Here are the 2 Parts:

1. Desktop based Work Order Dispatch Application
   • Easily Enter
     • Customer Name
     • Address, City, State, Zip
     • Problem Description
     • Quoted Price
     • Technician Dispatched
     • Customer Number
   • Instantly dispatch the Work Order to the mobile worker you specified
   • Notify the mobile worker with an instant message that they have a new work order

1. Windows Mobile 6.1 Based Work Order Application
   • Receives the dispatched work order
   • Allows the Mobile Worker to Select the Job
   • Automatically notifies the Dispatcher that the Job has been Accepted via Instant Messenger
   • Provides the Mobile Worker the ability to Invoice the customer for parts used on the job (Including the ability to barcode scan the part)
   • Enter resolution
   • Take Photo of the issue
   • Annotate the photo that was taken with damaged areas, etc
   • Sketch Damage
   • Capture a Voice Note
   • Collect Payment
   • Capture Customer Signature
   • Instantly Create a PDF of the Invoice that was autopopulated with the data collected on the device, then emailed it to the client

In case you don’t believe me take a look at the video of the application below.  Mobile Applications and Desktop applications couldn’t be any easier to develop, manage, and support in MobileFrame.  If you are interested in learning more contact us today!

Contact Us | Phone: 408.885.1200 |  Email: info@MobileFrame.com

Here is a good example, you employ a team of 100+ Sales representatives that are in charge of doing inventory counts at customer locations (Think big box retailers) and the inventory needs to be 100% be accurate. The current solution involves the process of manually scanning 100’s if not 1000’s of products while at the customer’s site. No matter how diligent you are this can be a time consuming and error prone task. How do you solve the problem? Hire more sales people? Invest in better, faster scanners? Buy your sales reps memberships to the local gym so they can move faster? A great alternative would be to create an RFID based system.

Here is how such a system could operate. First each item would be equipped with an RFID tag. Instead of the sales rep physically scannning each and every piece of merchandise, he or she would now only need to scan the reader toward the merchandise to conduct an inventory count. At this point the rep could automatically create a suggested order quantity and move on to the important part of the job…Closing Business. The advantage of the RFID system is that each rep can now spend less time manually scanning each product to count inventory without worrying about missing anything.

MobileFrame can help your organization deploy RFID technologies out of the box. Altair Eyewear is an example of a customer of ours who is utilizing such a system to conduct inventory counts of their eye glass frames. To learn more about our advanced RFID Capabilities contact us today.

Contact Us | Phone: 408.885.1200 |  Email: info@MobileFrame.com

As the conversation progressed he just didn’t believe that our solution could really be that easy to use. I asked him to come back in 30 minutes to see what I could come up with.  I was up to the challenge, so I quickly created an application for taking meal orders from patients in the hospital.  The app allows you to enter the room number, select the main course, side orders, dessert, notate any specific dietary concerns and then synchronize the order back to the office in real time.  When the rep came back and I showed him the following video (See below), he couldn’t believe that I was able to get the done and deployed to the device in 30 minutes.  So, I have an opportunity for you.

If you would like to see for yourself, please challenge us. Send us your paper forms and we will build your custom application and demo it to you live on your very first phone call.

Contact Us | Phone: 408.885.1200 |  Email: info@MobileFrame.com

Problems Encountered:

• Endless Professional Services Cycles (i.e. Development) – One company said that they have been trying to get their pilot started for the last year and a half. They’ve spent $100,000+ on Software and another $40,000+ on Hardware.  The hardware is still sitting in a corner collecting dust.
• Difficult to use Development Environments – Some of these groups purchased development environments that claimed to be easy to use. They weren’t. This naturally lead to issue #1 which is the need to pay for a lot of money for Professional Services.
• Lack of Product Documentation – This is something that most people don’t think about until its too late, but ALL of the organizations with failed implementations said that the lack of product  documentation (how to’s, wiki’s, frequently asked questions, installer guides,  etc.) rendered the already difficult to use Development Environment useless, which lead to the need to pay for Professional Services…
• Hidden Costs – one customer told me he thought that the provider he chose to develop his application was going to be the perfect fit – relatively affordable, solid, great product vision, and support.  However, when he needed to make a very simple change to his application (i.e. changing the label on a text box, and increasing the size of buttons), he was charged with 40 hours of development time.

