Now Playing In the Google Play Store: OnForce for Android!
Guest Blog: Scott Epple, OnForce Product Manager
As many of you may know, we released our first Android beta app in February to a small group of OnForce Pros, and have been steadily iterating on the product and growing our beta group in the months since. Today, we’re pleased to announce the release of version one of the OnForce mobile app for Android smartphones to the Google Play store. If you’re in a hurry, you can grab the app here. If you have a minute to stick around though, I’d like to share a few of the learnings we’ve picked up along the way.
Android’s a jungle
We always knew our OnForce Pro community was a diverse crowd, now we know their choice in smartphones is just as varied. During the beta, the OnForce app was installed on 144 distinct devices running on 23 distinct flavors of the Android OS, not one of which holds more than 8% usage share among Pros. When people talk about fragmentation, this is what they mean. Developing for such a wide array of devices makes for an interesting challenge, but one that we know will be worth it as we expect the app to reach about two-thirds of our Pro base that use Android devices.
User feedback is invaluable
In the past four months, we’ve grown our beta group from a small handful to more than 500 Pros. One thing OnForce Pros have never been shy about is sharing their opinion – and we couldn’t be happier about that. It sounds obvious, but it bears repeating: user feedback is critical to the process of building great products and services, and great companies. Our beta Pros have given us feedback in spades and our whole team was able to see it and read it in real time. Feedback sparked many conversations and debates internally, it helped us discover issues faster, and it gave us data to prioritize what we work on. And it’s not just a beta thing: we’ll keep that line of communication open for all users of the mobile app. So, send us a thought, a question, a suggestion: it all helps us improve.
Powerful tools lead to powerful results
We’ve written before about the impact of mobile technology on field services. The results continue to confirm our belief that Pros in the field are able to be more responsive, more efficient, and more reliable when equipped with the proper tools. We see evidence of this in our data and in comments from our beta Pros. Today’s announcement means that these capabilities will now be available to thousands more OnForce Pros. In fact, we expect that around 85% of our community will now carry the OnForce app on their Android or iOS device. Our plan is to continue to arm this community with the features and information necessary to deliver great service efficiently.
Last, but certainly not least, the entire OnForce team would like to say a sincere thank you to all of the Pros who participated in the Android beta for your honest, thoughtful, and constructive feedback. We’re proud to have worked with you to get this app shipped, and we’re excited as ever for what’s to come!
June 12th, 2012 at 11:15 pm
I think it was a valiant effort. However, 2/3 of the onforce users being able to use this application is not going to be a reachable go this time. My Samsung galaxy is not even able to run it.
June 13th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Won’t work on Samsung Tab2 with Android 4!?
June 13th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Jason/Mike, while not all devices will be compatible because of the hardware requirements of our app, we just released an update that fixes compatibility for over 200 additional devices. You can download it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onforce.OnForce. Please let us know if you have any other issues.
June 24th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I use a Galaxy Tab 7 and I wasn’t able to print the pdf workorders until I downloaded this app. I have an HP bluetooth printer that runs on a battery and this was the 1st time I have been able to print off my OnForce workorders on the road.
Great app!!
July 23rd, 2012 at 8:42 pm
The latest update Won’t install on the new nexus 7 tablet which runs jelly bean. I get a “not compatible” notice.
It does run great on my T-Mobile
SGS2 though.
July 24th, 2012 at 11:06 am
Marian, it’s great to hear that you like our app! We have more enhancements coming that we think you’ll like too. In the meantime, keep your feedback coming.
July 24th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Lance – thanks for your comment. How do you like your Nexus 7?
Right now, the OnForce app requires a rear-facing camera due to our photo upload feature. We may adjust that requirement in the future to accomodate a wider range of devices. Stay tuned!
August 4th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I have an iphone 4 (ios 5.1.1), and the app has great functionality. The only draw back is I can’t complete a work order for payment without using an outside source. Do you forsee the feature being implemented in the future??
August 31st, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Timothy, we are working on allowing OnForce Pros to complete for payment through their mobile apps. Timing of the release is TBD though.
September 4th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
The app was working fine on my Motorola Xoom until the Jellybean update, now it crashes on startup.
October 4th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Hi Vernon,
We could help you troubleshoot your issue. Please send your comments to mobile_feedback@onforce.com. Thank you.