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1. en nnne nnns seen n esee 23 5 5 1 Essential Functional Requirements soc cx aa vete tee edet 23 5 5 2 Desirable Functional sees 24 5 5 3 Further Functional Requirements eee esee esee nene enne 24 5 6 NON FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS seen eese nene nnn 24 5 6 1 Essential Non Functional Requirements eese eese 24 5 5 2 Desirable Non Functional Requirements eee eese eene eene nnne 24 5 5 3 Further Non Functional Requirements eee eese eee eene nennen 22 LOB DESIGN obs 26 o I TECHNICAL S YSTEM OPTIONS STEG 26 6 1 1 Identification of Constraints eese esee eene nennen nennen nennen 26 6 1 2 Front End Hardware Options ees seen ener eene enn 26 HA Operating SN 27 6 1 2 2 Wireless transfer MENDES eroe tona eee 29 6 1 3 Chosen Front End Hardware 29 6 1 4 Development Language and Environment Options eese 30 6 2 DADADESION NN 31 6 2 IF Relational Data Analysis xe t e haan is AL a n e RR RS 31 6 2 2 Data ees 31 6 2 3 31 6 3 5 lt
2. aa 32 6 4 USER INTERFACE DESIGN ori dad me ssp 33 Te IMPLEMENTATION 35 7 1 terea nette requete eed 25 35 FADD CY QW Soret casts EAS 35 Tolo PalmOS SDR ras De 36 7 1 4 Palm OS Emulator eese seen eene eene entente eren eene nennen nennen nnn 36 T Palm Illes i tad dnte eon hit Haein ahi iachita WHE 36 2 OUT INB OF DEVELOPMENT ang 36 TDA Resources seda n 36 7 2 2 Pali File Structure i3 ota aere 36 7 2 3 Palm Application Structure eee 37 7 2 4 Storage of Data on Palm 0 eene eene neni 38 7 25 COMPIOSSUON Mm 38 7 2 6 Drawing Functions 39 TATE are 39 7 3 RECOVERY SCREENS AND 40 Rad NE 40 3 2 Member Edit dude 42 753 9 BEedkdownDelails 25 ttt tette NG 43 7 3 4 Note 44 arb NT 44 TA PROBLEMS AND ISSUES seede 45 SEVALUATION EE 47 STTESING SEE 47 LL MENN ST 47 6 1 2 Black Box 48 8 1 3 User Acceptance J 48 8 2 FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS is n ree ee rotos exe 49 8 3 EVALUATION OF CHOSEN METHODOLOGY 0 0 00
3. 21 5 Requirements Specification This section outlines the specific requirements for the solution These are to be used in section 6 1 the Logical System Specification to selectthe most appropriate hardware and software etc to be used They will also be utilised as criteria for the evaluation of the final solution 5 1 The Problem Owner Any company that requires their mobile workforce to collect and store information experiences the problem of data collection in the work field environment see section 4 1 1 for more details More specifically some breakdown recovery companies such as the AA have problems collecting data on their members and breakdowns see section 4 3 1 2 for more details 5 2 The Intended Users The intended users are any recovery company that requires data collection by their employees in a work field environment This can however be expanded to any business or even individual which needs to collect information Store it and then transfer it 5 3 Required System Processing As the system will be based on a mobile computer the processing tasks should be kept at minimum as mobile devices tend to be less powerful than desktops etc Wherever possible processing tasks should be completed on the machine the mobile device connects to rather than the mobile device itself This machine could be a desktop ora server 5 3 1 Essential System Processing The essential processing tasks are as follows e Creation of member de
4. p Re Invoice for Parts Service 69 CO CO i Required Entity Optional Entity Required Action Optional Action Computerised Data store Manual Data Store 70 Data Flow Diagram AA s Existing System Deployment gt GPS System System 02 Y Location Membership Details Breakdown Details Call Centre Determine whether repairable or not Process breakdown Acknowledgement Membership Details Breakdown Information Breakdown Details Membership Details Repair Details Vehicle Details Fill in Breakdown Report 4 Patrol eason why un repairable Calls 2nd Patrol mia Breakdown Report Membership Details Breakdown Report Repair Details Take to garage T Vehicle Details Repair Breakdown Report Breakdown Details Garage 1st2nd Patrol Fill in Invoice for z bership Details Patrol Details Invoice For P i M2a Y Vehicle Details Supplier Details Parts Service Payment Details Invoice For Parts Service Accounts Accounts Enter into System Invoice For Accounts system PartsiService a 5 Details Patrol Details ehicle Details Supplier Details Payment Details Invoice For Parts Service 71 Data Flow Diagram AA s system after computerisation Deployment gt system 880 7 Membership Details locate
