Attendance2 News (Contacts importing and other new features)

I was able to find some time after my fall semester completed to work on the app and submitted version 2.0 today (Friday 12/28/12). I've added basic ability to import from your Contacts/AddressBook. It's not as customizable as the CSV import as far as matching fields to be imported, but I think it should make the handful of people that wanted this functionality happy. If there's enough interest, I'll try to add more features to make the import more customizable. I also added URL support so Attendance2 can be used with the Launch Center Pro app. With one action from the Launch Center Pro app, you'll be able to open Attendance2 for a given course, add the next date and begin taking attendance for the date. Other improvements include the ability to view reports within the app in table form, totals for each person on the spreadsheet report, and the ability to swipe left/right on the take attendance screen to move to a later/earlier date.

Here is how the URL support works in version 2.0 and higher.

attendance2:// (launches attendance2)

attendance2://course-name  (opens course-name)

attendance2://course-name?take=yes  (open course-name and selects default date to take attendance)

attendance2://course-name?add=yes   (open course-name and add next date)

attendance2://course-name?add=yes&take=yes  (open course-name, add next date, and take attendance for default date)

Here is an update about the bug that 1-2% of people encountered back in September. Version 1.2.1 appears to have fixed it as I have no reports of the problem from anyone running version 1.2.1 or later. It is clear Apple definitely had some bugs for the new features they added to Core Data in iOS 5 (which Attendance2 was using). For those with some programming background and interested in the details, here is a blog post by someone listing some of the issues. Unfortunately, I did not find that until October (and never ran into the problems during my 6 months of testing the app), but the workarounds I used in version 1.2.1 match some of the workarounds listed there. I have also heard other developers confirm the problems in various podcasts this fall. So at this point, I feel fairly confident the problem is solved, but I still recommend people backup their data every day as you never know if your device will break, get lost, or stolen.

Using Attendance2 to track participation

Here is the promised blog post about using Attendance2 to track participation. You can continue to use the Status1 values to track (Absent, Present, Excused, etc.) and then use the Status2 values to track participation. There are options in the Report Settings to include the Status2 values in the various reports.

Here is what I did for one class where I expected each student to participate at least 20 times during the semester, but wanted to limit them to a maximum of five participation points per day. I added Status2 values of: P0 (with a Points value of 0), P1 (with a Points value of 1), P2 (with a Points value of 2), P3 (with 3), P4 (with 4), and P5 (with 5). P0 should be the first one so it is the default value for Status2.

After taking attendance using the Status1 values, scroll left in the buttons (first one says "Show All") until you see the "Show Present" button and press it so you only see the list of people who are present that day. Continue scrolling the buttons, until you see the "Use Status2" button and press it. Now you should see the list of people present that day and each person should have a "P0" status (assuming you added the Status2 values before adding this date to take attendance; if not, you'll have to press the status button for each person one to get to P0). Each time a person participates that day, you tap his/her status button to move to the next status (e.g., from P0 to P1). Once someone reaches P5, I would not tap on them again that day. You can use different colors for the statuses to make it easy to see. I made P0 black, P1-P4 green, and P5 red. In the Take Settings, I set the Status2 point total for Red Name to 20 so once a person has participated 20 times during the semester, his/her name will be shown in red when viewing the Status2 values on the Take attendance screen. The Start Date/End Date in the Report Settings control which dates are used for the Red Name so you can use a subset of the semester if you want. Also turn on the "Status 2" and "Point Total" settings in the Report Settings to view these in the reports. 

Someone requested a way to see which people haven't participated much recently by having their name turn red. Here are the Status2 values and the corresponding point values I would use for this: Silent = 1, C1 = 0, C2 = -1, C3 = -2 where C1 with value 0 is the level of participation you want each day. Remember, what's happening is you're adding the values up and the name appears red when it reaches a certain value such as 3 (default). So if someone contributes exactly the amount you want (C1) each day, they have a value of 0 and their name will not be red. But at the start, if someone hasn't contributed at all, after three days with "Silent", they have a total of 3 and they will appear red. If someone contributes a lot for a few days they'll have a bunch of negative one values so they can be silent for a few days before their name would turn red. You can obviously adjust the values a bit, but the idea is to use 0 for the amount of participation you want each day from a person and positive values for no contribution and negative values for participation with them being more negative the more they contribute. There is a minor bug in version 1.3 and earlier that prevents the name from changing to red/black correctly for the Status2 values, but this is fixed in the new update I submitted to Apple today (Friday 12/28/12).

You can download sample Attendance2 course files that you can place in your Dropbox/Apps/Attendance2 folder and import using the "Restore from Dropbox" option. Participation1.adz uses the P0-P5 described above and Participation2.adz uses the Slient, C1-C3 values. After loading them on your device, you can open your own course, choose "Import from Existing course", select the Participation1 or Participation2 course, and then select "Statuses" and press the Copy button to import its Status1 and Status2 values into your course.

Attendance apps on iOS 6 and iPhone 5

The current versions of the original Attendance app and the new Attendance2 app both run fine on iOS 6 as far as I can tell with my testing. Both should also run fine on the new iPhone 5 and new iPod Touch, but will have the black letterbox at the top and bottom of the screen. I have submitted a new version of Attendance2 (version 1.2.2) to Apple that should expand to use the entire screen. I want the original Attendance app to continue to run on iOS 4 so I am not certain if I will be able to update it so that it can use the entire screen of the new devices with taller screens. I need to read more about this so at least for now the original Attendance app will run letter boxed on the taller screens.

