Nov/Dec 2003

ServiceNet, a system marketed as an affordable, Web-based mobile work force management package, has been added to the range of products offered by Telepartner Systems. It is aimed particularly at small and medium-sized companies, and allows them to send messages and job details by GPRS data link to mobile workers equipped with PDAs or smartphones.

The system is purely Web-based, requiring no special software installation on the host computer. There is a small forms-based application that runs on the remote devices, but users can configure this themselves from the host PC to meet their own requirements. Then they simply click a button to upload it to the mobile devices. They can re-configure the application in the same way later if required.

A pre-configured "vanilla" version of the software will be offered for users wanting a standard starting point for their implementation.

At the host end, a range of reporting options is available, and uses can define what information they want to view (for instance, estimated time of arrival on site, parts used or job completion). The company also plans to offer the facility to map the location of workers to within a few hundred metres in real time on screen, using cell-site location technology.