turning off mWO permanently

Hi,

Not an answer to your question, but as a customer who is about to launch MWO - is there a specific reason you opted to switch?

Kind regards,

/Magnus

We had been using IFS mobile app for 13 years – from the PDAs in app 7.5 to mWO in app9 and now Cloud. There are quite a few reasons why we finally decided to pull the pin on it. I’ll be brief.

1. Increased upkeep
    

Unless you have an MDM (mobile device management) solution, keeping up with the constant updates from Android OS, and the app updates pushed out from IFS is a battle. We just didn’t have the resources to continuously test and update. We often find it the hard way about something that gets broken with a new update. mWO, being offline capable, triggers many failed transaction that need frequent manual intervention to get the data updated in the main database.

MDM can help with TP, but we don’t see a necessity.

mWO also needs a lot of back-office configuration and fine tuning (sync rules, sync jobs, devices, mobile users, batch jobs, etc) to make it run as optimal as you can.

2. Performance issues

mWO is resource hungry, especially when the local database on the devices keeps growing and the devices age. mWO app on some of our Samsung devices (that are only 2-3 years old) in our fleet hang often during page transition, adding to the already frustration levels of the technicians.

TP runs well on a mobile web browser.

3. TP is device agnostic

mWO can only run on certified and tested devices. TP can technically run on any device with a web browser.

4. Difficulty with diagnosing issues

IFS tests the app on a subset of Android devices, and we often found out that the errors that we get on our range of models cannot be recreated on theirs making the issue resolution increasingly difficult. The bug reports often don’t reveal the underlying cause. Some of the errors that we get are random and device specific, and I can’t keep the device with me until IFS gets around to be able to check it – as I need to send the device with the tech for their work.

TP issue diagnosis is a lot easier as they run on the web client, not on a remote device having its own local database.

5. Data sync delay

mWO has its own database that needs continuous sync as it is an offline client. Often data gets locked triggering failed transactions, or data records get lost in transition for unknown reasons. There are unexplained delays in data getting synced to the devices, often forcing the technicians to initialize their devices which mostly works. There are many instances that they must clear the app data altogether (especially after an app update) to get it working.

There is no sync, delay, or initializing with the TP.

6. Data can be changed parallelly

Once an assignment is sent to mobile, updating information on the tasks can be tricky as the objects get locked once it is in the mobile. Often we need the techs to send the jobs back to change something.

With TP, the information can be changed parallelly by the dispatchers as no offline data retention.

7. Limited configurability

Any configuration changes (workflow, page layout, new fields) etc needs a client initialize on the remote devices. As the techs may not initialize on time or stay offline for a prolonged duration, there is no guarantee on when the actual configurations have been viewed on the clients.

Custom events have limited effect as mWO as it mostly runs off its own database.

Since TP is online, the configuration changes are instant. TP can use the extended configurability with the page designer, unlike mWO.

If you must have offline usability, I believe then mWO is your pick, as TP won’t work without a data connection. We do have many limited coverage areas, especially in the outback, impacting the use of the TP, but in our context, the pros of using TP outweighs the cons.

Feel free to message me if you need. Good luck!