5. wireless solution to the manual processes used by breakdown companies Randeep Chahal Computer Science 2002 2003 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and the appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others understand that failure to attribute material which is obtained fom another source may be considered as plagiarism Signature of student Summary In recent times new paradigm of computing has been fashioned called mobile computing Advances in portable information appliances and hardware technologies such as mobile phones personal digital assistants P DA handheld and portable computers and wireless networks have lead to this creation This project develops a mobile application for vehicle recovery companies in an attempt to understand and evaluate the mobile computing arena The application caters for data collection and storage in the work field environment It can easily be adapted for any business thathas a mobile workforce and was developed on the PalmOS Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their support advice and help during work on this project My supervisor Haiko Muller my housemates Dave Keith and Kit and my Parents I would especially like to say thanks to Steve Willingham for providing the information and agreeing to be potential user 1 INTRODUCTION 6 EA PROJECT AIM ATTENDO 6 1 2 RE
6. 26 237 504 26 247 26 307 400 26 828 502 26 828 502 26 838 26 898 400 27 439 501 27 439 501 27 449 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 6 to 4400 events Gremlin 6 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 7 to 400 events Gremlin 7 finished successfully to event 4400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 8 to 4400 events Gremlin 8 finished successfully to event 4400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 9 to 4400 events Gremlin 9 finished successfully to event 4400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 10 to 4400 events Gremlin 10 finished successfully to event 4400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 11 to 4400 events Gremlin 11 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post anevent Resuming Gremlin 12 to 4400 events Gremlin 12 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 13 to 400 events Gremlin 13 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 14 to 4400 events Gremlin 14 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 15 to 4400 events Gremlin 15 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not p
7. 4 1 2 Economic Feasibility ante e E E KE ESER ESAE EEE E 15 41 35 Technical Eedsiubllityz s es ated va eR ett T IMS 16 4 1 4 Operational Feasibility 16 4 2 RESEARCH METHODS insisterer ide 16 4 3 REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS adsense 17 4 3 1 The Existing 51 17 4 3 1 1 JENSSEN 17 4 3 1 2 Weaknesses TEN ESS 18 4 3 1 3 Attempts to Improve Overall System ku 18 124 CoOnelusigliba Dee Mt 18 4 3 2 The RAC s Existing Systemi rires a ET E E eene 19 PTE 19 4 3 2 2 Weaknesses of the SSE ee 19 2132 Cebe fee 19 4 3 3 Examination of Other Work Field Systems esses eene 20 LETE RN 20 E332 Omni EE EE 20 21 4 334 EOTS UIO 5 E EE E 21 5 REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION sscsticsssssssesssssocnssnsssvcssntesensdbssnseaponcessnsosssssesaesesssaadusians 22 SJ IHE PROBLEM OVNER ug 22 Se WEEN ENDED USERS 22 5 3 REQUIRED YSTEM 651 0004 0 22 5 3 1 Essential System Processing nennt 22 5 3 2 Desirable System Processihg is aue 22 5 3 3 Further System Processing ic S ERU 23 5 4 DATA MODEL S Rene 23 32 4 T Data Flow Diagram sai 23 SA Logical Dota ICI oco oa REO 23 5 5 FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
8. Breakdown Report forms and introduction of engine analysis through laptops The Breakdown Reports have been introduced so thatthe AA can have a record ofthe breakdown in case a member makes a complaint or tries to claim compensation for something they believe was caused by the patrol 4 3 1 4 Conclusions Mr Willingham s ideal solution to the problems would be to produce an integrated system that caters for engine analysis data capture route guidance and email facilities This would preferably be implemented on the existing laptop and would have wireless connectivity to all the AA s backend systems so that data collected would be directly transferred without the need for patrols to physically take the forms Steps to provide this type of system have already started as mentioned in the above section This type of solution is far beyond the scope of the project and it was agreed thata simpler system that caters for data collection and resolves the issues ofthe manual system would be a better direction for the project The project will 18 attempt to replace the existing manual forms and provide a method of storing these forms It will be a system that could not only be used as a basis for the AA but also by other vehicle recovery companies 4 3 2 The RAC s Existing System Ken Hartley the Information Science Development Manager atthe RAC supplied details about the RAC s existing system 4 3 2 1 The System The RAC still have some manual proc
