Friday 2:00 pm update: Waiting on tech support to get back to me. Friday 2:30: Our issue has reached the front of the line and someone is looking at it.
Monday 7:30: Things seem to be back to normal. See advice below under “What You Need To Do” to prevent this headache from happening again.
The Symptom: ALL of your Notability documents disappeared.
The Cause: Some device policies were mangled by some system somewhere AND you had iCloud backup turned on AND POSSIBLY you didn’t turn your Google Drive backup on.
Additional Notes: Basically your access to iCloud drive got turned off. Because Notability had iCloud sync on, all your documents disappeared when iCloud access was blocked by a policy.
The Current Working Theory is that your iCloud docs are still safe up in iCloud. They should reappear when you get to a wireless network off-campus. [If they do not, please email ipad@……]
**IF** you had Google Drive backup enabled, then your docs should be safely stashed in Drive. To check, fire up the Drive app and look inside the Notability folder.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Wait until further notice. Tech support knows about the issue. This article will be updated when additional news is available.
In the meantime, go into Notability –> Settings [gear icon, bottom left] –> Autobackup. MAKE SURE YOU ARE BACKING UP TO GOOGLE DRIVE.
CHANGE THE FILE FORMAT – it’s at the bottom of that dialog box – to PDF + RECORDING
If Drive Backup REFUSES to work, then bring it by the ARC, OR you can try going into Settings –> accounts & passwords. DELETE the MDS account from this screen [you lose NO data, just the iPad <-> account connections]. Add a new account, select type Google, and login. Then fire up Notability and setup auto-backup to Drive again.
Make SURE your Notability files are backing up to Google Drive
First, Open Notability.
2. On the screen where your documents are listed, at bottom left, click the gear icon.
Gear = Settings. ? = help. i = app info.
3. Select AutoBackup.
4. if Google Drive has a checkmark, your files are being backed up. Look at the bottom of the box to check the location – the iPad Guy suggests /Notability/ as the location [i.e. inside a folder named “Notability”]
If there is NO checkmark, then click on the text Google Drive. Login.
5. IMPORTANT: In the File Format section, change the selection from “note” to PDF+Recording”. This is so you can open up your notes just about anywhere.
Getting files from Drive into Notability
The middle icon is “import”.
FIRST:
Get your Dividers and Subjects setup in Notability
Select a location[folder] in Notability. THEN select what to import. Drive is organized just like notability was – if you had folders/dividers in Notability, then you will see folders in Drive, inside the Notability folder. Your Notability selection is WHERE the files will be imported to.
You will need to do this for each folder/divider you set up.
Once you get Notability setup:
Open up Notability
Click the icon, top right, that looks like a square with an arrow going INTO it
Select Google Drive
It should automatically show you the Notability folder on your Drive.
Select what you’d like to import.
REMEMBER THAT Folders on Drive = “Subjects” in Notability.
WANT HELP KEEPING YOUR NOTABILITY MATERIAL ORGANIZED?
