Siri capture doesn't initiate sync

OmniFocus OmniFocus for iPhone
#1

Hello. I have the latest version of OF for iPhone and iOS.

Siri dictation to add tasks to OF through Reminders works fine, but unless I open the iPhone app later, that new inbox item never gets pushed to sync across OmniSync. So I’ll add a task via Siri, and hours later I’ll be at my Mac and there’s nothing in my inbox. I’ll open the app on my phone, and then it syncs.

Is this as designed? Is there some way to get the sync to kick off?

Thanks.

#2

Yip. Unfortunately, this is the way it works.

On this article explaining the functionality you can read that “OmniFocus will try to capture reminders every time the app is launched, and at regular intervals thereafter (e.g. when a sync happens).”

#3

I remembered reading in the forums is that sync is triggered by iOS in the background. As @ediventurin stated, you’d have to open the app to get sync to trigger.

Maybe you can go to the settings app and make sure background updating for OmniFocus is enabled?

I know OmniFocus on my old iPod doesn’t sync a lot but it syncs much faster on my iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6+. So it could also have something to do with your hardware.

I think when your iOS device is running on low battery, it goes into low power mode and doesn’t sync as often to save battery.

#4

Thanks for the replies. I checked and made sure that, yes, Background Refresh is and has been enabled for OF.

I’ll just have to remember to open my phone app every once in a while. I could make a task for it. :-)

1 Like
Triggering sync after "Send to..." action
#5

With the advent of Push-triggered Sync, OmniFocus on your iPhone should be syncing more frequently in the background as you are making changes on your other devices. That means that if you sit down and start working on your Mac or iPad, the changes you make should trigger syncs and thus Reminders capture on your iPhone and your captured Reminders should make their way over. I just did a simple test:

  1. Dictate to Siri on iPhone without launching OmniFocus after
  2. Open OmniFocus for Mac and start processing Inbox - observe that a sync started.
  3. After a few more changes, the dictated item did appear in my inbox.

Presumably the delay was because the iPhone only synced after being triggered by the new item, and then had to sync again to push the captured item to the server, and then the Mac received a push trigger (or synced on its own due to local changes) and pulled down the captured item.

2 Likes
#6

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.