9. Gremlin 2 finished successfully to event 200 2 233 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 2 303 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 2 303 0 New Gremlin 3 started from root state to 200 events 3 124 203 Gremlin 3 finished successfully to event 200 3 134 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 3 194 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 3 194 0 New Gremlin 4 started from root state to 200 events 3 965 201 Gremlin 4 finished successfully to event 200 3 975 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 4 045 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 4 045 0 New Gremlin 5 started from root state to 200 events 4 746 201 Gremlin 5 finished successfully to event 200 4 756 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 4 826 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 4 826 0 New Gremlin 6 started from root state to 200 events 5 718 202 Gremlin 6 finished successfully to event 200 5 718 202 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 5 788 EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 5 788 0 New Gremlin 7 started from root state to 200 events 6 549 201 Gremlin 7 finished successfully to event 200 83 6 559 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 6 619 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 6 629 0 7 370 201 7 370 201 New Gremlin 8 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 8 finished successfully to event 200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 7
10. function will either go to the Member Edit screen if the column selected is either the name or membership number open the note screen or display the selection pop up for visited not visited The global variable gE ditR owIDWhichHadF ocus keeps track of which is the current record selected and is used by all of the functions called ListF ormltemS elected to load data to associate a something such as a note to a particular member Figure 10 The Recovery List sorted by last name and the Preferences screen So that the user can order the Recovery List in the order they wanted the method explained in 3 Chapter 14 was used This was based on some of the code given in the book that used a global variable called gS howInList to adjust the list dimensions the column order and change the sort order of the database This global variable is passed into a function called RecChangeS ortOrder which uses the DmQuickSort to sort the database 41 The global variable gS howInList can be changed in the Recovery Preferences dialogue which can be displayed from the Recovery List screen by tapping on the show button see figure 10 This also allows the user to select whether they want to display the visited not visited column by ticking the box this again sets a global variable called 95 howVisitedStatus The global variables are used in a case statement in the ListF ormDrawR function which determines which way the list sh
11. 5 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 6 to 500 events Gremlin 6 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 6 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 7 to 500 events Gremlin 7 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 7 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 8 to 500 events Gremlin 8 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 8 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 9 to 500 events Gremlin 9 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 9 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 10 to 500 events Gremlin 10 finished successfully to evert 500 Gremlin 10 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 11 to 500 events Gremlin 11 finished successfully to event 500 oook Gremlin 11 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 12 to 500 events Gremlin 12 finished successfully to event 500 teks Gremlin 12 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 13 to 500 events Gremlin 13 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 13 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 14 to
12. 500 events Gremlin 14 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 14 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 15 to 500 events Gremlin 15 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 15 successfully completed Gremlin Horde ended at Gremlin 15 ok 2k ok 2k ok ok ok KKK ok ok ok Device Info ROM version 3 1 86 33 858 501 v dbg rom 33 858 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 ROM file name DiPalmDevwEmulator lPalm OS 3 1 ROMs palmos3 1 en Session file D PalmDewEmulator library psf Device name Palmllle RAM size 2048 KB Error Occurrence Statistics No Gremlins found errors 87 Appendix User Acceptance Testing 279 Interview with AA Patrol Man Steve Willingham A2 phone interview was held with Steve Willingham on the 13 April 2003 so that the user acceptance tests could be carried out and feedback received Before asking Mr Willingham the questions prepared some time was spent explaining the system as the user manual had not been written yet and how to use the Palm device The questions asked during the interview were based on the requirements specifications see section Question 1 How do you find using the Palm devices user interface It s lot simpler than Windows replied Mr Willingham He then went on to say that once he had been told how to operate the devic
