Risk: automatic propagation of errors

(If we regularly back up the files in the iCloud Drive QuickPlan folder to other locations, manually or via third-party backup apps, there is no critical risk from directly accessing iCloud Drive project files. We can skip the following risk section).

iCloud Drive acts as a shared folder on the Internet, with the ability to automatically sync changed files to all iOS and macOS devices involved. We feel good about using iCloud Drive to sync files - because we don't have to worry about transferring updated files from one device to another. iCloud Drive helps us sync files automatically - that sounds good. But there is a risk caused by this iCloud behavior if we can't use the service well.

For example, we have an important file on iCloud Drive that we can access on multiple devices with the same iCloud account. Coincidentally, we changed the file incorrectly on one device and found no backup to restore it from the change.

We may think that we can find the old version on another device. However, before realizing the problem, iOS / macOS may have already finished syncing the incorrect changes to other devices AUTOMATICALLY. The iCloud sync is coordinated by iOS and macOS systems, not by the apps. After the app saves the project file to iCloud Drive, the OS and iCloud serve systems take control of when and how the file is transferred to other devices.

One might wonder why QuickPlan can't take control since this is the intended behavior of iCloud Drive and users like it. The user and the app have no control over it. While this risk is not very critical in most cases, it can be better mitigated with the right approach to work.

• Back up the iCloud files manually to the device or use third-party tools to automatically back up the iCloud Drive files on a regular basis.

  On a macOS device, we can directly access the iCloud Drive folder. It is easy to copy the files to another folder on the same device or another device. We can easily upload the files to a cloud storage service, as some of the third-party cloud storage services provide the app to map a local folder to a remote folder. For example, we can install the Dropbox for macOS app and configure a folder to sync with a folder on Dropbox automatically.

  Our practice is to back up the iCloud Drive folder to a different folder on the device every day manually or with a tool. Back up daily to a folder, keep the last x days, and upload the backup weekly to Dropbox.

• Suppose you don't want to back up the iCloud Drive files. For the important files on iCloud Drive, we recommend avoiding losing your work due to wrong actions.

  On macOS devices, copy the iCloud Drive file to another folder and then modify the copied file. After modification and CHECKED, copy the modified file back to iCloud Drive.

  On iOS devices, QuickPlan supports copying project documents from iCloud to the device and also copying from the device to iCloud Drive.

Notes:

Some users may expect to be able to edit the same project (opened directly from iCloud Drive) on multiple devices simultaneously, and the changes should be automatically transferred to other devices. We would like to emphasize here that editing the same project on various devices at the SAME time via iCloud Drive is not possible.

Since tasks in the project plan are in a TREE structure, there are close relationships between them. For example, the date constraint relationships via task links, the parent-child relationships via task group hierarchies.

Editing two or more task items at the same time leads to significant logical problems. The following are some cases that can lead to logic problems when editing on two devices simultaneously:

• (On device A), add a task to a task group; (On device B), remove the same task group.
• (On device A), assign a project member to a task; (On device B), remove the project member from project resources.
• (On device A) move a task to the modification date; (On device B) move another task that is the successor to the moving task on device A.
• (On device A) we find that the project data has been changed unexpectedly. For example, the task work is "automatically" updated to an unexpected value. We are confused and think it is an error; (On device B) someone else has actually changed the task work on device B.