[email protected]#http://[email protected]#
(above) A Today Screen plug-in that allows you to monitor GPS data from your Today Screen.
Sci-Fi Bar v.2.0
A Today screen plugin for Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003 with a sci-fi theme. Great looking with a big analog clock, voice feedback, full battery and memory information with notifications and advanced voice feedback. Media launcher, skins and more. Also includes a matching reflective Today theme.
$ 4.99
Use With: P/PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003
Sci-FiSoft
www.sci-fisoft.com
[email protected]
Ulti-Contacts Today
Displays your contacts on your Today screen. It provides quick access using an "ABC..." toolbar to select contacts. You can view all your contact information along with birthday and anniversary dates using the scrolling list.
$7.95
Use With: P/PC, P/PC 2002, and Windows Mobile 2003
Birdsoft
www.birdsoft.net
[email protected]
Editor’s Note
The Times Are Changing
Doug Mackey
Former Editor, Pocket PC Enterprise Solutions
[email protected]
Just to let you all know that with this issue I am moving over from Enterprise Editor of Pocket PC to replace our able Webmaster Matt Arant at PocketPCmag.com. Matt will pursue other interests and will be sorely missed. He has created a very impressive Web site, I hope you agree, and I will endeavor to make it just as useful going forward.
It’s been a pleasant and exciting time editing this section, which began with the March 2002 issue. We’re committed to maintaining a full complement of enterprise articles in each issue, as we know there are many of you out there who want and need comprehensive coverage of the new mobile technology and applications, as well as hints for developers and implementers.
Our new Enterprise Editor is Duncan Brown. Duncan has worked as a computer consultant, a network administrator for a Boston corporation, and a newspaper reporter. He’s an insatiable reader and an enthusiastic movie consumer, and I’ll let him take over now to tell you about this issue.
Some Things Stay the Same
Duncan H. Brown
Editor, Pocket PC Enterprise Solutions
[email protected]
It’s gratifying to inherit a mature and complete idea like Doug Mackey’s Enterprise Solutions. Doug has worked devotedly for more than two years to showcase the best and the brightest in the Windows Mobile Enterprise world for Pocket PC magazine readers. I’m also lucky to inherit the authors Doug has worked with over the years. Many of the articles you see in this issue were originally begun under Doug’s direction. Thanks, Doug! (In his new role as Webmaster, Doug will become invisible but all-powerful. Everything that you see on our Web site will bear his digital fingerprints. Unlike HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, he’ll never say, "I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.")
This issue’s Enterprise Solutions is chock full of lists. Bill Shadish offers us his entertaining "10 Commandments for Pocket PC User Interfaces." Scott Kovacevich lays out 10 tips on how to get the "Microsoft Designed for Windows Mobile" certification. Stuart Layzell gives nine strategic suggestions for mobilizing your workforce. Chris De Herrera raises seven important support questions you should investigate before you purchase a Pocket PC for yourself or for your company.
Kurt Shuler from TI tells us where smartphones are headed. It’s a bright vision: a combination of a Gameboy, an iPod, a digital camera/video camera, and a PDA; (you can also make phone calls, at least at this stage in the planning). Then he tells software developers how (and where) to sell their wares into this market.
Neil Morrissey enlightens us on how he mixed liquor and Pocket PCs. It’s a potent combination for the liquor inspectors in the province of Ontario in Canada. Finally, Jeff Chen and a couple of buddies at the University of California at Berkeley dreamed up a new application, and programmed it non-stop for three days and nights. They won Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Exhibition Contest. Their reward? A meeting with the richest man on the planet, Bill Gates.
We all live in Bill’s world now, and the possibilities for the application of Windows Mobile technology to Enterprise needs is endless. The only limitation is our imagination. Enterprise Solutions will continue to showcase the creativity and smarts that have made the marriage of compact technology and the real world a happy one.
Ontario Liquor Inspectors Get Mobile
System developed from start to finish in four months
by Neil Morrissey
The Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) recently moved its liquor inspection process from a traditional paper-based system to an enterprise solution which uses Pocket PCs to assist in conducting inspections, creating reports, and maintaining administrative data.
It took only four months from gathering the system requirements to implementation. The solution was built entirely in house by information technology staff using Microsoft development tools. The entire system is known as the "Liquor Enforcement Inspection and Reporting System" (LEIRS).
The problem: the old system
In the previous system, inspectors were given a paper assignment sheet every two weeks. From this they would prioritize their work and schedule inspections. They then conducted inspections of bars and restaurants, plus events covered under a "Special Occasion Permit." Afterwards they would submit paper inspection reports to their regional offices all over the Province of Ontario, which in turn would send them to the head office in Toronto, where data entry clerks would enter them into a database on an IBM AS/400.