13. 7 and private record The category used in the Recovery application is the membership type so the user can change a member s membership type if they need to Creating private records is a standard function on all Palm OS after 3 0 which allows the user to hide records by switching on the hide private records option in the OS The code for this is generic and taken from 22 it simply sets a flag in the record The buttons atthe bottom of the form allow the user to cancel any changes save the changes made delete the record or add a note by opening up the note screen Changes will only be saved by the DetailsF ormS ave function if the values in the lists differ from those held in the status fields in the record The record deletion button will display a 43 dialogue that allows the user to delete a record it also allows the user to specify that the record should only be removed from the handheld and backup should be placed on the desktop PC This again is standard method taken from 22 7 3 4 Note Form The note form in Recovery was needed 50 that patrols could enter any extra information regarding the breakdown that they needed see figure 12 This was essential as the Recovery software did not have the full functionality of the manual breakdown form the missing functionality can however be added later if needed The Note form was based on the note form used by the built in application Address Book so that implementing it would not ta
14. Breakdown Details Customer Eg Call Centre Process breakdown Determine whether Breakdown Information Reason why un repairable Fill Breakdowi Report Acknowledgement Membership Details Breakdown Details Membership Details Repair Details Vehicle Details Take to garage ES Para Repair Breakdown Details 1st 2nd Patrol Fill in Invoice fo Parts Service Garage Recovery System Membership Details Patrol Details Vehicle Details Supplier Details Payment Details Enter into Accounts syste Accounts system Membership Details Patrol Details Vehicle Details Supplier Detail Payment Details 72 Appendix G Device Comparison Description User Interface Method Data entry methods Operating Systems see section Smart Phone The latest mobile devices to enter into the market combination of a mobile phone and PDA they offer the functionality and operating system of a PDA whilst allowing wireless access through the mobile telephone networks Mobile Phone PDA Stylus pen Touch screen Keypad Microsoft Windows CE based Smartphone2002 Symbian OS Tablet Computer Devices that offer some sort of touch screen functionality either through your finger or a stylus The term tablet computer groups number of classifications which include webpads and tablet PC s Webpaas for surfing
15. also 3 generation networks The operating system is more orientated towards the commercial mobile phone market and offers limited support for enterprise and businesses looking to develop data 28 collection software It does however support development languages such as refer to table 1 0 this may change in the future 6 1 2 2 Wireless transfer methods The following section details the current wireless protocols available in the United Kingdom 6 1 2 2 1 IEEE 802 11b 802 11b also referred to as Wi Fi Wireless Fidelity was a 1999 ratification to the original 802 11 standard allowing wireless functionality comparable to Ethernet 802 11 specifies an over the air interface between a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients 802 116 provides 11 Mbps transmission with a fallback to 5 5 2 and 1 Mbps in the 2 4 GHz band and is mainly used for wireless LANs For more detailed information please refer to 18 6 1 2 2 2 GSM GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS One of the leading digital systems used for mobile communication GSM is a 2 generation protocol that uses narrowband TDMA Time Division Multiple Access that allows eight simultaneous calls on the same radio frequency GSM offers bandwidth of up to 9 6 kilobits per second and was first introduced in 1991 The GSM service is available in more than 100 countries and has become the de facto standard in Europe and Asia For more detailed information pl
16. application would be very easy to pick up and that his colleagues could quickly use the system He did however say that they would not be willing to learn Graffiti and that they would require keyboards or an improved method of data entry 89 Question 8 Would the Recovery software solve the problem of a paper trail If the handheld was connected to your other systems would this save you time Mr Willingham said that it would solve the problem of a paper trail in terms of the forms that he has to keep at home for six months He then asked about the multiple copies explained to him that they could be printed off using a separate printer and that this functionality could be added He then commented on the need for the other functionality such as signatures to be implemented as the copies would have to be authenticated by the member In terms of saving time Mr Willingham said that if the application was fully completed and it had the ability to connect to the AA s backend systems then it would stop him having to hand in the copies of the forms This would ultimately save him time Question 9 What was your overall impression of the Recovery software The Palm device Mr Willingham thought that the Recovery software was a bare minimum application and that it would require a lot more work before it could be seen as a system that could be implemented by the AA then asked him if he thought the application would be afte
