Briefcase: Accounting for USB

Ideas
1

Hi,
I would like Briefcase to take into account the devices connected by the USB port on the computer instead of moving the ODK folder of the device.
The interest may be multiple:

  • no digging in the device,
  • taking into account directly the entered data, less manipulations.
    Cordially
    Dan
2

ODK Briefcase used to do exactly this, but it's become harder and harder to support because modern Android devices don't support USB Mass Storage (e.g., what happens when you plug in a normal USB stick), they instead support Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) which is notoriously unreliable.

Can you tell me more about what you mean when you say "taking into account directly the entered data, less manipulations"? Are your enumerators are taking data off the device, manipulating the XML on their desktop computers and then sending it to you?

3

hi yaw, :grin:
The manipulations to use Briefcase are:

  1. connect via USB cable the device to the PC,
  2. opening the folder representing the contents of the device on PC,
  3. copy the ODK folder from the device to the PC,
  4. have the ODK file copied by briefcase read.
  5. Change the name of the copied ODK folder so that you can copy a new ODK folder from another device.

I would like a reduction of these manipulations by:

  1. connect via USB cable the device to the PC,
  2. have the ODK file read by Briefcase.

Obviously I ignore the problems of cables that works for one and not the other, devices that are not seen by the PC (cause PC? Cause device?) And which then obliges the transfer by wifi network which does not simplify The use but remains a backup solution, provided to have a network wifi. :grin: