Data Source - App Usage database access

We have used App Usage in a relatively smalll study and have a few questions as we are preparing for a larger study.

  1. We would like to know whether we could have direct access to the database as it will be a challenge to manually download the data source files for this larger study.
    If at all possible, we would like to use the data of the previous smaller study to test this procedure.
    (study IDS are 714, 715, 716, 717, 718, 720 & 721)

  2. If so, could we have user rights to the SQL db. If there is db schema information or additional documentation (beyond what we can see in the table structure), that would be useful to have as well. Alternatively we could work with a sql dump and set up a secure share to upload to over https, if that is better for you.

(As long as these data do not contain any Personally Identifying Information such as person names, addresses, etc.)

Brief other questions:
2. We suspect that the UTC times are based on a different time zone than ours. For example, conversion of the UTC start time does not coincide with the “Dutch” (UTC + 2) start time of our study. Is that possible?
3. We read the data source instructions on your website, but are still unclear on a few variables.
Could you help us out with more detailed information on the (technical) meaning of:
End time, start time, recording time, and last used?
For example, certain logs of app usage are repeated in the App Usage datafiles. This seem to occur when the “recording time” changes, yet all other values remain the exact same in those instances (including foreground time in ms.

Let us know what information we could provide to help you answer our questions.

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Hi @iivandriel

  1. At the moment, we do not provide webhooks to access the database through the code. You can however access the data directly via Kibana Dev Tools. While that interface allows querying the data directly, you cannot write a software to work with the data. If this is something required for your upcoming study, please contact us at support@ethicadata.com and we can discuss a potential solution.

  2. The sensor data in Ethica are stored is data storages that do not support SQL interface, due to their size (surveys are excluded). So even if you try to use the Dev Tools I mentioned above, you would be using a different interface than standard SQL (in this case, Elasticsearch queries). Of course, if SQL interface is preferred here, you can export the data and load it on a SQL db on your end.

Regarding your other questions, would you mind asking them in a separate post? They cover topics other than “database access”, and having them separate helps to keep the conversation focused on the specific question, and also helps others who search for similar issues in the future.

Thank you

Thank you for your answer! I was not aware of the Elasticsearch option in Kibana. We will look into that and let you know if we have additional questions.
I will add a new forum post for the other questions.

Irene

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