17. be rugged enough so that it can withstand harsh weather and life in a patrol vehicle Although the device is not rugged other Palm OS devices are available that offer this requirement see 12 for details The mobile device must have the capability for wireless data transfer Although the device used does not have wireless capabilities other P alm devices do provide access to GPRS and IEEE802 11b see 12 for full device specifications Although the device fulfilled most of these criteria some crucial criteria were not included in the original requirements These included processing power memory and storage on the device in these requirementthe device faired badly The potential user also had issues with the device Mr Willingham found it difficult to enter data using the stylus or displayable keyboard section 8 1 for more details Another problem found when developing for the device was that its operating system limited the functionality of the software produced Although the simple operating system is an advantage for the user itis the big disadvantage for the developer as even simple tasks take large amounts of coding to complete In conclusion itmay have been more suitable to use a tablet PC which would provide a better platform for development and functionality Obtaining a device however would still have been a major problem 8 5 Evaluation of Development Language As the development environment had to be freely ava
18. colour and that it would be nice to have colour screen Question 4 Did you find the application easy and simple to use Mr Willingham found the application was very simple to use and that it was very easy to understand Question 5 Did Recovery make it easier to generate the breakdown report than using the existing manual system Mr Willingham said that the application in its current form made it easier to generate the breakdown form as it was a much simpler than the existing manual system Once the info s there its there he commented He went on to say that only the breakdown details needed to be added as the member details already exist He did say however that the system lacked some of the functionality of the existing breakdown report and questioned if the system would still be easier if this were to be implemented Question 6 Do you think that Recovery captured enough information Carrying on from the previous question Mr Willingham re iterated the missing functionality He said It wouldn t bother me not sure about the AA though He also went on to say that it would be nice to have seen the other screens that were supposed to have been implemented So that he could see what and how a multi function system would work and look like Question 7 How did you find using the system was it a steep learning curve Do you think your colleagues could adapt to such a system easily According to Mr Willingham the
19. computing research and producing software for the frontend device Appendix B contains the revised milestones 3 4 Project Schedule The original project schedulecan be found in Appendix C This project schedule was later revised when the scope of the project changed to focus more on mobile computing research and producing software for the frontend device Appendix C contains the revised project schedule 12 Note As the scheduled date for completing the standard functionality only satisfying the minimum requirements came closer it became apparent that there would not be enough time to implement any extra functionality This was because the standard functionality proved far more complex than originally thought see chapter 7 for details The time allocated for the extra functionality was therefore allocated to the standard functionality Review and Commit Feasbility Study Define Business Options Logical Design Requirements Spec Technical system options Figure 2 The application of the spiral model to SSADM version 4 3 5 Structure of Report The remainder of this report will be split up into the following chapters Chapter 4 ANALYSIS OF SYSTEM Contains the Feasibility Study stage of the SSADM model which outlines some of the projects limitations Section 4 3 correlates to the Requirements Analysis stage which details the existing system and other similar systems Chapter 5 REQUIREMEN
