A Case Study of Mobile Client App (Android) Using Cloud-Based Management System
About
HDRF is a non-profit charitable trust. Its research and service facilities are based in a rural area in Mandra, outside of the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. These facilities – the Mandra Research Center (MRC) and the Mandra Intellectual and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (MIND) Center – act as the nuclei for the Foundation’s activities, focusing on the areas of research, education and service.
Challenge
The Challenge was to provide HDRF with a robust solution which would allow them to collect their manual survey data conducted at remote locations to seamlessly link with a comprehensive online management system with the provision to provide graphical and statistical reporting for their senior management and project research team to evaluate the results of the survey.
Solution
For the survey which was done manually in form of Yes or No questions and some subjective questions, Business Technologies (Pvt) Ltd created an Android application. Surveyors would initialize that application with the help of GPRS/Wifi with GPS activated so that location of survey could also be recorded from monitoring point of view. The Android app would load all the questions by itself and the surveyor would only have to choose the answer. For the subjective part, surveyor would add the description in the text field against the question and upon completion save that survey in the mobile device, which the app allows, along with survey location, subject information and pictures, if any. After the survey team had completed the survey at the remote locations, they would head back to their office where with the help of wifi they could push the saved surveys in the app to the centralized database through a safe web service thus producing run time data for the reporting feature in the comprehensive portal. All survey details could also be viewed from the online portal.