If any of the above describes your organization I have good news….. MobileFrame can help you. Our development environment is easy to use.  Don’t believe me? Challenge us, send us your paper form, and we’ll build your application and demo it to you live on our very first phone call. Additionally, our professional services group has thousands of successful mobile implementations under their belts and can deliver your pilot in 2-4 weeks.  Not to mention we have a full suite of product related documentation, sample apps, online training, and support.  With the MobileFrame Platform, your company has the power to make changes to your application with our 100% code free mobile computing environment and deploy the changes out to the field in minutes. There are never any hidden costs and no need to pay us to make changes to your application.

If you are interested in having MobileFrame help you salvage your mobile project, contact us today!

If you are interested in participating in the customer beta, please contact support to ensure your name is on the list and your beta license keys are sent.  You must be a current customer or partner to participate in the beta program.

This topic always generates a lot of discussion, so I’m sure this time will be no different. First let’s start with the definition.

Rapid Application Development – refers to a type of software development methodology that involves techniques like iterative development and software prototyping.   Essentially it is a development style that favors incremental development with constant feedback from the end user.   This development process is repeated until the application has been perfected and meets the needs of the user. Many organizations have found that Rapid Application Development or RAD is a fantastic idea, but is requires advanced tools to make this approach a reality. This is where companies like MobileFrame come into the picture.

In order to “Rapidly Develop Applications” it becomes necessary to provide functionality out of the box, to make the development effort easier.

Some of the things MobileFrame does to make it easier to go mobile include:

• Drag and Drop Screen Design – Design your mobile application logic once, and deploy to multiple different Operating Systems
• Drag and Drop Print Designer – Create Print layouts in Minutes, and not weeks.
• Printer Driver Bundling – Printer Drivers are bundled in, no need to pick a specific printer
• Device Driver Auto Recognition – We are plug and play across a wide variety of different devices, and can support mixed device deployments, with no extra effort
• User Administration – Users can authenticate against their current usernames / passwords, and IT can lock down the device to keep the network safe
• Peripheral Integration – We Support RFID, GPS, Barcode (1d, 2d), Magnetic Stripe Scanning, Photo Capture, Photo Annotation, Drawing, Speech to Text, Digital Signature Capture, Printing, Barcode Printing, plus much more
• Backend System Integration – Out of the box hooks into any ODBC or OLEDB compliant data source including (SQL, Oracle, DB2, SAP, Sybase, etc.)
• Synchronization Management – Fail proof sync engine, with the ability to prioritize which networks you would like to sync over first
• Mobile Device Management – Remote Device Management out in the field, with the ability to take administrative control
• Enterprise Application Management – Update Applications, Client Software, and third party applications over the air, no need to collect the device from the field
• Multiple Language Support – Create business logic once, deploy to any number of languages. No need to write and support a 2^nd code base
• Plus many more.

The Mobile Software Development Market is full of companies that claim to have Rapid Application Development Environments, with easy to use development tools, which can be used to assist organizations to design, develop, and deploy mobile applications. And while I can’t speak for other companies that claim to have easy to use tool sets, I can tell you that at MobileFrame the average project from Design / Scope to Deployment is usually 3-4 weeks, and includes integrations with multiple different back-end systems. With this kind of turnaround many of our customers call our environment a Rapid Deployment toolset, instead of a Rapid Application Development Environment.

In fact, the system is so easy to use that all of our sales reps can show how to build custom mobile applications from scratch, make changes to the application on the fly per the user’s request, deploy them out to the device wirelessly and perform a live integration… all on the very first phone call with a prospect.

So the next time that you are investigating different tools to help you go mobile, don’t just think about Rapid Application Development, think about Rapid Deployment.

If you are interested in seeing how MobileFrame is able to create custom mobile applications with no custom programming required, contact us today.

Not surprisingly for this week we’ve decided to focus on : What a Mobile Computing Platform is, and why it matters (Disclaimer – MobileFrame is a software company that focuses on providing the most highly configurable and easy to use Mobile Enterprise Application Platform, that money can buy)

First and foremost what is a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform?

In its most simple form, a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) is a software based mobile computing strategy for providing organizations the means to deploy multiple different mobile applications on top of the same technology stack. Typically this type of Platform approach provides organizations with the ability to extend the data usually enclosed in multiple different back-end enterprise systems, deploy against multiple different types of operating systems, and connect or “Sync” over a wide variety of different types of communication mechanisms.  The platform approach usually involves the ability to scale quickly and easily, with a build once and deploy to a wide variety of different types of devices without the need to actually target a specific device or operating system.  This approach when carefully planned lowers overall total cost of ownership, and provides a central management point for all mobile application throughout the enterprise.

