, WiFi, or Dropbox sync won’t be coming in the next update.

I’m sorry to disappoint you.

Thanks!

Brendan

[ideapool]

Attention: Brenden

OLD Question…
New Answer?

Any current plans for Multi-User?

[Brendan]

Hi Ideapool,

I do have some customers who sync Tap Forms with different users. You just have to be cognizant of the fact that there are no security controls built-in to Tap Forms that would prevent someone from deleting something they shouldn’t or mucking about with the form structure.

Having said that, I am working on adding some basic access controls to Tap Forms. Nothing too fancy yet, but it would give you the ability to prevent someone from deleting, adding, or updating records or modifying the form structure.

As for syncing, you can use any of the non-iCloud sync services to sync with different users. iCloud requires everyone be on the same Apple ID and that’s not convenient for multiple users.

But also, even if you were syncing with one of the other methods, every time you make a change, sync happens and that will cause the other devices to refresh, even if the user was typing into a field at that moment. They’d probably lose what they were typing at that moment. Although with Apache CouchDB and IBM Cloudant you can turn off auto-sync, so you can just sync whenever you want.

Thanks,

Brendan

[ideapool]

Brenden,

Thank you for your prompt reply, and for producing and supporting a GREAT product!

I acknowledge the issues that you mention, and I am pleased to learn of your interest to provide some basic level of access controls.

Do you have any ball park (approximation) timeline on the horizon for the access controls?

Just confirming with you as well… Cloudant syncing is a Tap Forms supported option?
Somewhere in my mind I thought you moved to iCloud and discontinued Cloudant support?

Thanks!

[Brendan]

I never stopped supporting Cloudant. IBM just moved it from a separate service to a service embedded within their IBM Cloud infrastructure. Tap Forms still works with Cloudant.

I don’t like to give exact timelines. It’s a feature I’m still working on actually. Right now just working on the user interface to let you enable and configure access controls. I haven’t written the code yet to react to the access controls settings. But that’s actually the easy part. The configuration in the user interface is the more difficult part. Plus then I have to write the iOS version interface and code to react to the settings.

So no exact timeline just yet.

[ideapool]

Thanks Brenden…

I fully understand!

Thank you for your reply :-)

[Author]

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