Mobile device programming by itself can be a serious test of software engineering skill, where coders are usually forced to work with a fraction of the resources available compared to the full .NET Framework. Screen area, processor speed, memory, and disk space available stand at a fraction of what one would generally get with a desktop computer. In fact, the .NET Compact Framework implements only thirty percent of the full .NET Framework, doing away with a large subset of the classes deemed to be unsuitable for the small footprint required of a mobile application.
In such a resource-tight environment, the wrong design decisions can often lead to an underperforming application, a clunky interface that irritates users, or worse—grinds to a halt when deployed in an enterprise scenario where hundreds of instances of the application need to exchange and sync data in synchrony.
As you progress through this book, you will find that the three-tier model recurs throughout all chapters. In each approach, you will learn how to think a few steps ahead and adopt designs that allow the various components you are building to fit in together elegantly.
We start this first chapter by exploring an overview of game developer Tomorrow Inc. and CRMLive.NET, a mobile customer relationship management suite that we will be building for this company. By the end of this chapter, you will obtain:
- A first-hand look at how the end product you are developing will look
- A general overview of the functional scope of CRMLive.NET
- A look at the various designs undertaken in CRMLive.NET and why they work best in each scenario
- An understanding of the various classes in CRMLive.NET and their interactions
- An overview of the various .NET Compact Framework technologies you are going to use along the way
Tomorrow Inc. is a cutting edge gaming company of about 5,000 employees based in New York with branches around the world. They have recently developed a technology that immerses the gamer in a virtual world and are planning to launch their first MMIG (Massively Multiplayer Immersive Game), titled 'Rabbits from Hell' at a road show in New York and Tokyo at the same time.
The products include a virtual reality chair, simply known as 'The Chair,' which is basically an interface to the game that allows full unrestricted physical motion from the player. Used together in conjunction with a set of Virtual Reality goggles, it brings gaming realism to a whole new level by immersing the player completely in the game. The Chair is about the size of an armchair and after purchase, a visit will be typically arranged by Tomorrow Inc. technicians to deliver and install the product in the customer's home.
The road show is the biggest ever launch in the history of Tomorrow Inc., stationing about 100 salespersons at the event itself and another 50 on the streets for a total duration of three weeks. Tomorrow Inc. needs a suite of mobile applications: CRMLive.NET to cater to the needs of three different levels of staff—the salesperson, the boss, and the technician.
Tomorrow Inc. needs a mobile sales force application that will allow its salespersons to capture and manage leads, opportunities, and customers at the event. Before we proceed with the technical requirements, let's explore Tomorrow Inc.'s business a little further in detail.
A 'lead' is a sales term that applies to someone who shows an interest in the product, but how genuine he or she is about buying it has not yet been ascertained. It is usually the intention of the salesperson to convert a lead (a curious prospect) into an 'opportunity' (a serious potential buyer) and eventually into a buying customer.
At any one time during and after the launch of the game, there will be a mix of people from all three categories. There are the curious onlookers at the road show who casually enquire about the game. These people fall under the leads category. Then there are those who have been hounded by salespersons for weeks. They have the money and do show a genuine interest to buy, but need a little more coaxing. These are 'opportunities'. Finally, there are the frenzied young kids who have camped outside the road show hall since 2 a.m., having saved up their entire life savings anticipating the game release. These are undoubtedly buying customers.
Tomorrow Inc. is forecasting a huge flood of visitors to its road show, and has placed a strong emphasis on a lean UI design that can streamline quick data capture and access. The following list highlights the core requirements of this application in brief:
- Capable of lead, opportunity, customer, and task management
- Must have quick and responsive UI
- Must support offline access to stored information (when a network connection is unavailable)
- Must support strong personalization features
- Must be highly secure—Tomorrow Inc. is anticipating the possibility of lost mobile devices and wishes to protect locally stored information
- Must be capable of fast full-text search (searching within file attachment content and the entire database)
- Salespersons may decide to share leads at any point in time. The application must be able to transfer leads from a mobile device to another easily
- Must have dual database support—due to incredibly poor IT budget management, half of Tomorrow Inc.'s servers are hosted on Oracle, with the other half hosted on Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise. Extending this to the mobile device, this means that Oracle Lite Edition and Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition support will be necessary
- Authentication must make use of Tomorrow Inc.'s existing ActiveDirectory setup
- Must provide Japanese-language support for users at the road show in Tokyo
The boss of Tomorrow Inc. travels across country frequently by train; his trips usually take him through areas with little or no Internet connectivity. His requirements are primarily centered on a mobile dashboard application that allows real-time monitoring of sales figures and Key Performance Indices (KPIs). His requirements include:
- Must provide customizable dashboard views
- Must have real-time access to the latest data from the server
- Must be able to display information visually in the form of interactive charts and gauges
After the customer purchases a game account, the Tomorrow Inc. technician will need to make a visit to the customer's residence to install and deploy The Chair. Before that can happen, the following series of actions will first take place:
- A data entry clerk at the Tomorrow Inc. office will create a job at the server.
- Once a job is created, it will be broadcast to all technicians on the field over the Internet.
- The technicians can then choose to accept a job via the mobile application. The accepted job is subsequently removed from the list of jobs at the server.
The core requirements for this application include the following:
- Must be able to broadcast/push new jobs to individual mobile devices over the Internet even if these devices are offline
- Must be able to propagate the technician's actions back to the server
Based on the requirements outlined in the previous section, we can roughly summarize the data flow of CRMLive.NET in the succeeding diagram. CRMLive.NET comprises three separate and distinct applications that tap into the same central data source.
The sales force application is the key application that provides data to fuel the rest of the system. You will notice from the diagram that mobile devices running the sales force application can also share data directly with each other. This is because salespersons at the event may decide to transfer their leads and opportunities to their colleagues. At the end of the day, all data entered through the sales force application is eventually synced up to the central database.
The support case system will make use of information captured from new customers, such as their residential addresses and phone numbers, to generate new jobs for the technicians.
The mobile dashboard on the other hand will periodically retrieve sales-related data (keyed in when new customers are created) directly from this central database every minute. This sales data is converted into visual charts for display on the mobile dashboard.
Each of these three applications access data in a different way. In all three scenarios, the central database can be accessed over the Internet as well as over an Intranet. We will also explore the different ways to protect data transmission and access throughout CRMLive.NET in the later chapters of this book.