IBM Cloud Sync

!IBM has recently updated their Cloudant service to require customers to create a new IBM Cloud account. If you already have an old Cloudant account, you must create a new account on the new IBM Cloud service, and then set up the sync again, using the new service. You don’t need to follow the instructions they gave you for migrating your data to the new account. You only need to sign-out of Cloudant within Tap Forms, then sign-in again using the new credentials you’ll be given once you follow the instructions here.

*Also please note that IBM has implemented an 11 Megabyte request size limit for syncing with their service. This means if you have content, photos and file attachments in your records that add up to more than 11 MB, IBM will respond with a “request entity is too large” error during syncing. Tap Forms for Mac will display the record which causes the error to happen so you can take appropriate action to remove the image or attachment causing the error. Please contact support@cloudant.com if you receive this error message. If this becomes a problem for you, you will need to switch to iCloud, Nearby, or Apache CouchDB syncing instead. IBM has recently increased the limit from their previous 1 MB. Specific details are here: https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/Cloudant/offerings/bluemix.html#request-and-document-size-limits

For instructions on syncing with nearby devices over Wi-Fi, see the Nearby Sync topic. For instructions on syncing with iCloud, see the iCloud Sync chapter. For instructions on setting up your own Apache CouchDB sync server, see Apache CouchDB Sync.

IBM Cloud syncing is very useful if you want to sync with someone who does not share the same Apple ID as you on their devices.

*Before you can sync, you must have a copy of the same document open on each of your devices. Use the Send Document function to transfer a copy of your document from one device to another. On Mac click on the Share button at the bottom of the main Documents window. On iOS, tap on the share button at the top of the main Documents view and select “Send Document”. Once you have the same document open on each device, then you can setup sync between them. Tap Forms must be running on each device and have the main Documents view visible in order for the transfer to take place. See the Sharing with Another Device topic for more information.

Here are the steps you need to do to create an IBM Cloud account and to add Cloudant as a service into your account. You’ll need to do this first before you setup Tap Forms with your username and password given to you by IBM Cloud now.

Visit https://console.bluemix.net/catalog/services/cloudant-nosql-db to create your account.

1. Scroll down to Pricing Plans.
2. Select a pricing plan. Try the free Lite service first to see if that works for you. If your storage requirements are higher than 1 GB, then you may need to select the Standard plan, but there will be a fee for that. If you’re not comfortable with that, then you can certainly use one of the other built-in sync solutions in Tap Forms.
3. Click on the blue Sign Up to Create button on the right.
4. In the Email field, enter your email address, and then press the tab key.
5. Enter your remaining details including a password that you will use to login to your IBM account on their website. You will not be asked to type your password in again. Please remember it. Also please note this is NOT the same password you use to Sign In to Cloudant within Tap Forms. That will be issued to you later on.
6. Click the Create Account button. You will be asked to check your email to verify your email address.
7. Look for an email in your email account titled: Action required: Confirm your IBM Cloud account.
8. Click the blue Confirm Account button.
9. You should see a Success! screen.
10. Click the Login button to proceed.
11. Enter your login email address and password when prompted.
12. View the welcome splash screen and click the Next button or click the X button to close it.
13. You should see the Cloudant NoSQL page.
14. Click the blue Create button at the bottom-right of the web page.
15. Click Service credentials on the left where it says Manage, Service Credentials, Plan and Connections.
16. Click the blue New Credential button on the right.
17. Accept the default name and then click the blue Add button.
18. Click the dropdown arrow next to View Credentials and copy the username and password values. These are the user name and password values you will need to enter into Tap Forms in the next step. For example, a username is similar to this: username: 7891234-qll3-lk92-woiu4-da0d345tg7b5-bluemix.
19. Now click Manage at the top-left side of the page.
20. Click the Launch button if you wish to view your Cloudant dashboard. This is where you can see your databases that you’re syncing with Tap Forms once you’ve signed in to your IBM Cloud account within Tap Forms.

Once you have your own IBM Cloud Cloudant service setup, you need to return to Tap Forms and then:

1. Open the database document you would like to sync.
2. Under the Tap Forms menu, select Preferences. On iOS, go to the Tools area then tap on Sync Settings.
3. Click Sync.
4. Click Cloudant.
5. Copy the username value given to you from the Service Credentials in your IBM Cloud account.
6. Paste the username value given to you into the Tap Forms Username field. When you paste in your username, the server address will automatically be entered for you.
7. Copy the password value given to you from the Service Credentials in your IBM Cloud account and paste it into the Password field in Tap Forms.
8. Enable Auto-Sync if you wish to have Tap Forms sync your data automatically.
9. Click the Sign In button when you’re done.

Auto-Sync

If you enable Auto-Sync, Tap Forms will sync with Cloudant automatically whenever you make changes. Any other device which is also running Tap Forms at that time will receive any changes you’ve made a few moments later. If no other devices are running Tap Forms at that moment, the next time you launch Tap Forms on those other devices, they will check Cloudant for any changes and will sync. If they have changes that have not yet been synced to Cloudant, those changes will also be automatically synced.

*Auto-Sync is a great way to make sure you are always accessing the current data regardless of the device. However, this function may not be suitable for multi-user synchronization, as all users will be interrupted briefly while Tap Forms synchronizes the changes.

If you’re not using Auto-Sync, select the Sync Now command from the File menu whenever you want to sync your document.

Database Sharing

Cloudant has the ability to let you share a database with another Cloudant user. Tap Forms supports this via the Shared by user setting on the cloud Sync Settings screen. Once you’ve setup database sharing and granted the other Cloudant user access to your database, the other user will need to enter your username into the Shared by user setting in Tap Forms. They also need to enter their own username and password into the appropriate fields. Once they’ve done this, any changes they make to their copy of the database will be synced with your copy of the database and vice versa.

*Please note: Tap Zapp Software Inc. has no access to your data. Your data is stored and managed solely by IBM Cloudant. Please see IBM’s Privacy Policy here: http://www.ibm.com/privacy/details/us/en/

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