Building The Future

This page is designed to give an overview of a working example. We hope that this will clarify how the IX Framework can be used in a real world application.
 

Requirements:

The company Coach Travel Limited wants to implement a better way of recording various task carried out on their coaches. To begin with they just want to record the attendance of passengers as the board the coach at various stop along the route.

The driver must…

1. Check off each expected passenger
2. Record the number of pieces of luggage stored on the coach.
3. Issue a receipt for the luggage and print a barcode to place on the luggage.
4. The company wants to know the location of the vehicle and when and where each passenger embarks and disembarks.

Solution Elements:

Listed below is a short list of the various elements the solution is going to need to overcome.

1. Obtaining up to date passenger lists
2. Print a receipt and a barcode
3. Communicate the current location of the coach at all times.
4. Send updates back to the office
5. Receive changes to the passenger list or route
6. Allow for loss of GPRS coverage
7. Keep the application simple
8. Show the office the current location on a map
9. Present the data for the back office system or a cloudware application

The Solution:

Using the components of IX Framework we can create the final solution and this is how.

1. Active Studio will allow us to create the mobile application.
2. Within the application we can collect the passenger list from a data pocket in Data Exchange.
3. Using the Bluetooth connection we can drive a portable printer with signature.
4. Once we have the data we can send packets of data to Data Exchange.
5. In the background the mobile can send the latest GPS location to the mapping server.
6. To allow for the loss of coverage over GPRS we can buffer the transaction and then send them when we have coverage.
7. To avoid exposing the company's internal network, Data Exchange AJAX API's can be used to retrieve the data packets.
8. Finally we use Desk Online to give our customers and users an online desk with a link to the mapping server and web reporting applications.

As you read this example you will see the benefits.

Benefits:

• Near real time updates
• Reduced errors both for the passengers and the back office
• Security
• 24/7 availability
• Easy access