Mobile App Development Archives

Oct 17, 2017 Todd Halfpenny No Comment

How MobileCaddy Aids Bugless Salesforce Releases

We’re all aware of the thrice-yearly Salesforce releases, and how they’re unstoppable forces. We’re all also aware that bugs exist, and that any bug found post-launch is a lot more expensive than one found during testing. Here’s a quick story on one such bug, and how MobileCaddy helped to get it removed from the Winter ‘18 release.

Whenever Salesforce patches make their way into pre-release orgs our daily test runs kick off and identify the change. These tests run on 15+ org setups and report back any issues that might have been observed. One such observation was reported back during the early days of Summer ‘17 patch rollouts into pre-release. The issue manifested itself initially as the inability to complete the authentication flow on iOS devices built with Salesforce Mobile SDK v4.0.2 and lower.

During the investigations into the issue, we raised a notification on our trust site to keep our partners and customers aware of the risk of the behaviour. We also developed some internal work-arounds. If the issue wasn’t fixed prior to Summer ‘17 making it’s way into our partners’ sandboxes, these would let us unblock them from their development and testing processes.

We also discovered that the bug broke the vanilla experience of browsing standard Visualforce pages on iOS Safari; this could be bad if it got through into production.

Sep 22, 2017 Todd Halfpenny No Comment

Sealing Buy-In for Salesforce Mobile Apps with PoCs

Demand for sophisticated Salesforce mobile apps continues to rise. But any mobile project still needs to be approved, and pitching a mobile experience with UI mock-ups and PowerPoint slides won’t do your app justice. Whether you’re working internally or are a partner pitching to a client, a Proof of Concept (PoC) is a powerful way to demonstrate that an app can meet its requirements. This article will highlight the key benefits PoCs can bring, as well as examples and tips for maximising their impact.

Why bother with Proof of Concepts?

PoC applications are pivotal to any mobile app proposal, allowing the demonstration of fundamental concepts and principles. Including a PoC as part of a pitch is a great way to put something tangible literally in the hands of the decision makers. It’s an opportunity to reaffirm confidence to key stakeholders, particularly where critical technical requirements come into play.

“The Proof of Concept system gives stakeholders a chance to understand the capabilities and limitations of the system.” - Anderson IT

A common scenario we’ve come across at MobileCaddy is the desire of our partners to reassure clients that fully network resilient mobile apps for Salesforce are possible. This example is also applicable to internal development teams working in larger organisations.

Our experience with offline-first architecture has proven this to be a grave concern for enterprises. As such, a PoC demonstrating exactly this functionality has been fundamental in progressing conversations beyond these sticking points, and further onto the real topic of how value can be gained from taking Salesforce operations mobile.

Aug 17, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Making the Right Choice for Mobile Salesforce Community Applications

The Salesforce Community Cloud allows organisations to bring together employees, partners, third-party workers, B2B customers, and even consumers. This article will explore three different approaches to delivering mobile Salesforce community applications, and will help readers choose the most suitable option.

What is a Salesforce community?

A Salesforce community is an online platform for organisations to connect employees, partners, and customers, while providing seamless access to the data and records they need to get work done or complete tasks.

Built on the Salesforce Community Cloud, they offer real-time engagement and the ability to share any file, data, or record anytime and from anywhere.

Jul 26, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

How Non-Functional Testing Enables the Delivery of Defect-Free Salesforce Mobile Applications

All applications need rigorous testing, and non-functional testing is often viewed as the less important half of a whole when compared to functional elements. In reality, though, non-functional testing is crucial for creating a defect-free mobile app. This article will highlight the importance of initial non-functional testing and offer advice for carrying out the necessary processes.

non_functional_size It’s common to focus on functional requirements and usability when testing an application, areas which are often where most of the effort is spent once an app has moved into the testing, QA, and UAT phases of a project.

Before even thinking about any functional app code, though, it’s important to test all the app’s non-functional elements first. If those aren’t prioritised, not only will it have a knock-on effect on all other testing, it will also impact the app’s ability to function once deployed.

Defining, and clearly understanding, non-functional testing processes is the key to releasing a defect-free mobile app into production. When separated into two groups, these can be referred to as ‘initial’ non-functional tests, and ‘running app’ non-functional tests. But before we go into more detail, it’s necessary to understand why non-functional testing is unique for mobile.

Jul 25, 2017 Justin Halfpenny No Comment

July 2017: What’s New with MobileCaddy and Your Salesforce Mobile Apps

One of the most exciting things about our Application Delivery Framework (ADF) is that it’s constantly growing and evolving, to allow our partners and customers to push the boundaries of what can be achieved with mobile apps on the Salesforce platform. As such, it’s vital that we help our community stay abreast of all the new MobileCaddy features and updates as they’re released.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to record and publish my regular discussions with Paul, our CTO, Todd, our Chief Mobile Technical Architect, and Frank, our Lead Product Engineer. In these sessions we’ll be covering what’s new with MobileCaddy, and will be sharing this with you to provide a first-hand look at everything we’ve been working hard on to improve.

So what’s new with MobileCaddy this month?

