Bug Report Autofill time source?

[ibrubeer]

I know I can just turn it off. What is the source for the times when they autofill? When I land, I take my EFB out of airplane mode. By the time I can enter the on/in times they are already filled in a lot of times. The times are almost never right though. Today the on/in times were 55/00, & when I open it up at 00 the times are already filled, but the autofill times are 58/05? Plus, sometimes when I try to enter the times, it appears that's when it is trying to autofill and data entry is quite squirrelly then. Come to think of it...I think I will turn autofill off. It's never right, and not useful.

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[Neal Culiner]

If it's not working for your airline just turn it off but this is the first time I've heard of any real issues. Typically it matches your ACARS data. You may want to try waiting maybe 30 minutes after block in in your case and see if that helps. Maybe your airline is not reporting accurate information immediately to the FAA sources we use.

 

[ibrubeer]

30 minutes? Yes, I will definitely have to turn it off then. I took the above screenshots right after ACARS recorded the IN time at 00, but it was 5 minutes after the ON time. I usually block in and enter my flight times. Waiting 30 minutes just for autofill to do it for me makes it pretty useless. I'm close to pushing on the next flight by then.

Just so you know though, if I time it right to enter in times after opening the app, it appears to be trying to autofill the times while I am trying to enter them. Severe problems then due to screen jumping a little and fields locking as it tries to autofill them. Ironically, I will never know if it's ever fixed now or if there are future problems if I turn it off...


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[Neal Culiner]

You shouldn't have to wait that, I'm just giving an option to see if at some point the times do become accurate. Again, this has not been an issue and I'm not sure what's going on with your airline and the time reporting.

 

[ibrubeer]

I can try waiting to see if they are accurate later. Anything else I can do to help troubleshoot this issue for you guys?


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[Neal Culiner]

No, I just want to see if waiting a few minutes after block in works any better for you. Try 10 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.

 

[ibrubeer]

No, I just want to see if waiting a few minutes after block in works any better for you. Try 10 minutes, 5 minutes, etc.

Ended up being about 90 minutes before I got around to checking the autofill on my flight today. Ironically, all times were correct except for the ON time that was off by 1 minute.

I'm off until next week now. System question... If I manually enter times, autofill won't overwrite them, will it? I can try shorter intervals next week if you like.

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[Neal Culiner]

We won't replace times already entered. The issue you had may have been temporary for some reason. When you return to the skies just try it normally again and see how it works. You may also want to try not tapping AutoFill Now and just let the system handle it for you and see how that works too.

 

[ibrubeer]

Normally, I never tapped "autofill now." I had the switches all on in the settings to autofill.

I remember at one time a button to do that though that said "AutoFill Now." I don't see it anymore. Did it go away? Am I missing it?

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[Neal Culiner]

There's an issue where it's not showing which we have logged for review.

 

[Redbaron64]

[emoji41]


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[ibrubeer]

Regardless of the accuracy of the times, it is still a little squirrely in my experience with Autofill selected to automatically fill in OOOI times. When I block in and get ready to enter times, I open up APDL and the first thing it tries to do is a sync (and go get the Autofill times). If I time it right during the sync, it runs into a lot of conflicts between what I try to enter and what it is trying to autofill. It happens to me repeatedly, and I can duplicate it. It is a little tough to describe in text though. Let me know if you need a better description....

 

[ibrubeer]

I've turned off autofill for all actual times. I got tired of fighting it. It is squirrelly.

- If I time it right/(wrong) it tries to autofill when I have the edit window open to enter the times myself. The fields jump around, and it won't let me enter times until it's done.
- The times are never all correct, as far as I've seen.
- If I don't input times soon after taking out of airplane mode (or before), it will autofill times and close the flight. Then when I open APDL to the status board and tap the line for the current flight, it actually opens the NEXT flight, since it already autofilled the previous flight and closed it. I then have to go find and unlock the previous flight and enter the correct times.

In the attached screenshot, on/in were actually 08/15. I took the picture at 15 and it autofilled IN at 20 (5 minutes in the future?), With no ON time. I'll wait until the interface between my airline and APDL gets straightened out, or whatever else is making it act weird...

I'm still on iOS 10 by the way.

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[Andy Adams]

Most of that issue is from trying to autofill too soon after the flight ends and the data isn’t even available online yet. I’ve run into this myself and found that just waiting a few minutes before trying to autofill helps quite a bit.

There’s definitely a difference between airlines and how quickly and accurately the times get transferred from the ACARS to the company system and then to the FAA/online systems. My previous airline would always be dead on accurate for Out and In but Off and On would be off by a couple minutes. It would also take a few minutes to get to internet land. New airline and all the OOOI times are exactly right every time. They also show up in internet land sooner.

I have seen cases (not at this airline) where the internet will show an estimated landing time as the In time prior to landing/block in. Once everything is complete, it will be overwritten and all should reflect correctly. The downside is if you’ve already autofilled that estimated time, APDL won’t overwrite it later when the correct times get updated online.

Moral of the story: slow down a little bit and give the data a few minutes to get to internet land. I believe you’ll get better results.

 

[ibrubeer]

Yes, you guys have mentioned this concept before. I think there is still something wrong with your process, or source of information though. Today I left my iPad in airplane mode for 25 minutes before letting it autofill, and the time was wrong. Granted...it was only off by 1 minute, but being off by ANY amount makes a person question the accuracy of all numbers enough to not rely on them.

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[ibrubeer]

Here is the status from the airline app at the same point in time.

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[Andy Adams]

Wait...what? ATL-RSW above and MKE-ATL below. The minutes match but the time zone offset is wrong isn’t it?

 

[ibrubeer]

Wait...what? ATL-RSW above and MKE-ATL below. The minutes match but the time zone offset is wrong isn’t it?

ACARS shows the next city pair for some reason, but the times listed were for the same flight in APDL and the airline app. Not sure why it did that. The airline app obviously displays in local time, but APDL is set to log only in domicile/Central time for me. All of this times were for the same flight though. I don't think I grabbed wrong info somewhere...?


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[ibrubeer]

Wait...what? ATL-RSW above and MKE-ATL below. The minutes match but the time zone offset is wrong isn’t it?

Also, the time zone offset is irrelevant since the issue is the minutes being wrong anyway?


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[Neal Culiner]

If the autofill is not accurate for you turn off the features you don't want to use in the settings area. That's why we put them there so you have full control. For some it's accurate, for you it seems like there is a discrepancy in the data reporting. If you manually autofill an hour or more later is it accurate then? Just curious, you still should turn off the automated autofill at least. You can always command one manually in the leg editor.