Linking ODK Aggregate with Mapserver or Geoserver

Support
1

Hi all hi @yanokwa ,

I am new in this community.

Always a bit confussed when it comes to back end.
After trying to syncronice odk with Google Cloud Platform I found this conversation. Now I understand everything.

Then, up to this point I wonder if the ODK developers have thought about linking odk aggregate with Mapserver or Geoserver? Would this be a bypass for the Google Cloud Platform?

My greetings

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@elanioazul We are dropping support for App Engine (see Upcoming changes to Aggregate) and adding support for a lot of other cloud providers, so bypassing Google Cloud is already a solved problem.

What do you mean by linking Aggregate to Mapserver? Or rather, what user-facing features do you imagine that would enable?

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Hi @yanokwa ,
To be honest I am right now a bit confused. I would like to set up this amazing ODK kit but have some difficulties understanding the changes recently mentioned by you, and thinking on the infrastructure architecture would fit me best.
I would be very grateful if your could clarify my path a bit because my IT skills are not very developed:

  • What is the way solved for bypassing Google Cloud without having to pay a fee to a online host? I don t have, for the moment, any local server available.
  • I have Postgre on my machine for managing via loopback network interface data of my current projects. Imagine I hire a package with Digital Ocean. Where should I install Aggregate v2.x? On my machine on top of Postgre? How to point Postgre and Aggregate towards Digital Ocean?
  • For my purposes, it is crucial not only having a question where the GPS location is recorded. I need a widget where I can give a certain location for my answers, because very often information is fill up retrospectively (when you get shelter/home).
    Is this possible?
    I ask this because I have been recelty invited to fill a survey and this was not possible.

Thanks a lot

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Hey that's a great idea!
So Aggregate can use a local postgresql database as datastore.
At the same time, GeoServer can use a postgres/postgis table as data source.
There's more - QGis can access postgis tables too.

If the postgresql instance is accessible to both Aggregate and GeoServer (and QGIS), then one could publish the data from Aggregate trough GeoServer as WMS or WFS or analyse it directly in QGIS. In the simplest case, you can run postgresql, Aggregate and GeoServer off the same machine.

@elanioazul if you want to connect Aggregate and GeoServer/QGIS, you'll need to set up your own server and install the required software packages on it, there's probably no way around that.
For a development environment your local machine will do, but to use a setup like this in production, you'll need a dedicated server.

If I understand your last question correctly, are you looking to record location both by "tap to record current location" and (if current location is not available) a "enter location other than my current location"? The latter could be done through ODK Build > Location widget > Style "Manual (no GPS)". You may need to load mbtiles for the offline map.

Hope that helps!

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5

Hi brother, am working on university project on how to disseminate data into GIS web application. I want to use postgis as database,geoserver and leaflet. I have installed and configure tomcat and I have I installed ODK aggregate. Please can You assist me with tutorios on how to configure the connection?

Thank you in advance