Does anyone remember using one of the old bag phones?
This was something like the first “mobile” phone I owned. In fact it was a lot like that, including the dirt and mud, and it also came with truck attached. Of course, the capabilites of the current generation of mobile devices are fairly amazing. The phone application on my iPhone is barely in the top five of applications I use daily.
My cohorts and I at ACS use a varied collection of mobile devices and are passionate about developing applications for them.
That brings me to my point. I’m calling out for ideas for mobile applications.
In the past year ACS developed directory and event viewers for a wide array of mobile devices. These have met with some success and are getting a high level utilization in the ACS user community. We also developed a high degree of expertise in developing mobile apps. Our developers are looking for a challange!
Do you have an iPhone, a Droid, a Blackberry, or another device? Do you have an idea for an application that would help you in your ministry at the church? Do you have an idea that would help your Pastors be more engaged and effective in their ministries?
If so, let us know. Take the following survey to let us know your thoughts: http://www.acstechnologies.com/survey
You can also comment on this blog or email me directly steve.cumbia@acstechnologies.com or email development@acstechnologies.com
thanks!
Last 5 posts by Steve Cumbia
- The Grinch... - December 14th, 2011
- Thanks for the UX - October 6th, 2011
- Crazy Shirt Day - July 29th, 2011
- Let's Hear from a Dev Team - June 28th, 2011
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January 27th, 2010 - 11:10 pm
I advocate the following dossier in mobile apps or supporting features in the back office for the mobile apps:
Batch processing with data grid edit. Good ole DOS like traversal from one field of data to the next record with focus maintained on the same field. There is a function that sounds like this in the .NET framework. Very advantageous on working on a set of data before pushing it to the central database.
Ability to apply Individual People Profiles with photo submission of Add Individual. Have photo submissions scripted to a Web size, which is larger than thumbnail. Web size runs around 12-24 Kb and promotes faster load times on the web while providing adequate detail for ACSW photo directories. Having Individual People Profiles defined to apply to new individuals then also speeds up data entry a quantum leap by having common fields of data predefined and applied including starting Connections, Activity, Class, Staff, and Small Group assignments.
Events with Group Scope. The ability to associate a group, a range of groups, or an entire congregation in auto, open, or closed registration fashion to an Event. This has functional support for the following features. Note that it would be ideal to assign a Group Scope from a mobile app.
Lay Leader / Coordinator Event right-click and actions. The ability to mass add/edit in a batch manner that of Connections, Attendance, Event Reservations and Gifts including communication tools. By Group Scope leadership rights then extend ministry group level ability to update the central church data store of completing attendance by ministry the parts. This means church lay leaders who know the people in their group can update ACS in an accumulative fashion of persistently marking present all individuals in attendance irrespective of belonging to multiple ministry groups.
Implicit event filters on Connections, Attendance, and Gifts. This is to set the stage for smarter data entry and reports becoming.
Campus oriented user login. This is to set affinity of any transaction based record to be stamped with a Campus tag with an option to override when data entry is done cross-campus.
Gifts, Connections, and Attendance by campus. This would be a favorite feature for many and simplify the use of ACS for many users.
Resource Manager access rights to calendar resources. This is synonymous with department stewardship oversight to resources in the church. This sets the stage for notifications and “connection like” access for events that book resources under their charge.
Resource Groups in calendar. The ability to group commonly used Resources together in a speed-dial fashion to assign to Events for Booking.
Event Rescheduler tool. The ability to broadcast all associated group members assigned by Group Scope of a change in schedule including, if need be, Resource changes such as a change in a room. Also the ability to tag an Event Status as Postponed, and later a transition function to Rescheduled to copy the Event to the new date on the Calendar and release the original Event booking as a stub to broadcast as Rescheduled.
Change across the board the State field over completely to the State/Province combo box and Zip Code as Postal Code. Big headache with an international web and radio broadcast presence.
Last Address Line option for Postal Code, City, Province format in lieu of the City, State, Zip format. Without these last two options, it calls for workarounds for fancy inclusion and exclusion foot-work and renders the power of core Web enabled labels and options less than ideal.
So that is my dossier of mobile apps challenges.