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March 28, 2024, 07:26:30 pm

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Member Introductions / Rick Polito from Sydney Austra...
Last post by rickp@axsapt.com.au - February 13, 2020, 03:38:21 pm
Hi Everyone.

Firstly thanks Steve for setting up this forum. It's been very useful for me as an Alpha newbie.

I got involved with Alpha when I attended the Boston 2014 annual conference (the one with the Elephant in the room). It was a slow start and it was difficult to get our full time developer on board (he loves programming in C# and would prefer to write an operating system rather than boring business systems) so I prototyped and he completed Openground Mindfulness Training, our first Alpha iOS/Android app in 2016. This app is quite successful for our customer but not for us financially as we didn't think of charging for the number of users which is now over 1,000.

We then developed an iPad Alpha app (not published) for a USA Medical Products Subsidiary, which helped them secure a multi-million dollar tender in Australia. This was also a fixed price contract for us.

Our third Alpha app was for an Australian Office Plant Hire company in 2018 also privately published. Our in house developer was busy working on another project so this was the first complete Alpha app I developed. It's is still in use and our customer is very happy with the productivity gains from it.

Last year, we secured another plant hire company contract and again our developer was too busy, so I developed it mostly after hours and on weekends over a few months. This time we published it on the AppStore and PlayStore and charged a substantial build charge and a per device license which is awesome as they now have 60+ devices and the company is expanding rapidly.

BTW Apple don't like publishing specific company apps, like this Frenchams Service App and try and get you to publish these on their corporate AppStore. After a few weeks trialing the corporate AppStore without much success, they thankfully relented and released that app on the general AppStore.

Our goal for this year is to develop low cost general purpose wider reaching business apps. Our first is a Fixed Assets Management Alpha App developed as a multi-tenanted app sharing the one Alpha Server.

Our C# developer has also taken an Expense Alpha App my business partner protyped and modified it so it uses a custom developed REST server on our license server and another on the clients' web servers to post transactions back to their accounting SQL databases. I wasn't too keen on that project as has been very costly to develop and maintain and I'd rather use the Alpha Server on all our apps.

It's a shame that Alpha doesn't seem to have a lower cost Alpha Server model (e.g. up to 20 concurrent connections) that would make it more affordable for some of our smaller clients. Is this something that interests other IADN members?

BTW I'd love to connect to other Alpha Developers in Australia and New Zealand to share ideas and work opportunities.

Here are our current public apps on the stores:

12
Mobile and Browser Applications / Re: Need Some Creative Assista...
Last post by Steve Wood - February 12, 2020, 06:38:44 am
Phil,

I will try to direct members to this post but because we just started to use this forum again not too many members are here yet to respond.
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Mobile and Browser Applications / Need Some Creative Assistance
Last post by psamuels56 - February 11, 2020, 09:26:48 pm
Hi Everyone.

I had a request, from a customer, and my first reaction was that I couldn't make it happen (I hate telling them that... I usually say I can get them anything they can ask for).  But I thought I'd share it with you, to see if someone had any creative thoughts.

Here's the simple scenario: I'm working with a seasonal driveway repair company (they're in Rochester, NY - so the repair season is limited to April - October) that dispatches 6 or 7 truck crews, every day, to do the repairs. They're using a desktop application I deployed 3 years ago that takes phone requests from customers, schedules the repair dates, plots each trucks' routes and manages all of the payments received by check, cash or a credit card number, that the customer calls in. It has been working very well and they love the program.

For this season, they requested the ability for customers to make their credit card payments online (apparently, they get so many credit card calls, during the day, that it's taking up a lot of time, for the accounting staff). 

Normally, I'd say this was easy, BUT here's my problem: Customers are rarely at home when the repairs are done. The drivers leave "hang tags" on the customers' doors, with a handwritten price telling them how much they owe. The hang tags are printed with instructions for sending a check or calling in a credit card. The drivers don't use job #'s or any other identifiable information, on the hang tags. BUT, since the customers didn't place their orders online or have the invoice/job numbers (or any login information), I can't think of how I'd create an easy, but secure, system that allows them to make their Credit Card payments online.

Now, when a check comes in, the accounting department looks up the address and/or name on the check and matches it to a job.  It's been working that way for years, even before they were using my program. If a Credit Card call comes in, the agent asks for the address that was repaired and they can apply the credit card payment to that order.

So, I can't come up with a way that the customers could go online to enter their Credit Card payments.  I can't just have them enter an address to lookup their jobs (they'd be able to see the job information and prices of any neighbor).  I was thinking of having the drivers give a job code, made up of random letters and numbers (at least 10 characters) that link to the jobs.  That could be made secure, BUT it would require the drivers to correctly write that job code on each of the hang tags. Needless to say, I don't think I'd trust the drivers to do that job accurately and "neatly"... AND, preprinting the job codes is a logistic nightmare.

Maybe, I'm making this more complicated than it is, but I listen to all of you, every Friday, and you have so many good ideas... so I thought I'd ask.  Any ideas would be appreciated.  - Phil
14
Code Share / Re: UX ControlBar and Web Page...
Last post by psamuels56 - February 11, 2020, 08:41:45 pm
Steve, thanks for sharing this.  These downloads make the Friday meetings so much more valuable. 
15
Code Share / Re: UX ControlBar and Web Page...
Last post by glenschild - February 11, 2020, 04:34:41 pm
Hi Steve

Thanks for making this available

Glen
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Code Share / UX ControlBar and Web Page Exa...
Last post by Steve Wood - February 11, 2020, 10:59:29 am
The attached UX component is from the IADN Webinar topic on building a web template that uses the ControlBar for navigation.
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Announcements, Forum Rules, etc. / Welcome to your Forum!!
Last post by Steve Wood - February 10, 2020, 05:20:14 pm
This Forum is provided by IADN as a resource to discuss Software Development, Business, Design, Methods, Technology, etc.

This forum is not intended to be a replacement for the Alpha Software Message Board; you should take your more technical questions to that forum. Instead, IADN is dedicated to the success and happiness of you, the software developer. And so our Forum categories are about the business of software development and our technical categories are purposely broad-based.

Please make good use of this forum and be sure to post any ideas in our Forum Ideas topic.
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