Daily Diary Studies App User Guide

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1 Daily Diary Studies App User Guide Monitoring Participant Compliance in Daily Diary Studies Developers: Michael Dai, Alysa McCall, Aman Mishra, Surti Sundaresan Project Coordinator: Siwei Liu Assistant Professor in the Human Development Department of UC Davis Preface Daily diary design, which requires participants to fill out a survey every day, is often used in social sciences to study daily variations in activity, mood, stress, etc. The Human Development Department of UC Davis has an on going daily diary research project in which they collect data from about 200 participants for 100 consecutive days. To help them monitor their compliance, they send them daily reminders containing a link to the survey, as well as summary statistics at various stages of the project (e.g., a summary of how many surveys they have completed in the middle of the study). Our mobile app allows study participants to take daily surveys, and for their moderators to monitor their results and compliance. Overview of the Product The Daily Diary app project includes a few separate components, each of which are necessary for the app to function properly. The Android Studio project: This includes a collection of folders that contain the app activity files, layouts, and images used in the app. PHP files: These files are used to connect the app to the database: it allows functionality such as user creation and login, survey loading, and survey submissions. Survey Creation Forms: This web interface is for survey administrator use only; admin use these forms to create surveys, and insert them into the database to be loaded by the Android application. Installation/Distribution For testing and debugging purposes, the Android Studio project itself can be loaded onto an Android smartphone via USB cable, using the Android Studio application. Android Studio can be downloaded here: The application, once complete, can be loaded into the Google Play store. The developer must have a valid address, and pay a $25 fee.

2 Functionality Upon starting the application for the first time, a splash page is visible for approximately 3 seconds. Once complete, the main page is loaded, showing the application title, logo, and two buttons: Login and Register. The basic interface for the application is shown below: Login & Register Once a user has registered, they should receive a verification code in a message sent to their address. After logging in for the first time, they will be taken to an verification page, in which they can enter their verification code. Forgot Password If a user forgets their password after logging out of the app, a password reset form can be found on the Login screen beneath the Login button. An will be sent to them containing a temporary login password. The password needs to be changed upon logging in, using the Change Password form on the Settings page.

3 Adding New Study ID Once verified, the user can view their home screen. Initially, the home page will show a message that says No surveys available, please add surveys on the home page by clicking on the settings button. The settings button is a white gear icon on the top right corner of the home page. The survey ID should be given to the study participants by the study moderator. Once obtained, the survey ID should be entered into the Add New Survey ID form, located on the settings page. Once added, the button to start the survey will appear on the user s home page, and also on the View Survey Info page. (Note: If the window to complete a survey has closed, the button may not immediately be visible.) Viewing Survey Info Users can view information about the surveys they re currently registered for by clicking the View Survey Info button. The added surveys will show in a list format, each section containing info for a specific survey. Listed information includes: Survey ID Survey study duration (time period of study) Survey Title Start and end time window (in military time format) Daily compliance (The number of days the user has submitted the survey out of total days in the study) Status ( Incomplete For Today or Completed For Today ) Settings Page The settings page can be accessed on the home page by clicking the white gear icon in the top right corner. On the settings page, users are able to: Add new survey IDs (instructions detailed in Adding New Study ID above) Delete survey IDs (This can be done once a study has completed, or if the user needs to end a study early, and no longer wants to receive notifications) Change Password (this form allows the user to change their account password; They need to provide their account , current password, and new password. Once complete, they will be redirected to login again using the new password.) Logout Surveys Begin a survey by tapping on a blue survey button on the home screen, beneath the View Survey Info button. The survey will start, and users are expected to go through the questions

