Android Question how to exchange data between cellphone by email ?

[achtrade]

Is it possible to download data from an app (sender) in a cellphone, create a csv or xml file and then send it by email to another phone and the app (receiver) upload the file ?

I'm trying to avoid a central server as much as possible .

 

[Sandman]

I'm trying to avoid a central server as much as possible .

For the record, by communicating via email you're actually using a central server. It's just not you operating it.

That said, your question could probably be answered with "yes", with a following "but it sounds overly complicated and probably problematic". If you describe your use-case in more detail it would be easier to answer better.

 

[achtrade]

Ok, What I meant was I do not want to have my own server.

This is a possible scenario:
A driver needs to do a daily inspection of the truck (lights, tires, windows, etc), after the inspections, the driver should share his log to the supervisor. What I want is an app to record the inspection on the driver's side, create a file with the log, send it by email to the supervisor to upload it to the app on the supervisor's side.

 

[Sandman]

So there are a number of drivers doing things in an app on their mobile. When finished, they should send a report to their supervisor.

The supervisor receive a number of emails, where each mail has a report attached. The supervisor is expected to save reports to desktop and then import the files in a desktop app.

Is this correct?

The first step with the drivers sound easy enough. On one hand you could probably have them enter a lot of technical details and your app communicate directly with the email server (example) on the other hand there might be a good intent that you could use that automatically create the email with the attached report in their standard email app (don't know if this is possible).

As for the supervisor side, if they are supposed to get a lot of reports it's probably better to have them enter their email credentials once in the app and let it find correct reports by itself and handle the attachments automatically. It would drive me nuts being the supervisor and daily have to save attachments from 300 drivers and then manually import them.

 

[Brian Dean]

Here is another suggestion using FTP. You need some web-space, but you can get a couple of hundred MBytes at no cost and you don't need a server. It is zero maintenance.

The drivers' app builds a data file and FTPs it to your web-space. The file title is made up from a driver id and a timestamp or sequence number.

The supervisor's app lists the files in the web-space every few minutes. When it sees a file it has not seen before the app downloads it and deletes the file in the web-space. The file content can be processed immediately by the app.

 

[achtrade]

Here is another suggestion using FTP. You need some web-space, but you can get a couple of hundred MBytes at no cost and you don't need a server. It is zero maintenance.

The drivers' app builds a data file and FTPs it to your web-space. The file title is made up from a driver id and a timestamp or sequence number.

The supervisor's app lists the files in the web-space every few minutes. When it sees a file it has not seen before the app downloads it and deletes the file in the web-space. The file content can be processed immediately by the app.

Brian, this is exactly what I'm looking for. I have a web hosting and also a dedicate server but I don't want to check if my app is up 24/7.

Thank you.

 

[Sandman]

Yeah, I like Brians solution a lot better than using email. So if it's acceptable to use FTP I would do that.

Make sure that the account(s) used by the drivers only have access to upload files and not list and download. The latter is only something the supervisor app should have access to.

 

[Brian Dean]

Great!

Actually these words are superfluous - "When it sees a file it has not seen before ...". It the supervisor's app deletes files after downloading it will never see the same file twice.