Alarm Scheduling in Mobile EMA Apps
One powerful feature available in Pendragon Forms is the ability to schedule alarms. Alarms are often used in Electronic Momentary Assessments (EMA) or process-based systems in which you want to remind users to perform a specific activity.
The Pendragon Alarms feature allows you to perform the following configurations:
Import or create the Import thePFTimeAlarm.pff or see thePFTimeAlarm section below to create the form on your own.
Create a form that you would like the user to navigate to when one or more of your alarms are fired. Optionally, you can import theSampleSurvey.pff in this example.
Freeze yourPFTimeAlarm form and your target from.
Go to the Advanced Form Properties for thePFTimeAlarm form and change the Sync rules to "Keep copy of records on device". Optionally, you could delete the filter text in "Additional Download Criteria" if you would like the same alarms to go to all users with this form. (Click here for more information on Synchronization rules). Save the Advanced Form Properties.
There are a number of ways to create your alarms (Import alarms, Load alarms via ODBC). For this example, we will create an alarm manually. Go to the Data menu and click "View, Edit, Download". Click on the database icon to view or edit thePFTimeAlarm data. Click Insert tab and add one or more alarms manually. See the image for example data. The combination of RecordId, UnitId, username, and created must be unique.
Distribute all of your alarms.
Sync your forms to a user running within the Pendragon Forms Android app. Alarms should fire as scheduled and subsequent reminders should fire when the original alarm is not clicked.
In most cases, you will not want the user to see or edit their alarms.
In the Advanced Form Properties of the PFTimeAlarm form, go to the Behavior tab and click "Hide form in form list" under the Subforms section.
In the Advanced Form Properties of the PFTimeAlarm form, go to the Behavior tab and click "No inserts on device","No updates on device", and "No deletions on device" under the Access rights section.
In order for the changes to take a affect, you must publish the form and re-sync the devices.
Optionally, add a PFTimeAlarmLog which will automatically capture the time when a user responds to an alarm and the alarm schedule time of the notification to which they responded.
Optionally, import or create the Import the PFTimeAlarmLog.pff or see the PFTimeAlarmLog section below to create the form on your own.
Freeze and distribute the form.
One way to quickly create alarms is by generating them offline and importing them.
Down alarm_creator.xls. Follow the instructions on the first sheet to create and export your alarms.
In the PFM, go to the Data menu and click "View, Edit, Download". Click on the database icon in the to view and edit the PFTimeAlarm data. Click the Import button, select the alarms CSV that you generated offline, and click import
One way to quickly create alarms is via ODBC connection. Contact Pendragon for a secure remote login to update alarms remotely.
This form defines the individual alarms. A standard android notification will trigger with the alarm and its respective reminders (if not dismissed). When the user clicks it, it will open Pendragon Forms, save any active record. If a targetform is set, then it will open a new record on the target form.
This form will contain one record for each alarm and its respective reminders and other settings.
alarmtime (date time field)
reminder1 (date time field—leave null if no reminder)
reminder2 (date time field—leave null if no second reminder)
title (textfield—alarm message title)
message (textfield—alarm message)
vibrate (YES/NO) sound (YES/NO)
targetform (textfield—form name of target form)
A record will be created in this form when the user clicks on an alarm notification.
alarmtime (date time field)
notificationtime (date time field)
responsetime (date time field)
Use this EMA template to get started. This includes alarms, creating alarms on the fly, branching, protecting access to alarm based surveys.
Navigate the user through forms based on their selections.
Provide users with a custom menu after their sync.
Insert records into other forms based on their responses.
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