Viewing Data On Your Mobile Device

In the 2020 development roadmap blog I mentioned that one of the big things we want to do this year is to expand the use cases supported by our mobile app. Philosophically, we see mobile as a key component of every DevonWay implementation, on par with workflow and ad hoc reporting. It’s very rare that we come across a customer or prospective customer who wouldn’t benefit from some sort of mobile functionality.

Most of our mobile development to date has been focused on work execution and gathering data – capturing observations, stepping through procedures, etc. These are very useful, but very specific use cases, which sometimes require significant configuration to get just right – any time you deal with data entry, and the rules and validations that guide that data entry, you have an inherently more complicated setup than if you were simply displaying data.

Luckily for us, displaying data is one of those use cases that mobile devices are perfectly built for.

Living in San Francisco, I usually take the bus to work, and I use that time to catch up on emails. I don’t try to type up any long responses on my device, but by being able to read, absorb, and think about different topics, by the time I’m at my desk I know how I want to respond, and at that point it’s just a matter of typing up the response – all the thinking and weighing of options is already done.

Similarly, we think there is a lot of inherent value in creating a simple way for our customers to view their data, without requiring a large and expensive configuration effort. The result is what we’re calling ad hoc categories.

Ad hoc categories are essentially searches that return information using templated layouts. They take very little time to set up, and can be configured to your exact needs – for example, you may be most interested in overdue condition reports or behind-schedule work packages. When you open the category on your mobile device, the app runs the search and displays the results. You then tap into one to see more details, optionally opening any associated attachments.

You can’t take any action on the displayed information yet – that’s still in the works – but just the ability to view data on your mobile device will open up all sorts of use cases that we’re excited to explore with our customers. In most cases the effort required to set up an ad hoc category should be just a handful of support requests – probably less than a day’s work to make sure we’re displaying the right data, in the right format, to the right people, and we’re off to the races.

We have a couple i’s to dot and t’s to cross before this is available in Production, but if you’re interested in setting up your own ad hoc categories, please get in touch with us so we can show you what this looks like in your test area. We’re excited to start rolling this out!