iPad App for Field Service Team Eliminates Paper Work Orders and Enables Teams to Communicate in Real-Time.
A field service company, with employees who travel to job sites in their territory, hired Big Fish for iPad app design to enable their teams to complete work orders digitally and communicate in real-time.
about the client
Our client, a field service company, has a team of over 50 field technicians that travel to job sites in their territory each day. A dispatch team at their head office manages job scheduling, creates work orders and takes calls from field techs, and their customers, throughout the day.
Industry
Services
the opportunity
At the beginning of each shift, our client’s field technicians travel to the office to pick up their stack of printed work orders. The work orders are filled out by hand, and returned to the office at the end of their shift.
These must then be manually entered into their computer system and filed for years to come.
If a customer cancels or reschedules on the day of their service, the dispatch team calls the assigned field tech directly, to convey the update.
It is a non-stop, inefficient process that frustrates their employees.
As a solution, they tried issuing laptops to field teams. But the devices were heavy and cumbersome to use on job sites and the rollout was unsuccessful.
Key challenges included:
- Paper work orders and manual data entry
- Time-consuming travel to pick up job packets
- Missed or delayed updates from dispatch
- Failed laptop rollout for field use
the solution
After the failed laptop rollout, the leadership team decided that smartphones (with a custom app installed) would be easier to carry around job sites, more reliable and faster to use.
They reached out to Big Fish; our experience designing and developing custom field service apps made us an ideal fit for this project.
Through our discovery process we recommended an iPad app rather than a smartphone app, to make viewing and filling out work orders easier for the field technicians. We also uncovered additional uses for the app. This included push notification alerts from dispatch, integration with their parts management system and a task list.
We designed the iPad app to open into a map view of the technician’s jobs for the day. He or she can toggle between a map and list view to see their jobs at a glance.
Knowing the app needed room to grow, we centered the design around a visual navigation bar on the left side of the app. As new features are added, additional icons can be added.
Solution highlights:
- Map and list view of daily jobs
- Push notifications from dispatch
- Minimal and intuitive iPad interface
- Convenient and lightweight
The iPad app design is simple and intuitive, a trademark of Big Fish apps.
need a custom app?
If your field service team is still juggling paper work orders, phone calls, or outdated tools, a custom app could change everything. We’ll help you explore what’s possible, recommend the right approach and determine if we’re the right partner to bring it to life.
Reach out today to schedule a call with our founder.
