iCloud Sync

Tap Forms 5 supports syncing your database documents via Apple’s iCloud servers.

Before you can sync with iCloud, you must:

1. Be logged into your iCloud account.
2. Have iCloud Drive enabled.

To setup iCloud sync on Mac:

1. Create a new document or open an existing one
2. Click Preferences under the Tap Forms Mac menu
3. Click Sync
4. Select iCloud from the list of sync services
5. Click the Enable iCloud Sync button

To setup iCloud sync on iOS:

1. Create a new document or open an existing one.
2. Tap the Tools tab at the bottom-right of the screen.
3. Tap Sync Settings.
4. Tap iCloud on the buttons at the top. It’s the first button with the little i in it.
5. Tap the Enable iCloud Sync button

Tap Forms will then upload the forms and records in your document to iCloud. You should see messages appear at the bottom of the window on the Mac version indicating when Tap Forms is sending and receiving. The iOS version will display sync messages on the Tools screen. Tap Forms will also generate an empty document placeholder on your other devices that are connected to the same iCloud account. You’ll see a cloud icon with a down arrow in it.

Wait for Tap Forms to finish uploading to iCloud before you proceed.

When you open the placeholder document on your other device, after a few moments, Tap Forms will download from iCloud and all your data for that document will be synced. If for some reason not all the data comes down, I would recommend using the Send Document function to send a copy of the document you just synced over to your other devices. If the same document already appears there, remove it first, then use the Send Document function to send it over from the device that has all the data. That way you ensure an exact copy of the document is on all your devices.

*If you don’t see the placeholder document appear on your other devices, try rebooting your device. Occasionally, the notifications that iCloud sends don’t get delivered to Tap Forms, so it doesn’t know about the new document. Rebooting may help this.

There is also a “Delete from iCloud” button. This button allows you to delete the contents of the document from your iCloud account, helping to free up your iCloud storage space should you no longer wish to sync that document. Deleting the document from iCloud will not delete it from your local drive. It can be handy occasionally to delete the document from iCloud and then re-enable sync to have Tap Forms re-upload the entire document.

*When Tap Forms is downloading data from iCloud, it does so in batches of 200 items. It repeats this over and over again until it’s done. Please let it finish. The first sync usually takes the longest and it depends on how much data you’re syncing.

*If iCloud doesn’t automatically update on your iOS device when a change is made on another device, go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and make sure that Tap Forms is enabled for Background App Refresh.