U-Report Application

01

U-Report Application Data Flow

The whole system is based on 3 major components. RapidPro server, U-Report Offline server, and the U-Report Application.
RapidPro server(s) are used to add Surveyor flows, which in turn will run on U-Report Application.
U-Report Offline server process and converts flow run data from RapidPro into U-Report format.
U-Report Application syncs data both U-Report Offline and RapidPro server. The application also runs the survey from RapidPro.

02

U-Report Offline Flow Life Cycle

The life cycle of flow begins at the RapidPro server when a user creates a Surveyor flow. Then the U-Report Application fetches the flow from RapidPro Server. After a user completes a survey then it is submitted back to RapidPro.
Afterward, U-Report Offline server checks for updates from RapidPro periodically to check for new data. If any new data is found it converts it into U-Report format and serves it to U-Report application as Result or U-Report Offline data.

03

U-Report Offline Flow Life Cycle

The splash activity of the application syncs Story and U-Report offline results with its U-Report Offline Server if a working internet connection is available. The background process checks for any change in data and updates the local database and file contents accordingly.
The process might take a while if there are major updates on the server-side.

04

Application Update

There are two types of update options available for the application. First one is a mandatory update, which holds the launching of the application without an update. The other one is optional or non-mandatory update, this one does not hold the application but shows an update icon on the application dashboard.

05

Dashboard Activity

The dashboard serves as a navigation panel for the application. There are four different options in the Dashboard. Stories, Results, Opinions, and Settings. The opinion activity requires a logged-in user.
Also, the opinion button shows a pending submission count for the currently outstanding flow submissions.

06

Story List Activity

The story list activity contains a list of stories that are already downloaded from the server. Upon clicking on a story it opens a story details viewer activity where the user can read a story in detail.
The stories sync automatically during the loading of application ( Splash activity ). Also, the activity supports swipe to refresh. Swipe to refresh checks for updated stories on the server. Upon swiping the activity Add / Update or Deletes the story from local storage.

07

Story Details Activity

Story details activity shows a detailed story. Stories from the U-Report Offline server have the ability to translate stories. The story contains a mandatory title, body, and optional subtitle, image, and video. Stories can be added from the U-Report offline server.
The story details page contains a translation switch which can be used to change the language of the story without changing the app-wide language settings.
It also contains a text readout functionality, which reads out the content of the story. Default English text-to-speech uses Google Text to Speech. If the Burmese language is selected, then an app called SM Myanmar TTS is required separately.
Text size can be changed using the zoom-in / zoom-out button.

08

Result List ( U-report Offline List Activity )

The result list activity shows the list of flow that has been processed via the U-Report Offline server. The server process and convert the flow runs into a format very similar to U-Report.
This activity has swipe to refresh functionality which syncs data from U-Report offline server. Also, the flow run data automatically syncs at the Splash activity.
The last update time is shown at the top of the page.

09

Result Details ( U-report Offline Details Activity )

The result details page shows the summary of flow runs in a similar view to U-Report results. To use the full potential of the result detail view, RapidPro flows must be made in a specific way.

10

U-Report Offline Flow Life Cycle

Opinion list activity lists the flows from the RapidPro workspace. It uses the RapidPro offline surveyor to do the sync process with RapidPro. Also, there are a few additional steps to ensure good user experience.
Contents/links in RapidPro flows are made offline to use while running flow.

11

Flow Run Activity

Flow run activity is an inherited part of the RapidPro surveyor application. The activity runs flow for the user to complete a survey.
In this implementation, there are some slight improvements from the original Flow Run activity.
It supports quick-response and media contents such as image, audio, video. All the contents are made offline beforehand, so it requires no internet at the runtime.

12

Settings Activity

From the settings page, users can change app-wide language preference. Also, there are sound and vibration enabling and disabling functionality. Users can log out of the workspace from the settings page.

U-Report Offline Flow Life Cycle

There are few additional documents which are relevant to this documentation and might help you understand this document better. They are listed below:

Github Repository:https://github.com/riseup-labs/ureport-general

Assets from UNICEF

RapidPro Surveyor:https://github.com/rapidpro/surveyor

This was the base for the user opinion collection system.

RapidPro API:https://rapidpro.io/api/v2/explorer

RapidPro API was used to read user survey responses.

Used Libraries

OkHTTP:https://square.github.io/okhttp/

This library was used to download contents from U-Report Application Server and RapidPro server.

Retrofit:https://square.github.io/retrofit/

Retrofit was used to get an API response from Server.

Room Database:https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/room/RoomDatabase

Room was used to store data locally.

Google GSON:https://github.com/google/gson

GSON was used to convert JSON data for use in the application.