Warnings

• Starting in Collect 2.70.2, when you uninstall Collect, all forms and data will be deleted as well. This is the typical behavior of most apps these days, so it should not be surprising for most users, but it is a change from the existing behavior of earlier versions of Collect.
• If you currently interact directly with the /SurveyCTO folder, you'll need to switch to the Public app storage option (see below).

What changed?

Starting in 2.70.2, Collect for Android has switched to a much more secure way of storing data. The old /SurveyCTO directory is no longer used. By default, everything is stored in private storage within the app itself, and will not be accessible to any other app on the device.

What do I need to do?

The majority of users will not need to do anything. When you update to 2.70.2 (or a later version), you will be guided through a migration process to move your old data to the new private storage location. For most users, this will be a 1-click process. There will be no difference to how you use Collect.

Switching to public storage

Why would I need to use public storage?

• You need to interact directly with app data.
  Some workflows involve interacting directly with the data stored in Collect. For example, you may have a separate app on your device that monitors the .xml data as it is being collected. Or, you may be troubleshooting an error in one of your forms and be asked to submit the raw app data for debugging purposes. Please note: you do not need to access this folder to submit form data.
• You do not have enough storage available in internal storage.
  If your device has limited internal storage, but you have an external storage device like an SD card, switching to public storage will use the external media instead of internal storage. If you do not have enough internal storage available when you update, you will be able to switch to using public storage as part of the migration process.

How do I switch to using public storage?

In Admin Settings, there is a new option at the bottom labeled App storage location. You can switch between Private app storage and Public app storage at any time. If you have a lot of data stored on the device, switching storage locations may take a long time.

Where is public storage?

If you select the Public app storage option, all data will be stored in the following location:

/Android/data/com.surveycto.collect.android/files/SurveyCTO

If you have any other apps that interact directly with the app data, you will need to update those apps to use this new location instead of the old /SurveyCTO folder.

How to export/import settings

If you would like to transfer Collect settings from one device to another, the process will be slightly modified in 2.70.2. When you export settings from the Admin settings menu, the collect.settings file will now be saved in the following location:

/Android/data/com.surveycto.collect.android/files/export/settings

When importing Collect settings using a collect.settings file, you will now need to place that file in the following location:

/Android/data/com.surveycto.collect.android/files/import/settings

For more info, please read the documentation topic on managing device settings.

How to import map tiles

The process for working with offline map tiles is slightly different in 2.70.2. To import map tiles for use in offline GPS collection, you can drop your MBTile files in the following location:

/Android/data/com.surveycto.collect.android/files/config/layers

For more information, please read the documentation topic on collecting GPS data.