Hi all! We sometimes send important announcements to everyone in the community. These are rare (at most every 3 months), so please don't unwatch or unsubscribe from this category or you will miss out on very important information!
Overall
The biggest news we've got to share is that ODK 2 has been renamed to ODK-X! We know that having the "2" in the name has long been a source of confusion and we hope this helps clarify that the ODK-X tools are not a replacement for the ODK tools.
Simply put, our community produces two suites of software: ODK and ODK-X. Each suite contains tools that work together to collect, use, and manage data. You can learn more about the differences at https://opendatakit.org/software.
ODK
The ODK suite contains our most well-known and widely deployed tools. These tools support the most common use cases, are proven at scale, and are compatible with a large ecosystem (e.g., Ona, Enketo, ELMO).
Recent release highlights
The team working on the ODK tools has been busy! Since the last community announcement, they've addressed almost 2,000 feature requests and bug fixes. And behind the scenes they continue to make code quality changes that will enable more improvements. Here are some of the highlights:
Collect
- Nicer looking, more consistent form lists
- Better navigation and add/remove repeat buttons in Edit Saved Form and Jump
- Removed 256 column limit for sending submissions to Google Sheets
- Improvements to GeoPoint, GeoTrace, GeoShape user experience
Aggregate
- Removed App Engine support and deprecated publishers
- Enabled simplified install to AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean
- Fixed unsafe uses of HTML and added CSRF protection for improved security
- Improved temporal data management by storing the original timezone
Central (our new server!)
- Added Projects to organize related forms and users
- Automatically compress uploads and downloads for faster data transfer
- Upload forms with multiple attachments with simplified drag-and-drop interface
- View form submissions in browser
Briefcase
- Added start pull from last submission and parallel pull to speed pulls
- Added GeoJSON and aggregated audit file
- Added ability to remove group names and split multiple-choice fields on export
- Much faster exports
Form design
- Tracking enumerator locations in the audit log
- In form SMS/email sending (sample form)
- Randomize choice order of selects
- Rank widget
Remember, you can download the latest versions of ODK tools at ODK Downloads or watch the Releases category to get notified of new releases. If you don't know how, learn how to watch a topic.
Big numbers and a big thank you
In the last year, ODK Collect has had more than 2,500,000 users! The app now runs on 12,000 different devices, supports 50 languages, and is most used in Southern Asia, East and West Africa.
This is a doubling in users over the last year, and has only been possible because so many community members have stepped forward to contribute. Thanks to each and every one of you for helping us reach more people!
ODK-X
The ODK-X suite supports complex workflows via JavaScript customization and features non-sequential navigation, bi-directional synchronization, and on-device data management.
Say hello to ODK-X's leadership
The inaugural Technical Steering Committee for ODK-X was elected in October 2018. Big thanks to @bengreen, @berpita, @bs, @elmps2018, @Jeff_Beorse, @linl33, and @W_Brunette for stepping forward to lead ODK-X!
ODK-X's leadership meets every two weeks and everyone is encouraged to join and participate in those meetings. You can find the next meeting at in the forum calendar. And if you can't make the calls, you can find meeting notes and call audio in the ODK-X TSC Agenda.
Recent improvements
ODK-X is now on version 2.1.2. If you aren't on this version, upgrade now to get these improvements:
- Added in Spanish translations for all tools
- Added in notification channels for Services
- Fixed Sensors framework and Zebra Printer Driver
- Fixed Tables MapListViewFragment to update the list when a marker is clicked on the map
- Disabled scrolling of Survey navbar
- Fixed text overflow in Survey select prompts
- Fixed URI parsing of files for Tables CSV import
- Fixed acknowledge prompt type text
- Converted to 2-character language codes
- Prevented security exception regarding attachment path by using a FileProvider
- Updated target and compile SDK to 26 and 28 respectively
- Upgraded Android Gradle plugin and various support libraries
You can download the latest versions of ODK-X tools at ODK-X Downloads or watch the Releases category to get notified of new releases. If you don't know how, learn how to watch a topic.
Note that as part of the rename, the ODK-X team is in the process of updating the ODK-X docs and the names of the tools themselves, so watch for those changes!
One more thing
There are more than 9,000 people on the forum 
, but less than 10% of you have introduced yourself 
. It's the friendliness of this community that keeps this project going, so please take a minute to introduce yourself here and earn the prestigious Friendly badge!