The inefficiency of this system was particularly noticeable with regards to licensing inspections, which are conducted prior to the issuance of a new liquor license: David Baxter, manager of Liquor Sales Licensing said, "Liquor license inspection reports were a paper-based form system. These were pre-printed and the liquor inspector filled them out by hand when conducting a liquor inspection. These were then routed by snail-mail from all our regional offices to the head office and then finally to us. This often resulted in slow delivery and illegible details on some forms. Sometimes the forms were delivered to the wrong license officer and had to be re-routed. The whole process slowed down the issuance of a license, and when a liquor license applicant’s business depends on becoming a licensee and opening their business, every day counts."
Designing the solution
To specify the requirements for the new system, a focus group of AGCO staff was assembled from all over the Ontario, representing the unique needs of the regional offices. They were selected to test the newly built application for two weeks. Following the test, all Ontario inspection staff were assembled together for a two-day training seminar and hands-on lab. During this period the focus group again proved valuable: They were able to act as teaching assistants, explaining the new system for conducting inspections and reporting results back to headquarters.
One major constraint on development was the delivery date, which was set to coincide with the annual week of training. This forced the development team to adopt a release strategy of delivering critical components first, with other features slated for future releases.
On the Pocket PC, inspectors would have access to the wording of regulations and the offenses that they were looking for. This would prevent the need to carry a cumbersome copy of the legislation, and would allow quick searching in order to render decisions. Further, inspectors and supervisors would now have all licensee information at their fingertips, allowing them to access needed information in the field instead of having to be tied to an office computer.
The system would allow inspectors to create reports on their Pocket PC (running the Microsoft .NET compact framework, and Microsoft SQL Server CE), which they would carry with them. Because of the enterprise nature of the solution (it had to be usable by inspectors in rural as well as urban are
as), a wireless reporting architecture was ruled out. Instead it was decided that inspectors would upload their reports once they return to their regional offices (via ActiveSync), or dial up to the server from any phone line.
These inspection reports would then be uploaded to a central server (Microsoft SQL Server 2000), where they would be edited and approved. Once completed, they would be viewed by a manager, who would attach his/her own comments and decisions to the report. Once the manager finished the additions, the report would be uploaded to the original legacy database on the IBM AS400, which would continue to act as the data warehouse for all past and current compliance data (Fig.1).
(above) Fig.1: How data flows in the LEIRS system.
Bandwidth a concern
One of the first concerns in design was the limitations of bandwidth in the existing network, particularly for dial-up users, when downloading large amounts of data onto a Pocket PC SQL Server CE database. Fortunately, this turned out not to be a problem, likely due in part to the use of Microsoft’s Remote Data Access (RDA) "pull" protocol, which allows SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server CE to communicate efficiently. The data gets compressed, and results in relatively fast download times—a few minutes for thousands of records over dial-up connections. For users who are connected to the network at the head office and in regional offices over ISDN lines, download takes only a few seconds.
Speedy development
The system development, from the initial gathering of system requirements to the first release, took only four months. The speed of delivery of this solution and the robustness of its design are due in large part to the use of Microsoft development tools, particularly Visual Studio.Net 2003. This integrated development environment was used to create the Pocket PC application as well as the ASP.NET Web application, both of which were developed and coded by one developer.
For the downloading of data, a second programmer organized the data (de-normalized) on the AS400 into views, and then used the Microsoft Data Transformation Services of SQL Server 2000 to bring the data into the SQL Server environment, where it is used by LEIRS and downloaded to the Pocket PCs. The data is refreshed twice daily, so inspectors are always working with the most up-to-date information.
A third programmer created the VB.NET module which uses ASP.NET to upload reports into the AS400 legacy database. IBM’s ODBC drivers accomplish the data-type transformation necessary for interoperability.
"LEIRS helped bring the organization’s IT Department into the 21st Century, not only because of the intrinsic leading edge technology, but also due to the new developmental methodologies used," said Javier Jauregui, LEIRS project manager. "Iterative systems development techniques had to be used in order to effectively manage the large and complex sets of user requirements. Each iteration cycle created a fully functional and implementable system that became more complete with each successive installation."
Selecting hardware
Two models of Pocket PCs were chosen for the solution: the Compaq iPAQ 3970 (with Windows CE 3.0) and the HP iPAQ 5550 (with Windows CE 4.2). The mixed platforms were due to hardware availability. Purchases of the Pocket PCs took place in phases and before development began. During development, it was found that there were significant speed differences on the two devices when running the new application, due seemingly to the difference in processors and internal memory. The HP 5550 has the Intel PXA255 processor with 128 MB of internal memory, while the Compaq 3970 has only 64 MB of internal memory and uses the PXA250 processor.
