Automated synchronisation is always a potentially risky operation, as it’s difficult to be sure the data that the application is changing is what the user wants to be changed.

With that in mind, here’s an explanation about how the Contact Sync in mobileAgent (v1.5+) works. The first case is for contacts flowing from FreeAgent to your phone:

  • All contacts are loaded from the phone, and the Notes section is examined. If a specific value is found there (MAID: <number>), that contact is considered for synchronisation. All other contacts are not considered for processing, and are never updated.
  • All contacts in FreeAgent/mobileAgent are examined. If a corresponding phone contact entry is found, all of it’s data is written to the phone contact. FreeAgent is considered to be the “master” of this information, and any changes to the contact on the phone will be lost.
  • If a FreeAgent/mobileAgent contact is not found on the phone, it is created, and the identifying note is set so it can be updated later.
  • All data is FreeAgent -> mobileAgent -> phone contacts. The only way to get a contact from your phone to FreeAgent is if you import the contact specifically.
  • At no time does mobileAgent remove a contact, even if it is one it has created.

This is so there is no chance* that your existing contacts will be changed or lost. However, it may result is having more than one entry for a given person – for example, one you have created on the phone, and one that is in FreeAgent.

Any contacts created by mobileAgent will synchronise like any other contact, so if you push contacts to Google Apps or Microsoft Exchange, these will be pushed along with all your other contacts, as if you entered them yourself.

Contacts flowing the other way – from your phone into FreeAgent, happed like this:

  • You select Import Contacts from the sheet which pops up on the contacts screen in mobileAgent.
  • The standard Contact selection dialog pops up, and you can tap on any contact to import the contact into mobileAgent.
  • The contact is then in your queue of items which need to be uploaded to FreeAgent. Like any other change in mobileAgent, you can select Unsent Items from the homescreen, and swipe to remove an item.
  • No changes are made to the contacts on your phone.

If you have any issues with this, do not hesitate to get in touch.

* There is always a chance I’ve messed up, but this is to minimise the chance, or any damage.