Automobile Work Order Solution for Handheld PDAs

My customer support team has been busily working with one of our customers, Teph Seal to mobilize and automate their business operations on auto dealers' car lots. The mobile application is very powerful and is being rolled out to auto dealerships in many locations across the USA at this time. It consists of both mobile applications and a website application that management uses.

The environment - mobile work stations on auto dealers' car lots.
The purpose - Teph Seal is contracted by the auto dealers to prepare new and used cars for the showroom floor. They detail and repair automobiles so they are ready to show.


•Mobile Form Factor: PDA
•Vehicle services operation
•Mobile Application: work orders, invoicing, mobile printing, time clock, HR module, remote synchronization
•Web Site: customer management, invoicing, employee management, services management, reporting
•Technologies: vehicle barcoding, Ethernet cradle, bluetooth printing, signature capture
•Products: MobileDataforce's PointSync Mobility Platform, PSIONTeklogix Workabout Pro, HP printers, .NET for web site development

This solution includes integration with a web application on a SQL database, plus integration with Great Plains accounting software.

If you would like to discuss the full range of automotive solutions for handheld computers from MobileDataforce, please contact us here.

Automobile Inspection Software for Handheld PDAs

My professional services (Mobile Application Developers) team has rapidly evolved into experts on mobile applications for the automotive services industry. They have developed and delivered a wide range of mobile applications for:

• Automobile lease return applications on handheld computers
• Automobile auction software for handheld PDAs- designed to estimate the value of a vehicle at an auction. Damage and repair costs can be estimated instantly on the handheld PDA
• Mobile automobile repair services - windshield repair, bumper repair, headlight restoration, dent repairs and much more all documented, managed and invoiced on handheld PDAs
• Automobile cleaning and detailing applications for handheld PDAs at auto dealerships
• Automobile vehicle location applications for large dealer lots

I have written in more detail about some of the specific applications we have delivered in this article. All of these mobile automobile services software applications were delivered using MobileDataforce's PointSync Mobility Software Platform.

Mobile Software Platform Thoughts

The above diagram represents a mobile software platform called PointSync from MobileDataforce. The concept of a software platform in this discussion means a software application that has many pre-built functions and supports many mobile project requirements out-of-the box.

Many components of a mobile software application should be provided in a mobile software platform, not as a custom development task. Components and functions such as:

• support for GPS
• support for multiple screen sizes
• support for digital images
• support for synchronization via wireless networks
• support for RFID
• support for various button configurations on handheld devices
• support for various security configurations
• support for bluetooth
• support for disconnected applications
• support for Tablet PCs, laptops, Windows CE.NET, Windows Mobile etc.
• support for audio memo capture
• support for various bar code scanners
• support for odbc database integration
• support for data validations
• support for various business logic

Again the above components and functions need not be developed new for every project. They should be provided for you at the platform level. They can be developed, debugged and tested, added to the platform library, improved over time and expanded so all developers can take advantage of them.

Many systems integrators and IT consultants have told me they can not profitably run a mobile application practice if they develop custom mobile applications from scratch. They require a mobile software platform like PointSync to make the projects profitable. No customer wants to pay for custom development, if the code is already available in a tool set at a fraction of the cost.

Managing Mobile Software Deployments

The screen shot above is from MobileDataforce's PointSync Manager. It is the administration screen for managing mobile users, mobile devices, mobile applications, integrated databases, database tables, mobile sycnhronizations and mobile software licenses.

Why am I discussing this today? Because an application like this can save huge amounts of money for a company. Think about it - if you develop your own custom mobile application using .NET it can be powerful, colorful and useful but how are you going to do the following:

1. Manage deployments
2. Manage mobile application versions
3. Manage synchronizations and synchronization errors
4. Manage different device requirements (i.e. screen sizes, Tablet PC, Laptop, PDA, Palm Treo, etc.)
5. Manage different user groups (i.e. managers, supervisors, field work crews, etc)
6. Manage multiple mobile applications on each device
7. Manage all the database integrations between mobile devices and enterprise databases
8. Review all successful and unsuccessful synchronizations based upon user group, applications etc, for rapid debugging

These are not the usual issues a .NET programmer thinks about when they raise their hand and volunteer to develop a mobile application. The common thought is that the development of the mobile device application is only about 30% of a mobile project. 70% is the synchronizaton, business logic, connectivity configurations, enterprise database application integration, deployment and testing. Often your .NET programmers will not volunteer for these tasks :-)

The value of using a mobile software platform like MobileDataforce's PointSync, is that these processes and tasks are already developed and available for configuration.

Inspections & Asset Management for Government Agencies

In the September/October edition of Public Roads magazine, a magazine published by the Federal Highway Administration, there is an article called High-Tech in the Far West. The article subtitle is - The Idaho Transportation Department taps into wireless technology for collecting and reporting data on maintenance at rest stops. This article describes in-depth the benefits the Idaho Transportation Department received from mobilizing their daily rest area inspection processes with MobileDataforce's mobile software platforms.

This article focuses mostly on the benefits of replacing a paper based inspection process with electronic inspection forms on handheld PDAs. I would invite you to read the quotes and comments from the ITD personnel involved in this project.

The Idaho Transportation Department mobilization project emphasizes a common theme. The majority of mobile software projects we do fall into one of the following areas:

• Inspections
• Asset Management
• Service Orders/Work Orders

Most often a project touches on all three of these areas. These processes have a few things in common - they often take place out-of-doors and a way from their desktop computer, involve data collecting and reporting in rugged environments.

The utility industry also involves the three processes listed above. In this article, I discuss a Power Pole Inspection project delivered to Sho-Me Power. In this article I discuss over 20 inspection applications we do for the electrical industry.