Aam Digital is fully usable offline - both on mobile phones and desktop computers. All information and (almost all) functionality is available without an internet connection after you have logged into your system at least once on a device. We have designed Aam Digital as "offline first", specifically for the challenging environments of social projects across the world, where internet may be slow, unstable or not covering certain areas.

When you log in for the first time on a device, the application automatically downloads the software and all data you have access to. Data is automatically synchronized in the background whenever the device has an internet connection. If no internet connectivity is available, you can continue to view, edit and add data. These updates are shared with colleagues as soon as internet connectivity is available again. The synchronization uploads any changes you made and downloads changes your colleagues made while you were offline.

Offline functionality

Most features work offline, including the following:

• create new records

• view existing records (with their full context and relations, same UI as online)

• edit and delete existing records

• manage notes, tasks and relationships between records

• search, filter, export, import, etc.

• view dashboards and in-app analysis screens

Functionality not available offline

The following advanced features require a server and only work online:

• File attachments (download / upload)

• Advanced reports

• (PDF) file generation

• Changes to user accounts (passwords, permissions)

• Public forms to submit data without a user account

  • (we currently do not support this technically because there is a high risk that external participants will not keep their forms active until internet is available and data may be inadvertently lost)

Conflicting changes

If two users edit the exact same record while one of them is offline, the system may run into a sync conflict. Because the first change could not be updated before the new change, it may be unclear which version of your record is correct. Such conflicts have to be resolved manually then.

From practical experience over the years, we discovered that such conflicts happen only very rarely (much less often than even we had expected):

• Due to the design of the data structures, any note or additional information is synchronized separately, so parallel updates of such details can be synced automatically without issues.

• Also often, the main data of one record is managed only by a few users responsible. As long as they have internet connectivity every few days, there is little risk conflicting changes.

Depending on your processes and environment, you should keep this question in mind, however. With certain designs of data structures and strategies like permissions to only create new records (without updating existing data), you can ensure smooth operations even with extreme offline requirements.