Hello everyone,

I am writing to propose an improvement in the process of cloning data between cycles in Arena.

Currently, when we clone a record from one cycle to another, all the attributes are copied, and in many cases, we only want to copy some of them and others that appear blank (for example in a forest inventory, the location data of the plot are maintained between cycles but we measure the tree data again).

For this reason, I think it would be a good idea to include in the attribute edits the option of whether we want that attribute to be cloned or not.

Thanks for the excellent work with the Open Foris tools!!

Oscar

asked 30 May, 18:32

osgarcia's gravatar image

osgarcia
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Dear Oscar,
This is a very good idea and we will implement it soon in Arena.
Would you like to have some new features in the mobile too, related to multiple cycle surveys?
For example, would you like to have the possibility to start a new record in the current cycle, cloning data from a record in the previous cycle, direcly in the mobile app?
Please let us know, this is something that could be useful for other users too.
Many thanks,
Open Foris Team

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answered 03 Jun, 11:34

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

Stefano (OF) ♦♦
4.8k119
accept rate: 19%

Dear Open Foris team,

Thanks for implementing these ideas.

It would be very useful about the new features of the mobile app to be able to download records from the server and copy them to a new cycle or edit them directly.

Thank you

Oscar

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answered 04 Jun, 20:47

osgarcia's gravatar image

osgarcia
635
accept rate: 0%

Dear Oscar,
In the current version of Arena, in the Survey Form Designer, for every attribute or entity there is already an option to specify if you want to include the attribute or entity in the clone.
Then you have the possibility to clone records from the records list.
If you use Arena Mobile Experiments, you can also clone one or multiple records directly from one cycle into the latest one; from the records list, select the records you want to clone and press the button Clone (you will have to "fetch" the records from the server first; show remote and local records in the records list, select the records to be downloaded and select Import from server).
Many thanks,
Open Foris Team

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answered 27 Aug, 14:00

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

Stefano (OF) ♦♦
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accept rate: 19%

Hi Stefano,

I am excited to take advantage of the cloning functionality for my 2025 field campaign, and I would like your opinion on how to best accomplish a particular objective related to repeated sampling.

The project is a multi-site reforestation trial, where each site was planted out with thousands of trees in a highly regulated and documented order. My crew makes multiple visits to each site to collect data on every tree 3-4 times during a typical field season. I would like to design my survey so that each visit is a new cycle, and I am aware that I can choose which attributes are cloned to the new cycle. My question relates to how I can ensure that certain information is updated by the data collector in the next cycle. For example, I would like to clone the "status" attribute (whether the tree is alive or dead) from cycle 1 to cycle 2, because it is very helpful for the data collectors to know the previous status of the tree. However, it is very important that I can guarantee that the status for each tree is actually updated by the data collector during Cycle 2. I'm curious if it would be possible to clone "status" from cycle 1 into a new read-only attribute (call it "previous_status") in cycle 2. Then, "status" in cycle 2 could be reserved for the updated status of each tree. Let me know if you think there is a better way to accomplish my objective. Thank you!

Bryant

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answered 13 Dec, 23:58

bnagelson's gravatar image

bnagelson
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Dear Bryant,
Using new cycles for each visit seems the right solution to me.
In case you want to be sure that some fields are filled in the current cycle, you can mark those fields as "required" and skip them during cycle cloning (keeping them blank).
If you use Arena Mobile Experiments, you can already show data from previous cycle (or cycles) together with the record being edited.
I've prepared a short video explaining how to do it, you can watch it here.
It uses a simple survey with a structure cluster-plot-tree, where I have defined 2 cycles. Then I have created a record in one cycle and cloned it into the latest cycle (in the "tree" entity, I've kept the attribute with the tree status empty during record cloning).
I hope you will find the example clear.
Let me know, many thanks,
Stefano

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answered 15 Dec, 22:46

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

Stefano (OF) ♦♦
4.8k119
accept rate: 19%

Hi Stefano,

Thank you for the explainer video - it was very helpful. If I understand correctly, the "linking" capability allows one to view the value from cycle 1 during cycle 2 even though the cycle 1 value was skipped during cycle cloning. This will be extremely valuable for me and my team!!

I am having trouble testing this feature on my personal iphone running the latest version of AME. When I click "check sync status" to download a record from the server, I recieve this error:

Info
Error fetching records sync status:
SyntaxError: JSON Parse error:
Unexpected character: E

I will test on an android tablet in the coming weeks, as we use these devices in the field.

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answered 16 Dec, 18:23

bnagelson's gravatar image

bnagelson
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accept rate: 0%

Dear Bryant,
Please ensure that you are using the latest version of AME (1.1.24); that error should be related to an expired session with the server, so please just try to login again (in the latest versions of AME you should be warned about that).
Many thanks,
Open Foris Team

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answered 16 Dec, 23:23

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

Stefano (OF) ♦♦
4.8k119
accept rate: 19%

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question asked: 30 May, 18:32

question was seen: 932 times

last updated: 16 Dec, 23:23