Securely Extend Your Enterprise to Mobile Devices

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The proliferation of mobile devices, combined with faster network connectivity and infrastructure provides a new channel for enterprises to solve the challenges they face in serving customers, employees, and stakeholders. Real-time connectivity across functions in enterprises, and blurring of lines between consumer and enterprise solutions mean that organizations stand to gain tremendously in agility and competitive advantage through innovative mobility solutions that gather valuable insight into operations and performance.
 
At the same time, mobility solutions also present large challenges, such as the integration of these solutions to existing infrastructure and systems, as well as scalability and security. Hence, some of the key considerations for organization looking to overcome these challenges include:
 
• How can existing server-side or middleware architecture be integrated with newer, faster, and more efficient mobile applications?
• What should the enterprise server side architecture look like?
• How are security, business scalability, and performance requirements met?
• What are the considerations when designing next-generation architecture for mobile applications?

 

FieldEZ, an enterprise mobility solution, focused around field force automation, understands these requirements to provide a strongly-integrated solution that is robust, secure, and scalable.
 
FieldEZ’s ready-to-run application can be accessed independently or can be integrated into existing CRM applications. It helps organizations extend existing field service processes to deliver optimized workflows. In addition, FieldEZ supports multi-channel customer service, schedule optimization for field resources, mobile and wireless connectivity, inventory management, and invoicing functionality.
 
FieldEZ offers a classic multi-tier, cloud-based framework that comprises a persistence tier (for storing user and application data), an application server (for business logic) and the presentation layer (for rendering end user access). With its ability to support the development of front-end client and back-end integration layers, FieldEZ allows organizations to develop on-device mobile applications that run on a variety of devices and operating systems.

 

Cloud/Application Server
FieldEZ is deployed on Amazon cloud EC2 (a Tier 4 certified data center) and is spread across two data centers in North America. The Nginx web server clusters and Tomcat application server are deployed in separate virtual server instances across the data centers. This ensures that the servers support connection requests at all times (from mobile clients and web browsers).

 

Database Storage
The FieldEZ framework uses MySQL database server with two instances running in primary – slave mode. Maintained in different physical locations, the primary database contains all the data, inventory, workflows, and business logic. This information is periodically backed up in the slave database, with transaction logs backed up every 15minutes and full backups done daily If the primary database server fails for any reason, the application servers will connect to the slave database and the application will resume operation

 

Business Continuity Plan
Since all layers of the application – i.e. web server, application server, and database – are mirrored in two data centers that are physically located in two different cities, FieldEZ is capable of resuming business activities even if there is a calamity in one location

 

Scalability
FieldEZ is designed to support high concurrent usage at every layer. The web server and application server clusters offer enough nodes to ensure that millions of transactions are supported without any performance degradation. In case you need to meet additional transaction requirements, you can add more nodes to the cluster using the Amazon cloud service.

 

Heterogeneous Back-End Integration
FieldEZ allows seamless and customized back-end integration of legacy applications or front-end additions with multiple applications and data within the enterprise, including SAP, QuickBooks, Salesforce CRM and Sage50

 

Security
FieldEZ offers stringent data security using 256-bit SSL encryption that provides end-to-end protection for message privacy, integrity, and security:

• No clear text password is stored or logged into the application
• All data transports over SSL; only SSL port of web servers open to internet
• Strict authentication checks for access to the application
• Strict authorization checks on both client and server to avoid data sharing
• Only SSH connections to servers (based on public/private keys)

FieldEZ Version 4.7.3 Released

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We are excited to announce couple of feature enhancements to the FieldEZ Application:

  1. SLA Management Module (new)
  2. Call Create / Edit Page (revamped)
  3. Timesheets Tab (revamped)
  4. Call Details Tab (the new page is now default)

1. SLA Management Module (BETA)           

TO ACCESS THE NEW SLA MANAGEMENT PAGE:

Click on settings icons on the top right corner of the header, and select the Advanced Settings tab. Under the advanced settings page, click on the ‘Manage SLA’ link to access the new SLA Management (BETA) module.

Access SLA management page

The SLA Management module helps organization set and configure Service Level Agreement (SLA) notification alerts for a wide variety of actions, including:

  • Assigned User not responded to a new ticket after a predefined SLA time
  • Assigned User not reached a particular stage of the process (say, reached site) within a predefined SLA time
  • Assigned User not able to close a ticket within a predefine SLA time

In this BETA release, the admin can create new SLA for each workflow or business process defined, and set an email / notification alert. This notification can be sent any or all of the below:

  • Assigned User
  • Manager
  • Admin
  • End-Customer
  • External contact via email

Subsequent releases will also have the provision to update the end-customer via SMS (mobile text message)

1.1        SLA List Page

The image below shows the landing page when one clicks on the Manage SLA link from Advanced Settings section. The page lists the SLAs configured, with options to copy (duplicate), edit and delete the SLA.

SLA List page

Create New SLA

Click on the ‘Add SLA’ button on the top left corner. You will be prompted with a screen as shown below:

Create New SLA

SLA Label: Give a name to the SLA you are creating

Select Workflow: The SLA can be created for a specific workflow

Create Time / Assigned Time:  The SLA can be triggered based on lapsed time from either the Ticket Create Time or the Assigned End Time

Hours and Minutes:  The SLA will trigger once the time duration specified in these fields have lapsed beyond the Create time / Assigned time

Status:  This a status checker field. If the specified status is not reached at the time the SLA is triggered, only then will it trigger the alert

Alert action: This box will list the notification templates, and can be configured by going to the Notification page.

If there are no notification templates predefined, you can create:

Settings icon –> Advanced Settings –> Manage Notifications –> Create Notifications –> Create New Notification

Create New SLA -1

Note: Please select the action type as alert in the drop-down list

2.          Create / Edit Call

The Create and Edit Call pages have been revamped with a more intuitive and up-to-date UI format. All the existing functions are retained and no new features additions have been added at present.

Edit Call

3.          Timesheet

The new timesheet tab provides a high-level view of the users’ attendance across various time periods, with ability to drill-down to specific user level information.

Timesheet

The initial screen shows the clock-in (punch-in) status of the user – green shows clocked in and clocked out, yellow shows either one of clock-in or clock-out, while red shows the users who have neither clocked-in nor clocked-out.

On click of the individual colour cells, one can get an idea of the route and distance covered by the particular user as viewed on the map.

4.          Call Details Page

The new Call Details page released as per the previous release (4.7.2) has now been made the default page. To understand more details about the Call Details page and its function, please refer to the previous release notes (4.7.2) – Click here.