Typically there are several components to a mobile computing platform

1. Development Environment – Provides the ability to create the mobile application screens, and underlying business logic
2. Synchronization Server – Allows for bi-directional synchronization of data between the back office business systems, and the mobile worker
3. Consolidated Database – A Database that serves as the central data repository or the pass through to multiple different back end systems, also referred to as a Staging Database.
4. Client Software - This is software that gets installed onto each mobile client to run the mobile applications, manage the synchronization, as read / write to the local database if applicable

The Typical Problem:  ABC Corporation has 3 separate divisions that all would like to implement mobile technologies, each with their own unique needs.  When faced with the decision of what to do ABC Corporation must decide if they plan on building or buying their mobile solution, as well as who is going to make the selection of the solution vendor, devices, as well as who is going to manage and support the applications.  Unfortunately many organizations allow for each division to separately manage their own solution, leading to a decentralized approach.

This approach leads to some of the following challenges:

• Significant development costs
• High total cost of ownership
• Decentralized management
• Hard-coded applications, with the need to re-install whenever changes are made
• Developed for use with a single device type, and or operating system
• No out of the box integration mechanisms to manage the data
• Support related headaches, no centralized management

If ABC Corporation were to take the platform approach, they would gain the following benefits

• Rapid application development tools
• Code Re-use
• Single source toolset
• Mobility management (device management, etc.)
• Application updates handled wirelessly
• Out of the box connectors to multiple different backend systems.
• Multiple Device support
• Lower total cost of ownership
• The ability to make changes and deploy them instantly.

For these reasons and many others, organizations that are interested in going mobile have been looking at Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms, to provide the necessary tools, connectors, and support mechanisms to alleviate many of the common pitfalls of going mobile.  If you would like to see a demonstration of how MobileFrame addresses the mobile challenges within the enterprise, please contact us today!

www.MobileFrame.com | Twitter.com/MobileFrame | www.Blog.MobileFrame.com

Miller Pipeline Corporation is one of the nation’s premier natural gas distribution, transmission pipeline and utility contractors. They provide a comprehensive range of pipeline contracting and rehabilitation services for natural gas, liquids, water and wastewater pipelines and specialty products and services for the industrial and telecommunication industries.

With MobileFrame, the invoicing process is now totally paperless with selected large customers. MobileFrame has provided Miller customers the capability to view all daily work activity.   Miller’s business and customer requirements change quickly and MobileFrame with its “rapid application deployment” allows Miller to provide the field with the required infrastructure.  Productivity has been greatly enhanced across Miller’s operations:

• The mobile workers have seen 25% efficiency gains through elimination of paperwork. Most importantly, Mobileframe has allowed Miller to integrate the intelligence at point of field data entry that has eliminated 95% of errors due to inability to read hand writing, missing data, wet and smeared forms, inaccurate data, missing paperwork, etc.
• Complete end-to-end electronic data submittal has eliminated the biggest bottleneck. Prior to MobileFrame, Administration had to match up completed forms from the field with time cards, and then enter everything manually. MobileFrame has reduced the data entry, invoicing and job cost time burdens by 90%.
• Accuracy of data was a major issue before, but the accuracy is 100% perfect now.   Customers are very pleased and complimentary with the billing accuracy.
• Prior to MobileFrame, invoicing was terribly delayed. Now Miller is able to invoice weekly upon job completion. Miller is billing a minimum of one week early with the obviously cash flow improvements.

Together, Miller Pipeline states that these benefits have equated to $7,500,000 to the bottom-line — now that’s something worth celebrating!

“One of the strategic initiatives developed by the executive management team is “lean construction” to drive productivity, said Dennis Norman,  V.P. of Corporate Performance at Miller Pipeline.   We believe by eliminating many daily obstacles that create unproductive labor hours will provide an even greater value proposition for our customers and employees.   MobileFrame’s platform has enabled us to capture real-time payroll hours, contract hours, invoicing data, job cost data, and all relevant information required to run our operation. In addition, MobileFrame provides immediate “Key performance indicators” and “Productivity Feedback” to the field foremen. This “scoreboard” provides Miller invaluable real-time information.”

We are inviting YOU to send in YOUR paper forms and have us build you a custom application. We will then demo it for you on our very first phone call.  Our enterprise mobility system is 100% code-free, eliminating custom programming through an intuitive, user friendly point-and-click desktop, enabling novice computer users to easily create and deploy sophisticated custom mobile applications.  Don’t believe us? Send in your form, you won’t be disappointed.

If you are interested in learning more about our advanced capabilities and how we can empower your service based organization to operate more efficiently please contact us today!

MobileFrame.com |  Office:  (408) 885-1200  | twitter @MobileFrame