20. different members 3 Recovery List Screen Tap to open details of member by their membership type Shows the member has already been visited Shows the V or not visited N Selecting the letter N or V on screen can member has note attached Tap on icon to change this open the note Opens the Opens the Member application Edit screen and creates preferences screen a new member record 91 This screen displays the members that are currently held in the system their details are displayed by membership number name as default however this can be changed by selecting the Show button and changing the preferences see preferences screen To create new member record tap the new button and it will open the Member Edit screen with new record 4 Member Edit Screen Selecting this box will allow you to Selecting the change a member s Details Button will hi open the details screen Scroll arrows allow you to scroll down or up Selecting Done takes you back to Selecting the Note button opens the the Recovery List note screen The Member Edit screen allows you to add edit and change details of a specific member or enter the details of a new member The details on the screen are Membership Number First Name Last Name DOB Second ID another form of ID that the member has during breakdown Phone number Make Model and Registration of vehicle To enter the breakdow
21. held on the handheld Allow more technical information such as possibility of damage vehicle condition etc to be captured Allow customers to apply for membership via the front end communication module Allow details of parts used to be recorded for later invoicing Storing the database on a server and transferring the information from the current desktop to the server via the Internet 2 Background 2 1 Introduction to Mobile Computing In recent times a new paradigm of computing has been fashioned called mobile computing According to 1 2 advances in portable information appliances and hardware technologies such as mobile phones personal digital assistants PDA handheld and portable computers and wireless networks have lead to this creation Mobile computing is large field that spans various areas of computer science and engineering These include wireless networking distributed systems operating systems distributed databases software engineering and applic ations development to name a just a few The project will touch on many of these areas although it will not be exploring each of them in great detail only those which are relevant Mobile computing is currently growing ata fast rate 3 believes that by 2006 the number of data enabled phone PDA and other device users is expected exceed the worldwide Internet sub scriber population Especially in business mobile devices are seen as essential tools for increasing productivity
22. in mobile workers and keeping one step ahead of the competition By 2004 5 we expect 65 75 of enterprise to deploy extension to mission critical applications for wireless and or pervasive platforms and expect 75 of corporate knowledge workers to be mobile at least 25 of the time Meta Group One factor leading to this adoption is the price of easy to handle devices It is rapidly falling while the benefits of such devices are increasingly apparent in both consumer and business settings More and more the business user is looking to use mobile devices to perform tasks that previously could only be handled by the desktop PC At the same time hardware and software manufacturers are adapting their products for mobile use fuelling the current charge for all things wireless Developing software and hardware for these new mobile computing systems creates new challenges that are hardly trivial These challenges are quite different from those involved in the design of today s stationary networked systems 4 Factors that need to be taken into account include wireless communication battery life size and storage restrictions user interface constraints and security issues These will be described further in chapter 6 2 2 Introduction to the Vehicle Recovery Industry This type of project could have been implemented in many industries that require workers to operate in work field environments Any industry that requires their employees to collect and
23. ofthis chapter is to provide details about the three different types of testing approaches used and analyse the choices made throughout the project It will also assess the advantages of the tools used and evaluate the new system produced Finally it will evaluate the future of mobile computing and state areas of further study and development 8 1 Testing 8 1 1 White box testing The system was tested in units following the spiral model This was done so that any problems could be reviewed and then if changes needed to be made they could be This unit testing utilises the white box testing technique refer to 28 for more details which incorporates e Testing that all independent paths within a module have been exercised at least once e Examining all logical decisions on their true and false sides e Executing all loops and testing their operation at their limits e Exercising internal data structures to assure their validity To help in this testing used a special function of the Palm emulator called Gremlins The tool allows you to create objects called gremlins which test your specific application Each Gremlin has the following characteristics e Itgenerates a unique random sequence of stylus and key input events to step through the user interface possibilities of an application e thas a unique seed value between 0 and 999 e Itgenerates the same sequence of random events whenever itis run e truns with a specific applicatio
