Updated November 15, 2023
I was granted early access to the Bubble app and have been able to try out many of the facilities. For me the most useful aspect has been the always up to date village calendar which forms the basis of Bubble. Every time you run Bubble it lists the next few days of activities and events. Each has further detailed information that can be accessed. Bubble essentially presents the first and last page of the newsletter in a convenient set of pages on your mobile phone.
This means whenever you are outside your unit you have instant access to the village calendar and any special events or cancellations are shown to you. All special notices about unscheduled maintenance or happenings cause alerts to keep us informed and up to date.
The Bubble calendar still has several missing events particularly for a number of table games gatherings not currently in the printed newsletter. There appears to be a good Groups feature which needs to be built out in detail. Groups can be discovered on Bubble and each of us will be able to request to join any group.
At the moment all changes and updates have to be passed through Tracy and Leanne which is sensible in the first instance but forms a bottleneck. We need a standard operating procedure to allow residents to request changes in an orderly way. One day activity coordinators may be able to undertake changes directly.
I found not problem with Bubble running correctly. The process of uploading photos, particularly for your own profile photo, is missing intelligence and the ability to affect the image displayed in Bubble. It is the weakest feature and needs a complete redesign. Leanne has a work around but it is hugely cumbersome. No doubt these problematic features will be ironed out eventually.
I have found the central calendar of great benefit and it has already enabled me to be on time for some of the events I would otherwise have missed.
While some residents here will avoid Bubble like the plague I am very hopeful that with help and demonstration they will eventually give Bubble a go, particularly when they see their peers gaining significant benefit from the app. I look forward to helping all who are willing to give Bubble a try.
Note all screen dumps refer to the Android version of Bubble. On some screens irrelevant information has been deleted.
To use the Bubble app you first must receive an invitation email like the one below. It invites you to install the app on your mobile phone and gives you a temporary password.
Note this message contains a single-use password to use when you first launch the Bubble app. I can show mine here as it has had its single use.
On your mobile phone search the App Store or Google Play Store for:
Tricare Community Bubble
Install the Bubble app and open it
One of the first prompts your receive is the need to set your own password. This is crucial.
Other profile information you can change:
You can also logout from the profile page.
Note that you have your own personal calendar of all the events and activities you have indicated you will attend.
