GeoField TouchBase
GeoField TouchBase Product Brochure
GeoField TouchBase Overview
GeoField TouchBase is a simple to use, lightweight Smartphone app designed to allow your field workers to collaborate with your back-office dispatch teams more effectively and efficiently. Within TouchBase, field engineers can view their allocated incidents on the map, provide incident status updates, capture notes and take pictures quickly and easily.
Information captured within GeoField TouchBase can be accessed in near-real-time by any user with access to the GeoField Central portal.
TouchBase is designed for organisations whose field workers are equipped with a Smartphone as their primary commuication device for the everyday management of task status and simple data capture.
Related GeoField Products
See also:
• The GeoField Central product description details the full capabilies of the GeoField Central portal;
• The GeoField client for tablets and laptops should be considered for field-based activities requiring map-based workflows and rich data capture capabilities;
• The GeoField Exchange product description explains how GeoField and GeoField TouchBase can be integrated within an Enterprise environment, ensuring that data captured in the field is delivered back to the appropriate host systems in near-real-time.
GeoField TouchBase Features
GeoField TouchBase has been designed to be quick and intuitive to use, allowing you to focus on your field work. Architected to support operation in a disconnected environment, TouchBase allows you to work anywhere, regardless of location or network availability.
Accept or Reject Allocated Incidents
Newly received Incidents are clearly displayed within the Inbox, allowing you to quickly review the Incident details and location before deciding how to respond. The Accept Incident and Reject Incident buttons can be touched to send the appropriate response back to GeoField Central – helping to ensure that the back-office Dispatch teams are fully aware of the allocation status of current incidents.
The user is prompted to enter a reason when rejecting an Incident, whereupon the Incident details are then removed from GeoField TouchBase. Accepted Incidents appear within the Incident Summary screen.
On logging into GeoField TouchBase, the user is asked to set their current Availability Status from either Available, or Not Available. When set to Available, Incident Dispatchers using GeoField Central can clearly see the Available status and can allocate new Incidents, whereupon a notification is received on the GeoField TouchBase Smartphone device advising that a new Incident has been received.
When set to Not Available, it is not possible to allocate new Incidents to this user from within GeoField Central.
The GeoField TouchBase Home screen allows the user to toggle between the Available and Not Available status values with one touch.
Indicate Availability to Recieve New Incidents
View Allocated Incidents in the Incident
Summary Screen
Once logged into the device, one glance at the Incident Summary screen allows you to clearly see which Incidents have been allocated to you. Each Incident is colour-coded according to the current status, allowing you to quickly see which Incidents have yet to be started, which are in progress, and which have been recently completed. Key details of each Incident are displayed in the Incident Summary screen, including
From the Incident Summary screen, touching the Incident of interest takes you to the full Incident screen where you can clearly see all information related to the allocated Incident – helping to ensure that your field workers have access to key information about the incident in advance of reaching the site.
From the Incident screen, you can choose to Sign On to the Incident if you wish to begin or resume work on the Incident. If you are already signed on to the Incident, the Sign Off button is available to stop work on the current Incident.
When signed on to an Incident, buttons on the Incident screen allow the user to change the incident status, capture notes and take photos against the Incident.
The Incident screen allows the user to view the history of all Notes and Photos that have been captured whilst the Incident has been allocated.
Within the Incident screen, the Status panel can be touched to reveal the list of available status values. On selection of the required status, the OK button allows the status to be confirmed and dispatched to the Outbox for sending back to GeoField Central – helping to ensure that the back-office Dispatch teams are kept up to date in near-real-time. Depending on the Status value selected, the user may be prompted to capture additional information via a GeoField TouchBase Form.
View an Incident
Update Incident Status
Add Note button allows the user to enter free-text details using the on-screen keyboard on the Smartphone device, assisting in capturing detailed information about the incident as it develops in the field.
Note Templates can be selected for commonly-used responses, including parameterised templates where the user can be prompted to provide specific values required by the template. As an example, on selecting a Note Template configured as: “Customers are expected to be back on supply at X”, GeoField TouchBase will prompt the user to enter the appropriate time, and will then automatically enter the completed Note within the Add Note screen.
On touching the Save button, the Note is dispatched to the Outbox for sending back to
Capture Incident Photos
GeoField TouchBase forms allow the user to quickly and easily capture additional information about the Incident in response to a status change. For example, when the status of the Incident is set to “Arrived On Site”, a GeoField TouchBase form may prompt the user to enter initial site assessment details.
Dropdown list selection, checkbox values, dates, signatures, notes and photos can be all be captured via GeoField TouchBase forms. Mandatory fields are highlighted and the user is unable to continue on the Incident until each mandatory field has an appropriate value – helping to ensure that the data you need to capture is right first time at the point of action.
On touching the Save button, the form data is dispatched to the Outbox for sending back to GeoField Central.
The Take Photo button allows the user to take a photo against the Incident directly from the Smartphone camera – helping to ensure that a clear picture of the incident is communicated directly from the field to the back-office Dispatch teams.
On touching the Save button, the Photo is dispatched to the Outbox for sending back to GeoField Central.
Validated Data Capture with TouchBase
Forms
Turn-by-Turn Guidance to the Incident
Location
Touching the Directions button launches the Smartphone SatNav application1 whereupon the user receives turn-by-turn directions right to the Incident location,
GeoField TouchBase has been designed to operate regardless of internet availability, and a red banner is displayed across the top of the app screen to make it clear to the user when connectivity is not currently available.
When operating in Disconnected Mode, updates are queued in the Outbox until a signal is detected,
whereupon they are automatically sent back to GeoField Central.
The user can view the Outbox at any time to see the history of updates that have been queued for return, allowing the user to call back to the office to verbally provide updates in the event that data coverage is not available at the location of the current incident.
Operates in Disconnected Mode
GeoField TouchBase alerts the user if an Incident remains without an update for a specified period of time, helping to ensure that you are meeting your customer service level agreements around the provision of timely updates.
Incident Alerts
GeoField TouchBase System Requirements
GeoField TouchBase requires the following minimum operating environment on the Smartphone device: • CPU: 1GHz dual core or higher
• Memory/RAM: 512Mb minimum • GPS enabled
• Camera enabled
• Display: 480 x 800 pixels, or higher
• Internet connection via Cellular Data or Wi-Fi Operating system software specification:
• Microsoft Windows Phone 8 (Native Application) • Android 4.3+ (Hybrid Native/Web Application) • iOS 6.x+ (Hybrid Native/Web Application)
About Sigma Seven
Sigma Seven is an information mobilisation specialist, providing integrated mobile workflow, data collection and map management systems.
Our task oriented solutions complement organisations’ own Enterprise GIS to enable field and office staff to work together more efficiently, deliver significantly improved customer service and enhance the quality and effectiveness of their corporate data.
