Question

Use of third party software

  • 24 November 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 182 views

Userlevel 1
Badge +5

Hi.

I would like to know if it is possible to have info sent from 3rd party software and entered into a text field on one of the fsm mobile screens. I need this in order to convert an image of text into a string and get this into the databasis.


4 replies

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Hi,

In which form you are receiving info to FSM? Via an FSM integration? Or is it an integration done in Mobile.
Anyway, as long as you have the info in database, you can show them in mobile text fields. I am not quite sure about the image processing scenario that you are talking about. Which system does that?
Please add more info regarding the full requirement/what is the business scenario. So that we can suggest an approach.

/Sanjeewa

Userlevel 1
Badge +5

Ok so using the field service management application on an android device, I want to take an photo, convert any text on that photo into data, put it into a text field of a screen on the application, and then sync that data and update an entry of the fsm database. So I need to know if and how I can do this.

Userlevel 5
Badge +12

Hi,

As per my knowledge, you cannot achieve this only via FSM app. Since there is no capability of image processing in FSM APP out of the box. Few possible approaches,

1. Customize (code level) the FSM App (not recommended, but there are instances where FSM App is customized in some projects), you may integrate another third party android app to do the image processing, send back the result to FSM and store the result in FSM Mobile DB. Later it will be sync to server as well.

2. Without customizing the mobile, integrate a third party android app using deep linking. 3rd party app should be able to capture the image, communicate result to FSM server via ODATA APIs. Once the result synced from FSM server to Mobile, that will available for you to display on a text field.

3. Capture the image in mobile, let it sync to server, integrate another 3rd party app/service which is capable of image processing, receive the result in to FSM DB.

Bottom line is, FSM cannot process images. For that you have to leverage capabilities in another software.

/Sanjeewa

Userlevel 5
Badge +15

On a completely theoretical basis, you may want to research if there are any Android barcode scanning or keyboard apps that have OCR capability.  FSM Mobile by default uses the zxing Barcode Scanner app, but can use any other apps for scanning.  We also recommend using Google keyboard (GBoard).  We don’t support any specific barcode scanning app or keyboard, but in theory, any could work. Note that other apps or keyboards may not have some necessary functionality (such as international numeric formats, etc.)

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