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Case Study
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Full Lifecycle Development
A large agency operates a nationwide fleet of over 200,000 vehicles. In the past, drivers used oil company credit cards to pay for fuel, oil, repairs, and other operating expenses. Invoices were processed and paid manually, which was slow, expensive, and prone to errors. The agency decided to replace all the oil company credit cards with cards from one company and automate the process of payment processing and reporting. The agency asked CRGT to develop the new system, and we had the first version successfully running in production within a few months.
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Mobile App Development Services
CRGT brings mobile app development expertise that extends across native mobile app development solutions, hybrid application development, mobile device integration, and conversion of enterprise and desktop applications for use in a mobile environment. In the end, our approach is driven by that most appropriate for the implementation strategy that supports our customers’ need. Extending corporate IT services to mobile devices and their users can take several forms:
- Web-based UI – conversion of an existing Web-based enterprise application to support a modified user interface suitable for mobile devices. This may be as simple as reworking style sheets to support mobile browsers limitations, or may involve reworking the existing enterprise system to accommodate the Web browser standards supported by the target mobile devices.
- Mobile Web App – implementation of a Web App that can be hosted by the enterprise system and is designed to replace the user interface elements of the enterprise system. Mobile Web Apps may be simple transaction-oriented user interfaces, or may include more complicated processing functions, data manipulation, and interaction with other mobile device apps. Typical implementations utilize HTML5 and Javascript, provide local storage for cached content and SQL-based data, and can operate in connected or disconnected states.
- Web or Database Services – exposing enterprise services via Web service or database service APIs to mobile devices. These services may exist or may need to be created and exposed to mobile devices. The consumer of these data and services may be off-the-shelf mobile applications (reporting tools, RSS feed readers, SQL clients, mobile spreadsheet apps, etc.) or may be custom client software developed for the mobile devices.
- Thick Client – implementation of a custom application (Web App or native code) to offload processing to the mobile device from the enterprise system. This is the most commonly recognized form of mobile app integrated with a back end enterprise system and may be implemented in Objective C (iOS), Java (Android, Blackberry), or HTML5/Javascript (cross-platform). Thick clients provide tighter integration with native mobile device hardware and O/S functions, and can perform significant pre- and post-processing of enterprise data (e.g., barcode scanning and interpretation, audio recording, image capture and manipulation, etc.)
- Virtual Screen – extension of enterprise application user interface elements to mobile devices using virtual screen technologies (e.g., VNC, Citrix, etc.). Under certain circumstances dictated by security requirements, time to deploy, or other constraint that prevents creation of one of the preceding solutions, the use of virtual screen technologies can provide rapid access to existing desktop-oriented enterprise services without requiring additional development for the mobile device. Multiple virtual screen client solutions can be easily integrated with existing enterprise systems to provide remote access to the systems.
- Stand-alone Mobile App – replication of enterprise functionality in a stand-alone mobile application. For certain classes of enterprise services, it may be possible and/or desirable to recreate the entire functionality of the enterprise application in mobile form. The performance and storage capabilities of modern mobile devices make it practical to migrate certain categories of enterprise or desktop applications and data directly to the mobile device. These stand-alone applications may be implemented via any of the mechanisms described above, but will utilize either platform-specific native code or cross-platform Web-oriented technologies.
CRGT’s mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) approach to development can accommodate all of these deployment models across multiple mobile device types. The primary method for achieving this level of interoperability is leveraging common support across major mobile device platforms for Web and data standards such as HTML5, Javascript, JSON, and remote procedure call mechanisms like SOAP, XMLRPC, and AJAX.
For more information on how we can help meet your Mobile App Development challenges contact us at info@crgt.com