ODK Collect v1.23 Beta

ODK Collect betas are an opportunity to get community feedback on upcoming releases. If you have an ongoing data collection campaign, we recommend quickly verifying your form on a test device. The release will be delayed until all reported issues are fixed.

Joining the beta program
To join the beta program, find ODK Collect in the Play Store on your device (not in the web browser) and scroll all the way down. Please don't join the beta with a device or account actively used for data collection! In particular, note that joining the beta is account-based. If you use the same Google account across multiple devices, do not join the beta with that account.

Leaving the beta program
You can leave the beta program from the bottom of the Play Store at any time. Once you leave, you will get the next production update when it is released. If you need to go back to the previous production release, uninstall and reinstall the app. Your settings will be reset but your forms will remain (though backups are always recommended).

What to check in this release
We now support MBTiles files containing vector tilesets! To try this feature, put one or more MBTile files in your /sdcard/odk/layers folder, select Mapbox as the basemap source and you will see your file in the reference layer list. Select a default reference layer if you’d like.

For a quick trial, connect your device to https://opendatakit.appspot.com and try the Geo widgets in the All Widgets form. On widgets that show a map, you can view and change the reference layers. If you need a MBTile file, try this one. We don’t yet support styles for vector MBTiles, so for now, colors are selected by Collect to differentiate lines and fills.

We've added one of the most highly-requested features to this beta! You can now have a geopoint question that is answered in the background when a form is first opened. This feature also lays the groundwork for adding background geopoints for when you close a form and also when a value changes. You can try this feature out by pointing your Collect install at https://opendatakit.appspot.com and downloading the "Collect v1.23 Beta: Background Geopoint Test" form.

The background location tracking in the audit log implementation has been modified to work with the background geopoint described above. If you rely on background location audits, we encourage you to do a test run on the beta.

In this release, we've also changed all network communication code to make it more efficient and secure. This is a big change! If you use Ona, ELMO, Kobo or any other server, please make try a few form downloads and submissions and make sure all network communication works as you expect. @Ukang_a_Dickson, @tomsmyth, and @jnm please make sure your QA teams try this.

Another important change is that we now write unformatted values to Google Sheets. We made this change to prevent potential data loss with select multiples, but it means that Google Sheets will not automatically format submissions coming from v1.23 or later. You must select the column and format appropriately. Thanks to @generic_name for reporting this issue.

Finally, now that XLSForm Online and Offline have been updated, you can now keep history of changes to answers in the audit log. Try change tracking today and let us know what you think.

The other important changes to try are:

Extra testing
If you have some time, please also verify the other changes in the release notes:

If betas go well, the release will go out on July 28. Thanks to all testers for your help!

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We've shipped another beta (v1.23.0-beta.2) and it has one of the most highly-requested features: a geopoint question that is answered in the background when a form is first opened! Background location tracking in the audit log has been modified to work with this new feature.

If you use location tracking or are interested in background geopoint, please read the updated first post on this topic and try the beta.

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Great Feature
Working very well
I am thankful to anyone who has done this thing.

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A post was split to a new topic: Create forms with the auto-location feature

Great!!
worked perfectly.

Many thanks, valuable addition. :slightly_smiling_face:

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We've shipped another beta (v1.23.0-beta.4) and it includes offline layer support for raster mbtiles on top of every basemap. Vector mbtiles are also supported on Mapbox basemaps. Mapping settings have moved to their own screen in General Settings. If you are interested in trying these features, please read the updated first post on this topic.

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Thanks so much to everyone who has tried out the beta!

We are still working through suggested improvements and reported issues. You can track progress in the v1.23 milestone. It looks like the release will go out Friday at the latest so there's still time to provide feedback if you have some!

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@LN we have updated Telugu translations. Hope you will pickup latest from Transflix.

Hi to all.

Today us the 1st of August, 1er Août in french (with an accent over the u) and I get a error I did not have yesterday on 1.23.beta4 when I want to sent my form to aggregate.

I got 2 different massages : the first I add was about an illegal character in date field. Date is use in the instance name.
And I get a new when when I want to save and finalize the form : the new on (after I reinstall 1.22.4 to test it was ok before and fresh install of 1.23.beta4) is "failed to insert row into content://org.odk.collect.android.provider.odk.instances/instances"

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And another one, trying to get fresh list of forms from Aggregate :

La liste a échoué. Parsing failed with unexpected char 0xfb at 11 in date value : jeu., 01 aoüt 2019...

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Today us the 1st of August, 1er Août in french (with an accent over the u) and I get a error I did not have yesterday on 1.23.beta4 when I want to sent my form to aggregate.
I got 2 different massages : the first I add was about an illegal character in date field. Date is use in the instance name.
And I get a new when when I want to save and finalize the form : the new on (after I reinstall 1.22.4 to test it was ok before and fresh install of 1.23.beta4) is "failed to insert row into content://org.odk.collect.android.provider.odk.instances/instances"

I fixed it yesterday and it will work fine in v1.23

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Merci, @mathieubossaert, for the careful checks! Both issues are fixed but the "failed to insert row into content://org.odk.collect.android.provider.odk.instances/instances" is unfortunately because your database was left in a bad state by the earlier beta. Hopefully it's just a test device so you can reset it. If so, you can go to Admin Settings, Reset application and reset saved forms. If that doesn't work or if there's data you can't lose on the device, let us know and we can provide you with further information.

Thanks @LN and @Grzesiek2010,

Hopefully it's just a test device so you can reset it

Yes everything is ok now (with 1.23)

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Collect v1.23 vector offline basemap questions

Latest version does not support "search" and "minimal" appearance same time. For example for a long choice list i use appearance "search minimal" or "minimal search" (search space minimal) to view option in drop down list and search desired option.

We have never supported search minimal at the same time. There is a feature request Showing search option with minimal in appearance

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Thanks for quick reply. Probably got this feature in my dream or it worked for a while only for me.:smiley:

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The geopoint feature is very useful. Any changes needed in the form itself? I couldn't find a way to download the test form.

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