Dear Open Foris team, I had posted some time ago a question regarding limitations of Open Foris Arena: https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&cx=011544878288102132035:auatq0p6-wo&q=https://openforis.support/questions/3695/of-arena-is-it-totally-free-what-limitations&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj-vLC34qmBAxV0QaQEHR1RCBcQFnoECAgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1pLr7AWvUyRgDooqSEiq1C Subsequently, Arena has limited its use to 10Gb per user account, which to me is perfectly fine. Considering that you have added that limit, I would like to suggest that you remove the limit of 5 surveys per user. At the end of the day, it should not matter how users organize they databases, eventually splitting them over several surveys, as long as they remain below the 10Gb limit. I know that you have planned to allow, in future, changes in the maximum number of surveys for individual users. But, as we speak, that limitation is making things more complicate to me, and I wonder if it would not be just easier to totally remove the 5 surveys limit to all users? The Open Foris tools are an extremely helpful resource, especially for researchers in less developed countries. The 5 surveys limit will probably limit the benefit to those users. Best regards, Bruno

asked 14 Sep '23, 11:30

bsenterre's gravatar image

bsenterre
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Dear Open Foris team, Did you get a chance to consider my request regarding the maximum number of surveys per user account? I am in the process of converting our MS Access 'BIO' database to Arena (so that we finally have a clean, open source, mutliuser tool for the Seychelles: see https://www.gbif.org/publisher/5299c15f-07ad-4ef6-8d6a-b3acbb90ce93, used by the national herbarium and NGOs), and for that I would need more than 10 surveys. I am splitting our BIO database based on several roots, for example one for systematic backbone, one for species names and taxonomy, one for species profiles, etc., ecosystem indexes, typologies, field methods, geographic indexes, observed occurrences.
I understand that I can create a new user name and get +5 surveys, but this solution is not really satisfying. What happens when for example I need to move a survey from one account to another, if I have records 'owned' by myuser1, and then I move the survey to myuser2, and delete myuser1 as user of that survey, then what happens with the entries that were owned by myuser1? Can I as admin myuser2 deal with these data?
And regardless of all that, it is already generating a lot of confusion now because I have to move around from myuser1 to myuser2 account, back and forth, and it is gonna get messy. And if this is slightly confused for me, it will most likely be confused for most of our users of the BIO database.
Ultimately I am afraid that this will defeat the purpose of OF Arena (as opposed to OF Collect)! Is the very purpose of OF Arena not precisely about helping OF Collect users (like me) that have not the capacity of managing the installation of OF Collect on a server? I totally understand that you introduced a limit to the storage space, but I beleive that a limit to the number of surveys is very problematic, and will lead several users to give up on Arena and simply go back to Collect, where there is no limit.
If OF cannot provide an unlimited number of surveys per user, could you set it to 20? That would at least solve our problem in Seychelles with our biodiversity database. Looking forward to hear from you.
Bruno

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answered 04 Oct '23, 07:19

bsenterre's gravatar image

bsenterre
111725
accept rate: 0%

Dear open foris team,

The suggestion is good. I think once we have already defined the space limitations then why are we limiting the number of surveys? Thank you.

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answered 17 Sep '23, 03:43

Rajkumar's gravatar image

Rajkumar
10422857
accept rate: 3%

Dear Open Foris team,

I also agree with the suggestion above. I have been using OF tools with Dr. Senterre for the past 5 years in Mauritius and Seychelles. These tools have proved to be very useful for us and helped to develop very efficient and straightforward data collection methods on many different projects. I also understand the limitation to 10Gb per user account but as mentioned above, the limitation of 5 surveys per user would be a much bigger limitation for us. as such, it would be great if such limitation could be waived to ensure users from SIDS and other developing states to benefit a maximum from OF tools.

Best regards Francois

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answered 18 Sep '23, 09:07

Fbaguette's gravatar image

Fbaguette
112
accept rate: 0%

Dear Bruno,
At the moment we are offering the services of Arena completely for free and the resources in our server are limited, of course.
We are evaluating requests like yours case by case, so in case someone need it, he can contact our team or write a message in the support forum and we will evaluate that request.
Also, Arena can be installed in your own computer using the Docker image available in Docker Hub: openforis/arena
Let us know if you need further clarification, many thanks,
Open Foris Team

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answered 13 Oct '23, 12:09

Stefano%20%28OF%29's gravatar image

Stefano (OF) ♦♦
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accept rate: 19%

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question asked: 14 Sep '23, 11:30

question was seen: 1,547 times

last updated: 13 Oct '23, 12:09