Force photo (not saved) or GPS

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

Our staff are required to enter their timesheet at the end of each day, BEFORE leaving the job location. When they add a record I capture their GPS coordinates. That way, if a customer ever complains that they left early, I have a measure of defence. However one of the team keeps preventing the app from recording GPS coordinates.

Therefore I would like to set it up so that if the GPS location is 0.0000, 0.0000 then he would be required to take a photo and save it in another field. However it must be a live, current, photo, not one he saved from the day before. Is that possible, or does anyone have any other ideas?

2

Have you tried disabling the below shown setting?

Suvrutt_Gurjar_0-1678873969414.png
Suvrutt_Gurjar_0-1678873969414.png1017×778 63.1 KB

Please test well for your requirement after disabling it.

3

You may want to elaborate the above with more details, meaning how exactly GPS location capture is prevented and what are the current app settings for the GPS and associated columns. Also is the app used in offline mode at sites?

4

Thanks for the comments.

I have a field called Location with Show set to No and an initial value of Here(). It works fine. However one employee allows Appsheet to get GPS data for a few days and then removes permission so I end up with zero coordinates. When I complain, he activates it again for a few days then turns it off again.

And, no, I haven’t tried the setting you suggest, so I will need to experiment with to see if it will do what I need.

Thanks for your suggestion. Any other suggestions welcome

5

Thank you for more details. The following is NOT tested. So you may want to try and test.

For some other column that the user needs to save in the Timesheet form, please create a valid_if of

AND(LAT([Latlong Type column name]>0, Long([Latlong Type column name]>0).

The error message for the valid_if could be" Have you turned off the location permission in your device? please turn it on"

Please continue to have the latlong type column with “Show set to No and an initial value of Here()”

This would ensure that the form cannot be saved with 0 values for latlong column.

2 Likes
6

Concept is what I want and it works perfectly, though I had to change Lat to < 0, as I am in southern hemisphere :grin: Thanks for your help.

I will implement this option and hope no one gets upset about privacy issues. As a preventative for possible privacy concerns, I have created a VC (so they can’t change the location to suit them) that shows the GPS location that will be saved. Since they’re supposed to enter the timesheet before leaving the job location, they shouldn’t get too upset.

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7

Thank you for the updates. As an alternative, you could also give it a try to the photo option. That option will also need good testing though that it is working as desired.

8

As at today, I have implemented your suggestion and will see what the response is. I will implement the alternative only if this fails.

Thanks again. Your help is very much appreciated

1 Like
9

You are welcome !