4 until completed. The question text appears at the top of the screen, and the answer field below. There are three types of survey questions: Slider: a scale bar with a slider button that users can drag to set a specific value. The user cannot proceed unless the slider button is tapped at least once. Multiple Choice: Gives a set of textbox options; users can select all that apply, or one option, but they must select at least one before moving on to the next question. Free Response: A textbox for users to type in their own input; users must type at least one character in the box before moving on. The user s progress through the survey is shown below the Next button. For example, if they are on question 4 out of 10, it will show Question 4 of 10. Once finished, they are taken to the submission page. If successful, a message will show that their responses have been recorded, and they can go back to the home page. Troubleshooting & Frequently Asked Questions While utilizing the app or admin side interfaces, you might run into some issues. Read through this section to troubleshoot some common problems or error messages that may arise. *** Most issues with surveys not showing up on the app may have to do with the mobile devices connectivity to WiFi. If they surveys are not showing up, and the device connection to WiFi is working fine, refresh the home page by closing and reopening the app, or going back and forth between the View Survey Info Page and the Home Page. *** Please check WiFi Connectivity. Surveys could not be loaded at this time. "Check WiFi connectivity. Submission Unsuccessful" This message will appear when the mobile device is not connected to the internet. The application requires a constant connection to WiFi while in use, particularly on the home page, where the survey start buttons are loaded, and the final survey submission page. No Surveys Available. Please add surveys on the home page by clicking on the settings button. This message appears when the user logs in for the first time after verification, if they delete all of their active surveys, or if all of their surveys are completed for the day. The user can check the View Survey Info page to determine whether or not they are actually enrolled in surveys. If not, the same message will appear on the Survey Info page. User Issues If users are having a hard time logging in, or have forgotten their password, direct them to the Forgot Password form on the Login page. Other issues related to users can be fixed by deleting

5 the user from the user_info table. This will remove their information from the database, so they can re register for the app. *** NOTE***: This fix should only be used as a last resort. Repeated removal of users from the user table can have detrimental effects on the other database tables. How do I modify an existing survey? This can be done using the Survey Creation interface. On the DDS Control Panel, there is a link titled Modify an Existing Survey. Type in the ID of the survey, and you will be able to view the current state of the survey. Simply click the Modify/Delete button next to a question to change its information. You can also add questions to the survey using this form. *** NOTE*** If you add/delete a questions to an existing survey or modify a question, a new response table will be created in the database. The old table will remain, though we recommend that you download the information from the old table, and remove it from the database. Project Creation Form This interface is for study moderators to add new surveys to the database that users can access on the app. The current login information is: dailydiaryliu@gmail.com Password: davisaggies Once logging in, the admin can: Create a New Survey Modify an Existing Survey View All the Surveys (in the database) Create New Surveys Important Notes: ** Survey titles cannot contain plus signs ( + ) or underscores ( _ ) ** Semi colons are not permitted in Checkbox question at all. ** Carets ( ^ ) are not allowed in any text fields. ** Using the back button at any time during survey creation or modification can result in a misreading of information.

6 The first page of the survey creation form has the following fields: Study ID: This is a unique study ID that the admin can choose. Use the button to the right to check if the survey ID is already in use. We recommend using 4 digit numerical codes for study IDs. Notifications: To set whether or not admin wants to notify users of new surveys via . Title: The title of your survey; users can see this title when they add the study ID. Start Date: The beginning date a survey will be open. End Date: The date of closing of a survey. Start Availability Time: The daily time during the day that a survey will open. End Availability Time: The daily time during the day that a survey will close. Note: The start availability time is permitted to fall after the end availability time (eg 10 PM to 6 AM). Each additional page of the survey creation form allows the admin to add questions one at a time. They can chose among three question types: Slider: a scale bar with a slider button that users can drag to set a specific value. The user cannot proceed unless the slider button is tapped at least once. Multiple Choice: Gives a set of textbox options; users can select all that apply, or one option, but they must select at least one before moving on to the next question. Free Response: A textbox for users to type in their own input; users must type at least one character in the box before moving on. As noted above, semi colons cannot be used in Checkbox questions, and carets may not be used in any text fields. Once complete, admin can click the button at the bottom of the form called Finish Adding Questions and Create. A submission page will inform them that their survey has been created successfully, or that there was an error. Modify Existing Surveys Admin can use this form to add/modify/delete questions in a survey, or to change the survey start and end dates, submission window, and title. After entering the survey ID, they can view all the parts of the survey, and click the Modify/Delete button to edit a specific question. When finished, click the Finish button located at the bottom of the questions page. Note, that modification of survey questions will cause a new response table to be created. For example, if there was a responses2 table, which held the responses for Survey ID 2 before

