I have recently began rolling out collector to our 5 field offices to collect timber sale, forest management, and wildfire data, and have been running into several issues that I'd like to see addressed in future versions of the App. I'd like to see if any of you have things to add, hopefully we can help guide future development to meet our needs.
- Add an audible alert and a popup when coverage is lost: right now, if you are collecting a data stream and loose signal, the only way to tell is to carefully watch for the collector icon to turn from white to red, or watch the map closely. This is really tough to pay attention to in the woods, and is a drain on battery. Folks used to Trimble GPS's recognize the importance of audio alerts.
- Allow Collector to run and stream in the background: For our uses, we frequently switch between Collector and other apps. Currently, on android devices, closing the collector app or changing to another android app aborts any current collection. When reopening Collector, you are taken back to the "Maps on Device page". If Collector automatically paused when changing applications, or prompted the user before aborting data, it could prevent a good deal of frustration.
- FIX THE SYNC PROBLEM!!!! It has become a frequent issue that following offline data collection the Sync fails and data is hung up in purgatory. We have had occasions where the first attempt as Sync results in a fail message, the second attempts completes successfully but fails to sync all the features collected. This has occurred on multiple devices, on multiple occasions, and seems to be a fairly random event.
- Add an option to Sync via a data cable while connected to a PC. In our case specifically, and often for federal land managers as well, WiFi is not available or is not allowed, and the ability to sync via a data cable through an internet-connected computer would be incredibly helpful.
- Associate the username with the data when collected offline: It would be great to see Collector populate a "collected by" field with an individual's username when collecting data online. It is important to our organization to see who collected, modified, or edited data, and currently our only option is to have them type their name in manually. Since each user is logged into collector, it should be possible to "tag" the data with their username.
I'm sure you folks have other suggestions, so lets here some!!
