2021-05-27 Technical Committee (Mobile framework)

Participants

• Johan

• Patricia

• Trevor

• Francois

• Sebastian

• Pawel

• Nikola

• Dominika

• Kacper

• Jakub

• Elias

• Wes

• Josh

• Chongsun

Agenda

Notes

• ODK - design and dynamic forms

• PWA

  • very popular right now (PWA and Web Bluetooth quite active)

  • Rewriting application from Angular → React / Angular newer

  • Easier to maintain as it’s all one application with different views

  • Easier to upgrade, as the user you can refresh the page (like currently)

  • Don’t have to re-rewrite everything, can do one part after another:

    • we’d change the scaffolding (dev-ui) of the app, so that we could have different parts in different versions.

    • does this restrict us on functionality?

      • depending on version of browser on mobile device (i.e. some of this trial use)

      • camera access good, however

        • zxxing (josh to link)

      • bluetooth access not so great - not full list

      • will user notice a difference?

        • should look native (try http://starbucks.com , spotify)

• does this have any implications for releasing within a release cycle (3 months), mobile specifically?

  • PWA: helps as the feature is developed, so in putting out mobile the feature is good, and the going to mobile is also fixing some tech debt on web UI.

• experience/perspective from vitialiance

  • have multiple interfaces

  • PWA is interesting

  • they’ve gone down this path and ended up in a hybrid, to try to cover as many devices as possible

  • been lucky in that they have legacy and new initiatives: been going down the PWA path.

    • no app store

    • wide audience

    • ways around hardware:

      • camera is easier

      • pick the right PWA (Blazor has some device backing, good roadmap, purchased by MS but open). Has starting templates. Xamarin roadmap. iOS is trickier overall.

      • Android and feature phones likely high for our users.

        • feature phones for our use case might be lower. e.g. if a CHW is in the field with a feature phone, they might be doing some stock mgmt closer to tracer products rather than full supply chain type things.

      • Did you try to use some IVR integrations for feature phones

        • yes, but some time ago. More with USSD.

        • Pawel has used some IVR and SMS gateway pieces. Grameen’s system.