7 modification, the table would be renamed responses2_mmddyyyyhhmmss where MM/DD/YYYY is the date the modification took place and HH:MM:SS is the time when the modification took place. View All Surveys This view allows the admins to see the different surveys that are stored within the database. Both active and inactive surveys are shown on this page. Survey logistics, such as the title, Survey ID, etc. as well as the questions within the survey are available for admins to see. Managing the Server The current implementation of the application server uses a WAMP stack running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 service. Accessing the Server To access the server via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), navigate to the AWS console and log in. Find the EC2 section and access it, then find the Running Instances view to see the server. Selecting the server in the list (it should be the only entry) and clicking Connect at the top of the window will pop up options to connect. To connect, you will need the password, which is encrypted for security. We have provided a file named DailyDiary.pem, which contains the encryption key for the password. Using this file, you can decrypt the password. Then, simply use the username and password displayed to connect to the server via RDP. Do note that only a single person may log in to a single account at one time, and that the server only has a single account at present. This means that logging in while another user is logged in will log them out, so login times should be coordinated to avoid interrupting another user s work. Locating Important Resources Once you have accessed the server, you will find yourself at a desktop much like the standard Windows Home desktop. From here, to access the majority of WAMP s functions, you can click the WAMP icon in the system tray at the bottom left of the screen (it will look like a small w within a square). This will open a menu which has options for changing the majority of the WAMP stack s options and files. At present, the menu does not allow you to quickly navigate to the location of Apache s httpd.conf file, but under normal circumstances this should not be necessary. The httpd.conf file can be found in Apache s subfolders within the C:\wamp64 folder. The PHP scripts which govern the application server s functions are located within the C:\wamp64\www folder, which can be easily located via the WAMP menu. All the relevant PHP scripts are located within this folder and its subfolders. The www folder is publically accessible, while the admin folder located within is restricted to local (i.e. the server) access only. These

8 access options, among other things, may be changed in the aforementioned httpd.conf file, but this can be a technically involved task. Maintenance Fees The Amazon Web Services server will be free for one year starting February 24th, Once the AWS Free Tier offer expires, the server will require payment to continue running. The server is a t2.micro server, and at the time of writing (June 1st, 2016) the pricing for that size server was $0.013 per hour. A slight overestimation of 750 hours per month for 24/7 service leads to a cost estimate of $9.75 per month. If the server is discovered to be running slowly due to heavy load, it may be desirable to upgrade the server, which can be done by selecting the server in the Instance list, then going to Actions and selecting Change Instance Settings. From there, selecting the option Change Instance Type will allow you to select a new server type and size to suit your needs. Do note that the instance must not be running to perform this change, so you will have to change the Instance State to Stop from the same menu before doing this. Additionally, stopping and restarting the instance will cause its public DNS to change, so previous links to the server s interfaces may no longer work. If you are no longer able to reach the server, check to see if its public DNS (visible in the AWS console) has changed. For reference, the current price sheet for AWS instances can be found at Using PHPMyAdmin The PHPMyAdmin interface for accessing and managing the database can be accessed at ec us west 1.compute.amazonaws.com/phpmyadmin. Once you have authenticated to the server, you will be able to see the MySQL databases. The database pertinent to the application is surveyservice. Within, you will find several tables. Response Tables There will be several tables with names resembling responses<surveyid><date>. These tables hold responses to surveys with the corresponding survey ID and last modified date. You can export the response data in several different formats by clicking the name of the table to open its browsing window in the main panel, then clicking the Export tab in the upper bar. From there, you can choose the output format and set options, if desired. Logistical Tables The studyid table contains information pertaining to each survey, including their unique study IDs, which are used to register users, the human readable title, a duration in days, a flag indicating whether notifications are enabled for that particular survey, a start and end date, as well as an opening and closing time, which indicate what times of day a survey is open to users. The studyid_parts table contains purely backend information which specifies which parts of a survey are to be displayed in random order.

