DIYbanter - View Single Post - BlackBerry mobile phone software for engineers

DM

wrote:
Hi, a theoretical question aimed at gas engineers. I'm part of a
small team developing applications for BlackBerry mobile phones and we
are looking to produce a product for gas engineers whether one person
businesses or larger operations.

All very worthy services, however personally I would be interested having
very few of these services on a Blackberry or a.n. other PDA. But then
again I'm not a gas engineer, although have designed and installed large
multi-point gas monitoring systems.

Features will be along the lines of.
1. Job scheduling and management (jobs scheduled from partner,
secretarial service or web pages?).

possibly

2. Automatic creation of invoices and mailing out (as a service?).

No
3. Ability to look up parts manuals for part numbers and pictures of
parts for identification.

No. For this and pretty much everything that follows something like an Asus
EEE and web access would be my preferred option. While I use a PDA daily I
would not want to use such a tiny screen for looking at any sort of detailed
documentation. I'd much rather have a laptop, or EEE at a minimum, hooked up
to a 3G service and receive the information that way.

4. Ability to check up parts inventories by linking online to
wholesalers.
5. Ability to follow fault finding flow diagrams to aid resolution of
problems on boilers etc.
6. Calendar regular visits for services and certificates.
possibly

7. Reference regulatory manuals and documentation.
8. Produce regulatory documentation such as safety certificates.

BlackBerry does all the usual stuff such as working as a mobile phone
and storing contacts. Plus it can do other jobs such as turn by turn
sat-nav. Pricing yet to be defined but likely a monthly fee.

Idea being to provide an easy to use professional tool for engineers
to use to help them when out and about with an emphasis on managing
the admin and paper work, in particular getting invoices out promptly,
and in identifying parts needed quickly in order to reduce waiti times
for customers.

I think Corgi had a bash at doing something on Windows Mobile PDAs
like this a while back which never really worked.

I'd be real interested any feedback and