Operations and facility management Case study
Fieldo: field work orders and communication app
Fieldo, a cloud service with iOS and Android apps and a web portal where managers plan projects, workers log time, expenses and materials, and customers follow status and costs.
Overview
Fieldo is a mobile planning and journal service for contractors and service companies whose staff work in the field. Managers create and assign projects in a web portal; workers use the iOS and Android apps to follow the work plan and log time, expenses and materials; customers see the status and cost of their own projects; and economists get overviews of projects, spending and logs. The service runs in English, Norwegian and Swedish and connects to accounting and subscription systems. We built the web application, the web services behind the apps, and the iOS and Android apps between 2013 and 2016, and fieldo.se is still online.
The challenge
The office, the people in the field and the customer all need the same picture of a job: what was agreed, who is doing what, and what time and material it has used. Keeping that in sync by phone and paper is slow, so the product had to put it in one place on web and mobile.
What we built
- A web portal for managers with project creation and cloning, project templates, task lists, worker assignment and a calendar with leave
- Worker apps for iOS and Android: work plan, floor plans, time, expense and material logging, and messages inside the work plan
- A customer view with project details, invoices and ratings, so customers can follow status and costs
- Overviews for economists across projects, expenses and logs, with reports on time, travel and material expenses exported to Excel and PDF
- Web services and APIs between the apps and the web back end, including notifications and location services
- Google Calendar and mapping integrations for events and location plotting
- Integrations with AppDirect for subscriptions, Fortnox for accounting and Visma for business management
- English, Norwegian and Swedish language support and built-in user guides
- EDI features for Android and SFTP folder connectivity, and New Relic performance monitoring
- Testing and bug fixing across web, iOS and Android, including translation and browser compatibility
How a system like this fits together
Reference architecture: field work-order and communication platform
Simplified reference architecture, not a client schematic.
- A manager plans the work in the web portal: customers, projects, templates, task lists and worker assignments, all served by the PHP application.
- Workers and customers use the iOS and Android apps, which call the mobile API in the same PHP application for projects, calendar, time, material and travel logs, notes and ratings (JSON and XML).
- Projects, workers, customers and every time and expense log are stored in MySQL; scheduled PHP jobs and PHPMailer e-mail run alongside.
- The application sends push notifications to the apps through the Apple and Google push services.
- Customer and invoice data goes to the accounting systems (Fortnox and Visma eAccounting), and AppDirect sends subscription events back to the application.
Technology used
| Layer | Choice | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | iOS and Android apps | worker and customer apps |
| Data | MySQL | projects, workers, customers and logs |
| Web | PHP, jQuery, Bootstrap, DataTables | manager, company, customer and admin portals |
| API | PHP endpoints returning JSON and XML | mobile app back end |
| Notifications and email | Push notifications, PHPMailer | push to the apps and e-mail |
| Integrations | Fortnox, Visma eAccounting, AppDirect, Google Maps, Google Calendar | accounting, subscriptions, locations and events |
| Reporting | FPDF, Excel export | PDF and Excel reports |
| Monitoring | New Relic | performance monitoring |
What happened next
- Delivered
The work described above was delivered to the client.
- Operational facts
- Our work on this project spanned 2013–2016.
- It was maintained and extended over 3 years.
Screens
Could this be your project?
- You need a web application with user accounts, admin tools and reporting. Website and web app development
- You are planning an iOS or Android app, or have one that needs a stronger back end behind it. Mobile app development
- You work in operations and facility management and want a team that has built for it before. Operations and facility management work
Questions about this project
How long did this project take?
Our work on it ran from 2013 to 2016.
What technology was used?
iOS, Android, MySQL, PHP, PHPMailer, Google Maps, DataTables, FPDF, Push notifications, Google Calendar, Fortnox, Visma eAccounting, AppDirect, New Relic, Bootstrap, jQuery.
Was it maintained and extended over time?
Yes. Our work on this project was maintained and extended over 3 years, from 2013 to 2016.
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