Question: Sharing the online diary

Hi all,

One particular feature of the DAFNE Course that I liked was the fact that we all shared our BG Diaries with each other and commented on trends, ratios etc. This was a feature that was mentioned a while back (when the site was just a twinkle in our eyes) and so far we haven't done anything on it. I am revisiting this feature now, and would like to know people's thoughts on it.

First of all, would you like to share your diary with others?

Next, how would you like to do it? Some ideas I had:

1. Via the forums; you could create a topic, supplying a date range of diary entries which you would like to share with others, and invite comments via the usual forum 'reply' system.
2. As a separate function, so that others could view your diary in the same way that you do, and add posts to it.
3. Any other ways?

Obviously, this would have to be an opt-in feature, as not everybody will want to share their diary with others. How then would you like to share it - the options are:

1. A yes/no toggle so that either all users can see your diary, or nobody can.
2. A group method, so that only DAFNE Graduates/HCPs can see it.
3. Only people in your region can see it.
4. Naming individiual users (e.g. your DAFNE Educator).

As always we want to make the site useful to you, so your opinions on this are welcomed and encouraged.

Thanks,

Simon

An exelent idea.I am awaiting an appointment to start on a pump so it could prove very useful for my HCP to view my results electronically

I do think the "reply" system suggestion is good because then you can actively decide what you need to show instead of seeing all the results. If the person asking for replies concerning their levels needs to show more results, all they need to do is just post a fresh reply in the original thread they started. Commenting should remain specific to the query threads that users start considering DAFNE exercises looking over a period of days and not just one BG result.

I was wondering about allowing my boyfriend to see my results online generally, but because he gets to see my booklet, it's not that big of an issue. On that note, I'm not entirely happy with showing my results to the world so some control would be good. Sometimes setting up 'user friends lists' can be good (like on a lot of blogging websites), but I'm not sure how worthwhile that is setting up for BG diary stuff.
.... Would some form of password access be possible?

I think that if my DAFNE nurses and what not are on here, I would like the option to allow them to see my results. It would improve communication I think so that would be great.

Dear site members,

The ability to share all or part of your Blood Glucose diary with other site users has now been implemented. There are two methods for doing this, detailed below:

Option 1 - Using the forums
You may add a date range of up to 10 days to a forum topic/post. When browsing your DAFNE Online BG Diary, look above the diary table itself and you will see a drop down box allowing you to select which of our forums you would like to post part of your diary on to. Then ensure 10 days or less is currently displayed in your diary view, and click the 'Share' button. This will add the date range to a new forum topic, allowing you to add a Topic title and description.

This option is intended for users who want to seek advice from the entire user base of the site, much in the same way that is done each morning of the DAFNE course using the overhead projector. People replying to the topic (and of course the topic author) can add their own diary entries by adding a date range in the format DDMMYY (Day Month Year) to their reply box in the relevant boxes.

An example from my diary is shown in the following post, so you can see how the diary will be formatted.

Option 2 - Sharing with individual users

You may also share your entire diary with another user of the site. To do this, click the 'users' link at the top of the site, and then use the search box on the right hand side to search for the user either by username or email address. In the list of results, click their name to see their profile, and then click the 'Share my DAFNE Diary with this user' link. To see a list of users who have shared their diary with you, click the 'shared diaries' link to on the right hand menu, and then click that user's username. Once you have shared your diary you can 'unshare' it with a user by following the share procedure detailed previously. To see which users can currently see your diary, navigate to your diary and see the list to the right (in a box underneath 'DAFNE Tools').

This option is ideal for users who wish to share their online diary with their DAFNE Educators, and maybe other members of their DAFNE Group.

We hope that you find this new functionality enjoyable and useful. If you have any feedback at all, whether positive or constructive then please don't hesitate to let us know.

Thanks,

Simon

P.S. Please remember any advice given on the forums is just that; advice. Insulin dose adjustment may be different for each individual and also depends on external factors such as exercise and illnes

Here's an example range from my own BG diary. If you have any comments on the format or features then let us know.

Simon

As an update, diary viewers can now access your BG Graphs, if you have allowed them access to your diary. This is useful for HCPs to spot trends graphically in your results.

Hi,

I am having trouble exporting my diary. I am sending a copy to my HCP weekly as my BGL are high. At the moment I am having to copy the printable version of the diary as a word document and then save as before I can attach to email but it doesn't turn out right.

For some reason, when I use the 'XML export of displayed results' it comes up as gobbledygook! I am sure I have done it this way before but doesn't seem to be working for me now. Any ideas?

Thanks :-)

Hi Jennifer,

The gobbledygook you mention is XML - a way of exporting data for use in another system, for example Microsoft Excel. I've just had a look and it doesn't seem any different to normal. It should look like this:

<diary_entries>
−
<head>
<title>Blood Glucose diary for Simon</title>
<start_date>2008-11-10</start_date>
<end_date>2009-11-20</end_date>
</head>
−
<diary_entry>
<id/>
<entry_time>2009-02-20 09:00:00 UTC</entry_time>
<blood_glucose>6.5</blood_glucose>
<carbohydrate_portions>8</carbohydrate_portions>
<quick_insulin>9</quick_insulin>
<background_insulin/>
<ratio/>
<entry_type>BFAST</entry_type>
<target_min_bg>5.5</target_min_bg>
<target_max_bg>7.5</target_max_bg>
<comments/>
</diary_entry>

Let me know if it's different for you, and I'll see what we can do to fix it.

Simon

Hi Jennifer & Simon ..

I tried this a few weeks ago and saw the gobbledy gook too but did not think it related to Excel but to some other more esoteric software! The excel meal Estimator form I send to others are .csv.

Anyway, have tried XML output again to be rewarded with 'This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.'

Excel Help advises it does not recognise the search term xml and can't see anything on the menus, so how can I use xml in relation to excel? I did use a homemade excel BG analysis pre Compass and Dafne Online.

Cheers, John