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Ready to get Mobile?

marc_dubresson

Hi,

I'm very excited to join Alfresco at such an exciting time. Productivity is on the move and we're all part of it, deploying and using mobile devices at home and at work. As you know we're already working on Mobile access for Alfresco systems but I'd love to know what's important to you, what would make a significant difference for your business and your users working with Mobile devices.

What do you care about?

Regards,

Marc Dubresson
Alfresco

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Comments

loftux

When it comes to mobiles and touchpads and documents, I think it is mostly for reading. So good search capability, and making the search result list easy to evaluate is important.
One thing that you really can do is to manage workflows, that busy manager that is on the road all the time can approve/reject allt those requests. So I think support for workflow is really important.

And I have this app idea for Alfresco, that I'm not sure I will get the time to realize: Alfresco Status updater. As it works now you have to login to Alfresco to set you status, and a couple of clicks later it is updated. That will not happen to often, so a good app would be an app that you from your mobile phone can update you status. You can have custom or preset statuses to select from, like "in a meeting", "Holiday" and possiblity to append date and time. Should be customizable of course.
So it is more or less a one click update (with that Android widget). Probably a separate app, or very easily accessible from the full app.

ekimnosneb

I agree with Loftux about the ability to use workflows. What about an HTML5 interface that could provide some offline capabilities? As with all current mobile interfaces, it should be simple and load quickly.

marc_dubresson

Those points make sense. I also detect the desire to keep things simple and "clean"…right?

What about visualisation? On the iPad I like panels and the way they cleanly reveal more information with a simple touch interface. What about documents preview and stacks, like in the Apple photo app on iOS? Is it relevant for business users to organise their documents more visually, i.e. stack them together with high resolution previews?

Marc

diaazul

I would suggest you avoid thinking in terms of "business users" and look to specific workflows and applications. There are as many different types of business user as there are grains of sand on the beach, so if you use woolly concepts such as business users you will end up with a generic product for which it is difficult to build a business case. Also, once you have worked out who you are targeting, then the design of the user interface will become more obvious (as you will be able to identify and talk to people who will actually be using the application rather than other IT people who are interested in discussing the hypothetical case).

The most important aspect is that the workforce is far more mobile than ever before and there is indeed a large market for mobile access to documentation. You need to consider whether you are going to follow the existing crowd with Sales Force Automation, Operation Workforce Automation, etc…or identify some new and, as yet, previously unidentified niche.

Also, you need to bear in mind that most mobile devices are unable to render Microsoft Office documents correctly. Where you may find an opportunity is in performing a transformation in alfresco from source format to PDF (or re-sized PDF), so that the document renders nicely on the mobile device. If you have used the iPad for any length of time you will soon realise that it is shockingly inadequate for business use - no filing system, poor rendering of documents, frequently crashes and unable to attach a file to an email.

I wouldn't get too hung up on implementation until you understand who is going to use the solution.

marc_dubresson

Excellent. So we mentioned the busy manager on the road, I can think of the general case of the sales force in the field, healthcare visitors… what are the types of users you'd like to help with a mobile solution?