So far, I do not have any reports of of the data bug occurring in a file that was opened successfully at least once with version 1.2.1 of the Attendance2 app. While I cannot be certain it is fixed, if I do not receive any new reports in the next few weeks, that will be a good sign that version 1.2.1 seemed to fix the problem.

Attendance2 data bug

Although I still have not reproduced this problem, I do not have any reports of it in version 1.2.1 or higher so it appears to be fixed. I recommend you continue to backup your data regularly.

I have heard from a few people (about 1% of the people who purchased Attendance2) that after using Attendance2 for a few days, they can no longer open their data file (it hangs with the semi-transparent message that it is opening the file). When they back up the file to Dropbox, the data file is essentially empty (it seems to be 22 bytes which is just enough to indicate the directory structure of the data, but no actual data). So it appears the app is not correctly saving their data.

I have been using the app since January in my classes and have never had this happen so I'm having trouble tracking down the problem. I certainly wouldn't have released the app if I was aware of this since it's not worth the stress for the small amount of money I make from the app. So until I get this figured out, I have temporarily pulled the app from the store. I will be using one of my two "support tickets" with Apple to try to get a number of questions answered to see if those answers can help me track it down.

I am using a new feature in iOS 5 to store/save the data so it's possible the bug is in Apple's code (which would mean there's nothing I can do to fix it until they do) or perhaps I'm not using the code correctly (which is the more likely case) or perhaps the people that are having the problem are doing some combination of steps I had never tried and is leading to the error.

In the meantime, if you are using Attendance2, please backup your data every day. When you are done with your class, use the option to Backup to Dropbox or Backup via email to backup your course. When you are back at your computer, check to see the size of the file. If it's 22 bytes or less than 1KB, something went wrong and you will want to access the backup from the previous day. If you're backing up to Dropbox, you can login to their website (dropbox.com) and restore an earlier version of the file to Dropbox and then import that back into Attendance2.

Unfortunately I have no way to contacting people who purchased the app unless they have contacted me so if your colleagues are using the app, please let them know and tell them to backup the data every day.

If anyone knows of steps that make his happen consistently (i.e., you can take a file, do certain tasks with the app, and it happens - and then if you restore the previous data file and do the same steps, and it immediately happens again, please let me know).

I apologize for this, but since it never happened in seven months of testing, I had no idea there was a problem.

I will post an update when I figure this out and when the update is approved by Apple.

Update on Sunday, September 2, 2012 at 8:20PM by Dave Reed

I still have not reproduced the problem myself, but I have confirmed that Apple's auto-save will always save the data (even when you close the app or it enters the background) so I have removed the manual save I was doing when an app entered the background. My theory is that both of these savings being done when the app entered the background was leading to a race condition that resulted in an empty file being created (the zip structure itself is the 22 bytes). I have a few people that had the problem beta testing the update and if it seems to work ok for them after a few more days, I will submit the update to Apple and make the app available again after Apple approves the update.

Once the empty file is created, no version of the app will be able to open it so please send yourself reports and backup the data each time you are done taking attendance for a class until we are fairly certain the bug is fixed. I recommend you send yourself a report each day at the end of class. See the Report Settings and turn on the various options that you are using in the "View in Reports" section. Make certain the Start Date and End Date at the top of the Report Settings screen include all dates you have entered and will enter. You can send yourself the Spreadsheet Report or Detail report to get the data onto your computer. At a bare minimum, on the screen where you can take attendance, press the Communicate button (if you are on an iPhone or iPod Touch, the row of buttons at the top scroll left/right) and select Email report so you have your basic status records for that day.

Update on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 9:46PM by Dave Reed

After reading through more of Apple's documentation, I think I might have found the cause of the problem. I have submitted an update to Apple tonight and requested an expedited review. Once Apple approves it, I'll put it back in the store (assuming neither myself or the people beta testing the changes see the problem again). Note the updated app cannot recover a bad file (since the file is empty) so please make certain to backup each day and use the reports so you at most lose one day's data and with a report you can re-enter it. I will post here and to Twitter (@davereed) when the update can be downloaded.

Update on Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 6:04PM by Dave Reed

Version 1.2.1 is available in the App Store. Please update to this version now if you are using an earlier version. I cannot be certain this fixes the problem since I still have never had it happen to me, but I did make some changes in when the call to Apple's code to save the file occurs. Please continue to backup your data each day after you use it and let me know if you have this problem after updating to version 1.2.1. I cannot fix previous data files, but if you open a course with version 1.2.1 or higher and then later cannot open it, please contact me at dave256apps@me.com.

Attendance2 available

Attendance2 is available in the App Store (App Store link for Attendance2). As announced, the introductory price for the first week is $3.99. It will move to the regular price of $4.99 on July 23rd.

There is more information about it here and the start of a FAQ. The main missing feature (compared to the original Attendance app) is the random functionality. I will be working on it soon but also need to start working on my fall classes so I don't know whether I will get it done by the end of August or will have to finish that feature on the weekends this fall.

I also am working on a few more videos showing how to use it and will post those along with the existing videos here.

I hope you find the new app both simpler and more configurable.