Synchronising with Smartabase • smartabaseR

sb_sync_event() is a way to determine which events have been entered/updated after a certain time (last_sync_time):

sync_data <- sb_sync_event(
  form = "Example event form",
  type = "synchronise",
  last_sync_time = 1672531200000
)

Note: last_sync_time is represented in unix time, which means the number of milliseconds since 1970-01-01. For reference we can convert the unix time value to a UTC datetime object like so: as.POSIXct(1672531200000/1000, origin = "1970-01-01").

The above call to sb_sync_event() will return a tibble with all of the events that have been inserted/updated since 1672531200000 (that is, 01/01/2023 00:00:00 UTC).

#> ℹ Form: Example event form
#> ℹ HTTP status code: 200
#> ℹ Export time: 2023-06-01 19:35:58 UTC
#> ℹ Unique records: 4
#> # A tibble: 4 × 8
#>   about      user_id form  start_date Distance   RPE entered_by_user_id event_id
#>   <chr>        <dbl> <chr> <chr>         <dbl> <dbl>              <dbl>    <dbl>
#> 1 Charlie T…   31808 Exam… 15/04/2023     5411     7              37201    16517
#> 2 Jack Will…   31811 Exam… 15/04/2023     2374     3              37201    36505
#> 3 Jamie And…   37201 Exam… 15/04/2023     1600     6              37201    36014
#> 4 Liam Walk…   37204 Exam… 15/04/2023     2564     5              37201    28970

The data returned from sb_sync_event() also comes with specific attributes attached to the data frame. The most important is the time in which Smartabase returned the data to you. You can access that value by using the attr() function:

new_sync_time <- attr(sync_example, "new_sync_time")

#> [1] 1.686086e+12

Now, the next time you synchronise with that form, you can use the newly acquired new_sync_time value to find any records that have been inserted/updated since you last called sb_sync_event():

next_sync_example <- sb_sync_event(
  form = "Example profile form",
  type = "synchronise",
  last_sync_time = new_sync_time
)

#> # A tibble: 1 × 8
#>   about      user_id form  start_date Distance   RPE entered_by_user_id event_id
#>   <chr>        <dbl> <chr> <chr>         <dbl> <dbl>              <dbl>    <dbl>
#> 1 Jamie And…   37201 Exam… 18/04/2023     3100     7              37201    62331

So why is this useful? By querying which records have been inserted/updated in a form beyond a certain time, you can set up workflows that automatically trigger R scripts whenever new data is detected. For more information on how to achieve this, contact Teamworks.