Jul 17, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Keeping Your Salesforce Mobile Apps Working Through OS Version Updates

Changes frequently occur to mobile operating systems outside your control, and your awareness, which can cause serious problems for your applications. When those apps are supporting critical business processes, it’s vital you’re constantly testing to ensure their performance is never compromised. This article will outline an approach to prevent OS version updates, upgrades, and other environment changes from affecting your enterprise mobile apps.

Apple_Android Operating and supporting any enterprise application in the context of mobile is challenging, because you don’t have control over that app’s underlying operating systems, nor can you predict new updates, upgrades, or patches being released.

This presents a problem for those responsible, because changes to an OS can cause mobile apps to suffer in their performance, or even stop working entirely. When those apps have been deployed into functions which are critical to the daily running of the business, that effectively renders the employees or community users relying on the app incapable as well, which simply can’t be allowed to happen.

So, firstly… Understand your app

You need to be aware of all the various components which make up your application, how they interact with each other, and what relationship they have with the OS.

Any number of things within your app can change without your knowledge, and the various elements and supported systems mean that continual testing is an absolute necessity to avoid app failure. This becomes even more important when applications are supporting business critical processes and workflows.

Jul 5, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Empowering a Nationwide Nonprofit Service with the Salesforce Community Cloud

Street-Link-cover

StreetLink is a UK-based nonprofit service which allows members of the public to alert their local authorities to rough sleepers in their area. The service has helped thousands of people find support and shelter thanks to a number of available channels of communication.

Those channels of communication function through various technologies, with a phone line, website, and mobile app each enabling members of the public to contact StreetLink, who then pass the information to the local outreach teams to locate and provide rough sleepers with assistance.

Jun 19, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Exploring the Developer Skills Needed to Build Apps with MobileCaddy

The MobileCaddy framework removes a great deal of the hard work for developers tasked with building sophisticated enterprise mobile apps. This means the business investing in the app won’t need to seek new developer skills or spend to recruit new team members thanks to MobileCaddy, and the developers can focus entirely on delivering the app itself. This article will detail the many ways the framework makes this possible, giving the business complete confidence it will be getting the app it needs.

appdelivery_small

You’ll always need capable, competent people to build a mobile app which can add value to an organisation beyond the obvious improvements to basic worker productivity. That’s why finding a solution which allows the people you already have to rely on their existing skills and focus on delivering that app, rather than working on tedious, time-consuming development, is so important.

With the MobileCaddy Application Delivery Framework, developers can quickly and easily build these more advanced mobile apps using a familiar set of skills, as the solution removes the need for specialist development, and provides helpful guidance across all stages of the project.

Here, we’ll answer key questions our partners and clients ask us about the skills needed to begin a mobile project on the Salesforce platform using the MobileCaddy Application Delivery Framework.

Jun 12, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Evaluating Technology Solutions for Successful Salesforce Mobile Apps

The success of a mobile application within a business will rest entirely on the choice of solution to develop and manage that app. This article will break down the most important stages of the decision making process when evaluating the wide variety of technologies capable of delivering Salesforce mobile apps, for businesses in this position.

App-Evaluation An organisation has decided it wants to invest in a mobile app for its employees – so what next? This decision is becoming increasingly common in the modern business landscape, as mobility continues to drive productivity, efficiency, and cost savings.

With a growing global workforce of ‘deskless’ employees, apps are actually fast-becoming more of a necessity than something businesses can choose to have or not have. With up to 37% of office-based workers now spending an average of eight working days in a typical month away from their desks, that additional rising demand will also be pushing businesses to invest in mobile.

So, the next decision the business will typically look to make is how to deliver the app it wants. However, there are a number of crucial factors which must be carefully considered, and fully understood, before investing in a technology solution to build an enterprise mobile app. When it comes to Salesforce, these considerations are even more important, thanks to the vast number of partner technologies and platform capabilities within the ecosystem.

Unfortunately, many businesses launch into their efforts to mobilise internal systems without taking the necessary steps in determining the class of technology solution their apps will require – a mistake which inevitably results in the app failing in some capacity.

May 30, 2017 Robbie Westacott No Comment

Top Mobile Tech Takeaways from the 2017 Salesforce World Tour London

Salesforce-World-Tour Each year the Salesforce community gathers in major cities around the globe for the Salesforce World Tour. These events allow those in attendance to come together and discuss, learn from, and celebrate each others’ hard work.

This year’s event drew well over 10,000 people to the ExCel Centre in London.

The MobileCaddy team went along to explore the new and exciting technology on show, and to understand how some of the world’s leading brands are using Salesforce to set new standards for success.

Better tools for employees to better serve customers

One of the main goals Salesforce sets itself each year is to help businesses provide the best possible customer experience through technology innovations. In the digital age, businesses are better equipped than ever to serve their customers, and this year’s World Tour focused on the convergence of cloud, social, mobile, IoT, and AI technologies as a game-changer for those who embrace it.

At MobileCaddy, we obviously have a keen interest in the role mobility is playing in redefining how businesses operate, regardless of size or resources, stretching across all lines of business and industry verticals.

With mobile being a key pillar of Salesforce’s core technology offerings, we’ve listed a number of interesting examples from the 2017 event below.

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