24. on the pilot scheme using laptop for engine analysis explained Mr Willingham The laptop is at the moment used for engine analysis only however the functionality may be extended depending on the outcome of the initial trial This may include transferring the route guidance system used in the vehicles to the laptop instead of having one more than one screen in the cab The is currently in process of updating and integrating all there systems They are piloting many schemes to improve their business processes The Breakdown report is one method that has been introduced to improve the service and record breakdown details Mr Willingham was unsure whether the usage of the laptop would become company wide as the actual laptops were of a specialist rugged type costing approximately 3 500 He questioned whether the AA would be willing to purchase such a laptop for each patrol 66 Appendix Forms used by AA Patrols and the systems these entered into Breakdown Report Customer Garage Second Patrol Stored for 3 6 Original Patrol months Customer Invoice for Parts Service Supplier Where Necessary Accounts Accounts System Stays with the Pad Membership Application Form Membership Membership department System Customer Original Patrol 67 Appendix Logical Data Structures Data Flow Diagrams Essential Relationships Desirable Relationships Further Relationships p
25. that the project had a potential user Steve Willingham AA patrolman was contacted Mr Willingham is the father of a friend and agreed to help provide information on the systems A letter was sent to Ken Hartley the Information Science Development Manager at RAC and after some time a response was received Mr Hartley s letter detailed the RAC s existing system which was already highly computerised Due to this fact and the lack of other available resources it was decided that the project would use the AA s existing system as a basis for the new systems design and use Mr Willingham as a potential user As there was only one source of information it was decided that questionnaires were unnecessary and that interviewing Mr Willingham would be more suitable so that a full range and depth of questions could be asked Observational techniques could not be used as Mr Willingham lives in Blackpool however Mr Willingham provided documents that had to be completed at each breakdown so document reviews were possible To ensure the system developed was in keeping with the requirements of other companies who operate in work field environments case study examples were examined These can be seen in section 4 5 4 3 Requirements Analysis This section will aim to provide an overview of the research into the current manual systems used by patrols and identify problems or areas that need improvement It will aim to outline and explore the methods and tools
26. the breakdown button The Done button will return the user to the Recovery List The Vehicle Details screen will show the user details of the vehicles the member owns currently the number of vehicles will be limited to two The user can also attach a note to a vehicle describing the condition of the vehicle The Breakdown Details screen will allow the user to enter details about the breakdown Details will include the fault that caused the breakdown what action was taken when the patrol arrived and whether that user has been visited not visited The idea behind the Visited Not Visited checkbox is to distinguish between those who have been visited and those who are yet to be visited This was originally going to be used with the backend of the system When the user synchronised with the backend a new set of members would be installed onto the handheld the patrol would then have to visit these members keeping record of which had been visited already 33 Vehicle Details EN Member ship No Name Note Member Nur FVN Lost Name Mod By tapping rms anywhere in 3 lo e iain the table it A j will load u zu rm ms a eet 4 ansees ETTE __ __1 11 the Members or NN Opens Vehicle details Second Form lD A Gr EIE Capes Opens Breakdown Opens Note By tapping New the Members Breakdown Details Details screen will Fault w Tr
27. the frontend device to the desktop server should be simple and fast so that it can be done by patrols each day with ease 5 5 3 Further Functional Requirements The further functional requirements are as follows e The frontend device should cater for some form of member authentication 5 6 Non functional Requirements 5 6 1 Essential Non Functional Requirements The essential non functional requirements are as follows e The system needs to be simple and easy to use with clear screens and a standardised design e system should not have a steep learning curve so that it can be implemented easily e Data should be held in one place and entered only once e The mobile device needs to be inexpensive so that all breakdown companies large or small can use it Themobile device needs to be lightweight so that it can easily be carried by patrols e The operating system the mobile device runs on needs to be simple and easy to use e The battery life ofthe mobile device needs to be good with enough life to last at least a full day without a recharge preferably longer e mobile devices screen needs to be viewable in the dark 5 5 2 Desirable Non Functional Requirements The desirable non functional requirements are as follows e The mobile device needs to be rugged enough so that it can withstand harsh weather and life in a patrol vehicle 24 e The mobile device must have the capability for wireless data transfer 5 5 3
