Cellular Data Usage (iPhone and Android)

This guide discusses the potential cellular data usage of the KPA Flex iPhone or Android apps.

Data Usage

NOTE: Cellular data is only used if WiFi is not available: 

  • Latest Forms – If the employee has used the app within the last 3 days, the app will download the latest forms early each morning. This file size is typically, roughly 500KB.
  • Report Without Photos – When a report is submitted without photos (or videos), the upload size is typically 2-3KB.
  • Reports With Photos – Photos are typically 1-3MB (depending on the device). Videos can be much larger. The upload size is exactly the same as the photo/video size.
  • Resources – If the user clicks to view a resource (such as a PDF), the size of the document determines the data used. For example, a 37KB PDF would use 37KB of data. Once a resource is downloaded, it stays on the device so future views do not use bandwidth (unless the resource is updated). 
  • Offline Resources – If an admin has marked a resources as “offline” then the app will automatically download it over WiFi in the background. Employees can disable this or they can allow this download to happen over cellular connection.
  • Training Videos and Documents – When completing a training through the app, videos (which stream from YouTube) typically use 1-4MB of data per minute.

The biggest variable is how many photos/videos a user attaches when submitting a report over a cellular connection.

  

Real Life Examples

We recently took a random sample of cellular data usage for a few different employees. Each employee will see different usage based on their environment, reports, lessons, resources, etc, but here were the results from our sample:

  • 4MB/month over 32 months
  • 27MB/month over 24 months
  • 950MB/month over 4 months (this employee uploads 30-40 3MB photos per day) 

  

Determining Your Usage

iPhone users can determine their cellular data usage by going to:

  • Settings App
  • Cellular
  • Scroll down to “KPA Flex” and note the size
  • Then scroll to the very bottom to see when your stats were last reset. If you installed the app more recently than the date listed, then use the install date to determine your usage rate

Android users should refer to this article.

  

Disabling Cellular Usage

iPhone users can disable cellular data for the KPA Flex app (where only WiFi will be used) by going to:

  • Settings App
  • Cellular
  • Scroll down to “KPA Flex”
  • Turn off “KPA Flex”

For Android users, refer to the article How to Prevent Any App From Using Cellular Data