1.6. About device registration

Tablets must register with a server. This serves four purposes:

The server doesn’t want unauthorized devices uploading to it.

Consequently, the server will only accept uploads from registered devices, and requires users to authenticate (with a username approved for device registration) before accepting registration.

Administrators don’t want their clinicians to upload data to unauthorized servers.

Consequently, registration is a privileged-mode function. (As a result, the requirement to re-register a device should be minimized, since the day-to-day user of the tablet may not be authorized to register a device.)

The server and the tablet should share a set of ID descriptions.

It is not envisaged that the server’s ID type labelling should change once set! However, allowing for that possibility: the tablet should not overwrite its ID descriptions without checking with the user (except at device registration), because this may apply errors to existing patients’ ID descriptions (e.g. something the tablet thought was an NHS number is re-labelled as hospital-X-number). CamCOPS will (a) automatically accept ID descriptions when you register a device; (b) allow you to manually accept ID descriptions at any time [Settings → Accept ID descriptions from the server]; (b) check that the descriptions match when you upload, and if they do not match, prevent upload until you have manually accepted them. You are advised to check all patients’ ID number/descriptions carefully if this mismatch occurs.

The tablet needs to know the server’s upload/finalize policies.

Consequently, the tablet re-checks these policies before commencing an upload.