Mobile App for Governor and Sales Agent

    Hello, Habr! Habr is not for politics, but it just so happened that the development of EOS (EOS - Electronic Office Systems) is popular not only among private companies, but also among government organizations - in thousands of offices across the country and the CIS our solutions are used. Today we want to tell you about EOS mobile applications. We think it will be interesting for everyone to find out how mobile business applications are used among officials.



    The ecosystem of mobile EOS solutions includes three developments:

    1. For iOS, the iEOS app
    2. Manager Workstation for Windows 8
    3. And their common ancestor is Manager Workstation for Windows 7.

    A bit of history


    Mobile development in EOS began in 2007. But the turning point was 2010, the year of release of the first iPad. Then it became clear that mobile solutions are not exotic and not the destiny of individual narrow-profile companies like Blackberry, but today. In Russia, the popularity of iPads was personally facilitated by President Medvedev, who began to use them actively and publicly, creating a request among officials for iPads - and, therefore, for mobile versions of our AWP. And in 2013 there was a version for Windows 8. And, finally, this year the presentation of the version for Android will be held.



    In the development process, we encountered a number of specific problems for each platform.

    iEOS (2010):

    1. Meeting with an unknown mobile platform. Security restrictions;
    2. New design requirements. Finger orientation;
    3. Familiarity with objective C;
    4. Problems of distribution of domestic EP in foreign stores. Orientation to JaCarta which is a crypto machine and implements algorithms inside the card;
    5. Lack of normal pdf processing tools. It was necessary to insert annotations, which was not supported by standard tools. As a result, we parsed, read and wrote annotations in PDF;
    6. СМР (mobile solutions server) - synchronizes documents from different EDMS, of which 3, into various types of clients. Complex logic: resolving conflicts of versions arriving simultaneously. Time zone and mobility solutions for mobile clients (change of zones by moving around the planet). Work with unstable communication channels. Convert different formats.

    Manager Workstation under Windows 8 / RT:

    1. At the beginning of development for Modern UI applications, a number of components and tools familiar to .NET developers were missing. In particular, the Unity and Entity Framework were lacking;
    2. Windows Runtime 8 did not have a PDF rasterizer, which made it necessary to use a third-party component, the speed of which was satisfactory. Later, when a rasterizer appeared in Windows Runtime 8.1, the problem was no longer relevant;
    3. The use of controls introduced in Windows 8.1 led to strong differences between the versions of the application for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1;
    4. The desktop version of AWP offered users close integration with Microsoft Word. Due to the limitations of Modern UI applications and the Office version for Windows RT, the integration in AWP RT turned out to be one-sided.

    Now EOS mobile applications are used by more than a hundred organizations throughout Russia and the CIS. Surely among those who read this article now, there are many users working with our solutions.

    Due to the fact that applications were developed at different times, their functionality is slightly different, but in the main they are the same: Manager’s workstation and iEOS are designed to work with documents: review, vising, signing, execution control, initiative instructions.

    Wherein:

    • In the version for Win 8, it is possible to attach files and work with portable scanners, as well as add signatures and print scans to documents using the EDSIGN solution (visualizes electronic signature - printing + signature, and much more). Thus, you can sign a Word document directly in Word, and then, for example, open an order in the AWP of the Win8 Manager and attach this signed document to it.
    • iEOS supports electronic digital signature using the solution of the Russian company Aladdin R. D., including a wireless reader.

    For whom are EOS mobile solutions?


    • For senior and middle managers: all who need to work with documents, sign them, entrust and control the work of subordinates for documents.
    • For assistant managers, who, like superiors, work with tablets.
    • For line employees who need to work with documents outside of offices - for example, field agents.

    It doesn’t matter if you’re a big boss, middle manager, or ordinary employee - if you work with documents - most likely, our application was created specifically for you.

    How it works


    Document is the heart of our system. The main work with documents is carried out in full-fledged desktop office management systems: “Case”, EOS for SharePoint and eDocLib. Mobile solutions serve as a kind of extension for them, allowing you to conduct operational work with papers in virtually any environment - even without the Internet.

    The employee receives a document generated in one of the above systems, and can open it in the iEOS mobile application or the workstation of the manager. It shows all incoming documents with different statuses: for consideration, for approval, for signature, reports, archive.
    Depending on the decision made, a resolution (order) is put on the document. The text of the resolution can be either written by the user or selected by him from the list of templates, which is loaded from the system. At the same time, the employee working with the document can determine the date, select those responsible for execution, appoint a controller and receive notification of answers.

    The Manager Workstation interface under Windows 8:







    In general, an ordinary bureaucracy, only in its modern form: simpler, more transparent, faster - in general, more mobile.
    Moreover, if there is mobile Internet, all changes in the document are synchronized with the database immediately after it is closed. If there is no Internet, it's okay, the changes will be in the queue for sending until access to the network appears, after which, again, they are instantly synchronized.

    IEOS Interface:







    Platform popularity


    Mostly, as you probably can guess for yourself, the iOS version is in demand. There are a number of reasons for this: the fashion for Apple devices set by President Medvedev has not gone away. But besides fashion, it’s more important that Apple as a whole has a more developed mobile infrastructure - Microsoft solutions (Surface tablets, Dell corporate tablets, etc.) are only gaining momentum. Therefore, now approximately the distribution of users of versions of iOS and Windows is 70/30. Moreover, of these 30%, the smaller part uses devices on Windows 8 - a significant part of them uses the first version of the Workstation of the Manager, which can work under Win 7 - i.e. already on the desktop.

    What about Android? This is a separate interesting story. It’s clear that some governor or deputy doesn’t care about Android - they bought ipads for all of them, and they use them wonderfully. But very often, employees take work home or bring their personal tablets to the office. Here, the distribution is not in favor of iOS simply by virtue of banal arithmetic: the market share of Android devices is much higher. In addition, a number of companies produce tablets that are initially focused on a business user specifically on Android. In general, the demand for this OS is growing and this year we will try to satisfy it by releasing our solution for Android - and we will definitely tell you more about it. In general, stay tuned!



    About company


    EOS company exists since 1994, we have more than 200 employees. The head office is located in Moscow, the remote unit (call center and testers) is in Kovrov, Vladimir Region, plus an additional development office in Minsk. Today, EOS solutions are used both in all regions of Russia and in many CIS countries.

    We are ready to tell Habr in more detail about the development of our products - write your questions in the comments so that we can understand what topics are of interest to you.

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