9 The surveys table contains survey questions. These are stored one per row, with an accompanying study ID which specifies which survey the question belongs to, and it s question ID within that study. The question type indicates what type of question it is (multiple choice, slider, or free response). The question itself is stored as a string, and the randomize flag indicates whether the particular question is part of a block of questions which will be displayed in random order. The surveys_reg table contains information on which users are participating in which surveys. This table contains survey IDs along with user IDs, along with the time of the user s last submission. The S_Id column is unused. The userinfo table contains information about each user, including their user ID, their first and last names, their address, and their password. The password is not stored directly, but is instead stored as a hash to avoid leaking users passwords should the database be compromised.this table also contains a verification code for use in verification as well as a flag indicating whether a user has verified their . Modifying Tables and User Data The PHPMyAdmin interface may also be used to modify the surveys and user data. This can have unintended consequences, but can be useful if you are familiar with databases. Adding and removing columns can be done from the Structure tab at the top of the main panel after selecting a table in the left panel. Clicking Drop will remove a column from the table, and there is an option to insert columns just below the list of columns. You can edit a column by clicking the Change button, which is located next to the Drop button.

10 Requirements Document Introduction Daily diary design, which requires participants to fill out a survey every day, is often used in social sciences to study daily variations in activity, mood, stress, etc. We have an on going daily diary research project in which we collect data from about 200 participants for 100 consecutive days. To help them monitor their compliance, we hope to be able to send them daily reminders containing a link to the survey, as well as summary statistics at various stages of the project (e.g., a summary of how many surveys they have completed in the middle of the study). We hope to deliver an app, Android and/or ios, that study participants can use to complete surveys. Glossary of Terms Amazon EC2 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is the cloud based computing platform we are using to host the database and backend of our app. Android/ Android Studio Referring to the mobile operating system built for smartphones and tablets. Android Studio is the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the Android operating system. Bitbucket Web application that assists with managing a project's workflow and documents. Compliance Statistics Statistics related to how many surveys a user has completed, the percentage of surveys completed, and overall user participation within a survey. Database This is where all user survey information will be stored. Graphical User Interface (GUI) This is what a user of the app will see and interact with. JSON A syntax for storing and exchanging data. Information travelling to and from the database will be sent in a JSON format. Survey A list of questions that participants will be required to complete on a daily basis during a study. WAMP Stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. It s the software development stack that is often used in developing web applications. Apache is a web page serving software; MySQL is a database management software, used to contain information that should be stored; PHP is a programming language that communicates between Apache and MySQL to create dynamic web pages.

11 System Architecture Overview User Interface GUI

12 Requirements Use Cases/User Stories As an administrator, I will be notified if a user has missed three or more consecutive surveys. As an administrator, I will be able to create a new study with a unique study ID As an administrator, I will be able to see the active participants. As an administrator, I will be able to add, remove, or modify surveys and questions. As an administrator, I will be able to pull the data from the survey database, and export it to a file for viewing As a user, I can register into the app on my smartphone with my address, password, and unique study ID. As a user, I can log into the app using my e mail address and password. As a user, I will be notified when there is a new survey for me to take. As a user, I will be able to fill out and submit a survey within a specific time period once daily. As a user, I will be able to view my survey compliance statistics. As a user, I will be able to view what time my past surveys were submitted. As a user, I will only be able to see one active survey per day. As a user, I will not be able to view, or change my survey answers after I submit them As a user, I must put a response to each question before moving forward As a user, I will be able to change or reset my password if I forget it. As a user, I will be able to view my app settings, including a password change form As a user, I will be able to modify the types and frequency of reminder alerts. Prototyping Code (Bitbucket URL) Private Bitbucket Repository: Appendices Hardware/Software Used Amazon EC2 (Hosting database and backend) Android Studio (Android App Development) MySQL (Database) PHP (Web Framework) Apache (Web Server Software)

13 Index I. Preface II. Overview of Product III. Installation/Distribution IV. Functionality a. Login & Register b. Forgot Password c. Adding New Study ID d. Viewing Survey Info e. Settings Page f. Surveys V. Troubleshooting & FAQ VI. Project Creation Form a. Create New Surveys b. Modifying Existing Surveys c. View All Surveys VII. Managing the Server a. Accessing the Server b. Locating Important Resources c. Maintenance Fees VIII. Using PHPMyAdmin a. Response Tables b. Logistical Tables c. Modifying Tables & User Data Contact Information Alysa McCall: Aman Mishra: Surti Sundaresan: Michael Dai:

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