Design for these considerations resulted in the addition of a 128 MB storage card to each Pocket PC, allowing the offload of the majority of the data from internal memory, thus freeing up system resources. This also allowed for future expandability of the amount of information which can be downloaded to the Pocket PC. Speed continues to be a goal of development through continued code optimization and planned OS upgrades.
Administrative cooperation
The project moved rapidly due to the cooperation of the departments which would be affected. They often had to make quick, informal decisions which directly affected the overall design. "Practices that helped this project deliver a product of high quality in a record time were the building of dedicated user focus groups, high support from senior management, and having a member of the user community as the lead developer and designer of the system," said Project Manager Jauregui.
The downloading of data and the ability to create inspection and administrative reports was given priority for this first release, with components such as statistical reports being reserved for later versions. The solution was integrated into the existing networks already in place in regional offices. These offices are connected directly to the servers, and traveling staff have the ability to dial into their office network. Thus, security in this regard is handled by the network. For the desktop application portion, an ASP.NET application was created, allowing staff to log into the application through their Internet browser (once on the network).
Simple software upgrades
For the Pocket PC, a solution had to be developed which allowed for easy and quick updating of the LEIRS application on the device with minimal user effort. The solution developed by department network analysts was to have the "My Documents" folder on the Pocket PC sync to a folder on a network drive. The executable for the application is then stored in this folder on the Pocket PC. When a new release of the application comes out, it just needs to be put in the user’s synced folder on the network drive.
This is accomplished by having the user’s PC execute a login script which compares the creation date of the executable file in the user’s folder (on the network drive) to the creation date of a "master" executable. If the "master" is newer, it copies it to the user’s folder and overwrites the old one. When the user syncs up the Pocket PC via ActiveSync, the new version is brought down to the Pocket PC and the program shortcut references the executable in the Pocket PC start menu. This allows upgrades with a simple step. This has proved very valuable in providing quick bug fixes and in adding new functionality incrementally.
Redundancy of reporting was also a major focus of the solution. Because of the proactive nature of the job, inspectors are required to submit daily reports of their activities (and how their time was spent). So after completing inspection reports related to the work completed, they would then have to log the information onto another report, along with any administrative data (i.e. breaks, office activity, etc.). In the new system, inspectors upload their inspection reports and the data gets added to the daily activity report as well. They can also input the "administrative" activities on the Pocket PC, which helps to minimize the time spent in the office and allows them to focus more time on compliance-related matters.
Successful release
Implementation took place in December of 2003, and the response has been very positive from all those involved. "The most significant change of business process is that liquor inspectors are now in the field conducting investigations and inspections rather than being in their respective offices writing reports and accessing data through a database," said Detective Staff Sergeant Clint Hunter of the Ontario Provincial Police, LEIRS business manager. "LEIRS has increased productivity even through the training stage and initial implementation phase of the product. The number of submitted reports increased by 24% from the same period one year earlier."
Hunter added, "Costs from mail and courier services have been reduced since paper reports are no longer sent to the head office from regional offices across Ontario on a daily or weekly basis." Project goals have been dramatically exceeded, as the average time between an inspection being conducted and the information being available to all staff has decreased by 46%. It is estimated that about half a million sheets of paper per year have also been saved due to the new system.
The solution has also served to replace the bi-weekly paper assignment sheet. Inspectors can now search and sort this list on their Pocket PC using criteria such as the
premise’s location, the assignment type (i.e. complaint, etc), or the license status (expired, revoked, active)(Fig.2). This helps them to better organize their work, and to investigate/close more assignments by searching that is based on the given geographic location that they are in.
(above) Fig 2: After the user logs in, they can access various parts of the application, such as downloading fresh data, uploading reports, managing created activities or the various search features.
Access to complete information while in the field has proved to be very popular with staff. They now have access to information related to ownership of the business, conditions of the license, and capacities of establishments they inspect, as well as to any outstanding issues which need to be dealt with (Fig. 3).
(above) Fig. 3: Inspectors can see all the liquor establishments in their area, and can then view the details of any establishment/assignment.
"LEIRS has offered many significant advances in the way that I work as an inspector. The handheld computer is easy to use and non-intrusive. I can access all license information and legislation with ease, and the greatest advantage of this new tool is that the information-reporting platform has reduced the amount of time that I spend in administration. I am able to spend more time on inspections," said Liquor Inspector Eric Groulx.
Data is now downloaded automatically from the AS400 to LEIRS and can then be used directly on set formatted reports within the LEIRS software.
Pocket PC magazine, October/November 2004 Page 9