Many of our users capture data in areas with slow or even no data collection. With Akvo Flow you can capture data fully offline. This means you can not only capture the data on your Flow app offline, but you can also add the form to your device offline, as well as get the data from your phone to someone with network connection to sync to Flow's database.

Downloading a form to your device offline

To create and edit forms, you need to log into your Flow space, when connected to internet. Once your form is ready for data collection you publish it and then you would sync the form to the device. But you can also get your form to the app, without having your device connected to the internet.

How?

By using the Manual survey transfer functionality. On Flow's online space, once the form is published, you can generate a file holding the form. This file will be emailed to you. Once you download the file you can share it online, or offline with your data collectors to add to their devices. For more details on how to get the file, check this article.

To get the form file onto your device, follow these steps:

1. Connect your device to a computer using a USB cable.
2. Make sure you can see the contents of the SD card.
3. Go to the folder akvoflow/inbox.
4. Copy the survey or form zip file into the inbox folder.
5. Disconnect your device from the computer.
6. Start the Flow app.
7. You will see a notification that the file is being read from your SD card. Once done, the survey will show in the list of survey in the app's menu. It should not take more than a few seconds.

Capturing data offline

Filling in a form

You can capture data using the Flow app online of offline. There is no difference in how you fill in the survey form and submit it. Because you are offline, the data points will be in the submitted status (orange icon). You data is securely stored in the memory of your device in a private folder that is not accessible. This will not change to the synced status (green icon).

Uploading your data

To make sure the data gets uploaded to Flow's database, when you can then see the data on Flow's online space or export the data, you can do two things:

1. Connecting to a network. One option is to connect your device to the network what will trigger the submitted points to start uploading.
2. Offline upload. You can get your data out of the device and to a PC fully offline. Then you can upload the data file to your online workspace using the bulk upload tab (this step requires connection as the online workspace does not work offline.) For more details on how to bulk upload data check these articles.

Offline maps

If you're going where the Internet is slow, mobile data is expensive, or you can't get online, you can save the area with Flow's Offline map to your phone or tablet and use the map when you are offline. With Flow 2.8.0 (and newer versions) you can not only capture data offline, but also view the location of your data points offline using our newest feature, Offline maps.

Note:Capturing and viewing geographical shapes with Offline maps is not supported yet. We will be adding it to the next Flow app release.

Creating an offline map

1. Make sure you are connected to the internet. 

2. Go to the Main menu and select Offline maps. You can create your first offline map from the Maps tab too. 

3. Click on the icon in the right bottom corner of your screen. 

4. Zoom in to the area you want to download. 

5. Give the map a name. 

6. Download map.

The offline map will show in the list of Offline maps. Here you will see all your created offline maps and their size. You can preview, rename or delete a map to save space on your device.