Problems with notifications sending out and GPS data collection

Support
1

Currently, I am running a test trial of a short ESM Study using Ethica with me and two colleagues as participants. We have several problems with the app (which could be the result of me setting up the study incorrectly - however, I tried to follow the detailed documentation as closely as possible). I would be very happy about your advices on how to get the study run properly.

Study name: My Ethica Test Study (code 907)

Questions regarding survey data:
Almost all the time: No notifications were send but when opening the app, there was a survey available at the time when they were time-triggered (in the phones’ general settings notifications were turned on and notifications should be send 0 minutes after the time-triggered survey becomes available), this issue happened both on iPhones and Android phones

Sometimes: A notification was send, but no survey was available when opening the app

In the EthicaData Browser Application there is another issue. When looking at Participation -> Survey Session we found that for some participants the survey fields are still grey although the participant has missed this survey (so it should actually be red for „cancelled" as far as I understood). For others it was red. Why is that?

Questions regarding GPS data:
GPS data was collected unsystematically (i.e., there are way more GPS data points collected on an Android Phone vs. an iPhone) - is there a reason for it?

2

Hi @susanne.buecker

Questions regarding survey data:

It’s very tricky for us to say why a given notification was sent on someone’s device or not, and if sent, when it was sent, and whether the user dismissed it or tapped on it. That’s because the way mobile devices work, the apps such as ours has to create a time table of the notifications it wants to be prompted to the user, and send that time table to Android or iPhone’s operating system, and ask them to send notifications to the user on those times. The rest is handled outside of the app’s control until the user taps on the notification and opens the app. We do not have any visibility to this.

For each participant, the Ethica app asks the phone to send her a notification at the exact times that you can see in Participation -> Survey Session. The phone also does so and prompts those notifications at the requested times.

Now if you believe a given notification was not sent while the survey was prompted and available in the app, or if you think there was no survey and still the app sent a notification, please let me know more details about each case, and we will check other data around that time to see if we can find any relevant issues or information. For example, if you received a notification but there was no survey when you opened the app, please send us the ID of the participant, and the exact time the notification was received. Or if you did not receive a notification but when you opened the app, there was a survey, please send us the participant ID, and the time you opened the app.

When looking at Participation → Survey Session we found that for some participants the survey fields are still grey although the participant has missed this survey (so it should actually be red for “canceled” as far as I understood).

That is correct. This happens if the participant reinstalls the app, or signs out and logs back in, or goes to the Setting → My Studies → Reload Studies from Server. Either of these actions causes the data sitting on her phone waiting to be uploaded to the website to be lost. That’s why you would see the boxes to remain Grey instead of Red to indicate Expired, or Yellow to indicate Canceled.

We are working to improve this reporting. So even if such actions happen, the table shown in Participation -> Survey Session is properly updated.

Questions regarding GPS data:

The problem you mentioned here can be due to the app being terminated in iOS and unable to collect GPS data. You can read more about that here, or watch this video for a detailed description about how such data sources work both on Android and iPhone.