28. to establish itself as a leading mobile operating system as it was littered with bugs and seen as too complex for small devices such as handhelds Then in 2000 a superset ofthe Windows CE platform was announced called P ocket PC which was aimed at high end handheld users and offered a more simplistic user interface The latest version Pocket P C 2002 offers basic PDA functions such as memo programs etc but is orientated more towards the enterprise market Pocket P C 2002 offers mobile orientated features Such as Bluetooth and IEE802 11b WiFi connectivity as well as access to mobile phone networks It offers the ability to communicate with other Microsoft products such as office and can have the NET architecture installed so it can connect to an enterprise s NET back end easily Windows CE derived devices do have major draw backs in comparison to Palm OS devices in thatthey use a lot more power and tend to be heavier Smartphone 2002 is Microsoft s attempt at entering the mobile phone market It is a version of Windows CE as is Pocket P C however it does not offer touch screen functionality It also has a more limited development architecture that means itis not as attractive to enterprises as PocketPC 27 6 1 2 1 3 Windows XP Tablet edition Windows XP tabletis a superset of Windows XP Professional and has a familiar user interface it was released towards the end of 2002 Microsoft applications such as office can be run on the operating s
29. 2 Research the possible development languages for chosen hardware and select most appropriate 20 12 02 Research the possible database systems that can be used select most appropriate 22 12 02 Complete the requirements analysis and definition 22 12 02 System and Software Design Design of code structure for front end communications module Design of user interface for front end communications module Implementation and Unit Testing 30 12 02 03 02 03 20 02 03 31 03 03 Coding of front end communications module P Unit testing of front end communications module 31 03 03 02 04 03 Integration and Systems Testing Coding of data transmission method and connection of database and front end communications 02 03 03 module Systems Testing 07 04 03 Extend front end functionality Store the information in database on the desktop and allow data manipulation Write up of Report Write up of user manual 07 04 03 11 04 03 11 04 03 14 04 03 07 04 03 25 04 03 14 04 03 25 04 03 63 Appendix D Interview with AA Patrol Man Steve Willingham A phone interview was held with Steve Willingham on the 14 November 2002 Mr Willingham is an AA patrolman working in the Blackpool area and has been involved with piloting new systems to improve the AA s current processes and services The questions asked during the interview were based on the forms AA patrols have to fill in Copies of these forms were obtained prio
30. 2 2002 Complete analysis 10 02 2003 Complete design 25 02 2003 Complete implementation and unit testing 10 03 2003 Complete integration and systems testing 21 03 2003 Progress Meeting 31 03 2003 Complete additional functionality 14 04 2003 Complete Evaluation 02 05 2003 Complete project report and submit Revised Milestones 12 12 2002 Hand in Mid Project Report Schedule and initial background reading complete 22 12 2002 Complete background research and chapter 22 12 2002 Complete analysis 03 02 2003 Complete design 21 03 2003 Progress Meeting 02 04 2003 Complete implementation and unit testing 07 04 2003 Complete integration and systems testing 14 04 2003 Complete additional functionality 25 04 2003 Complete Evaluation 02 05 2003 Complete project report and submit 61 Appendix Project Schedule Date Due Milestone Objective DD MM Y Y Requirements Analysis and Definition 12 12 02 12 12 02 Research the existing manual systems used by breakdown companies Research other systems that have been adopted to solve similar problems Research the wireless hardware options available and decide on the most suitable platform including 20 12 02 the most appropriate OS 20 12 02 22 12 02 22 12 02 Research the possible development languages for chosen hardware and select most appropriate Research the possible database systems that can be used select most appropriate Comp
31. 440 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 7 440 0 8 171 201 New Gremlin 9 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 9 finished successfully to event 200 8 181 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 8 241 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 8 251 0 9 053 202 9 053 202 New Gremlin 10 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 10 finished successfully to event 200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 9 123 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 9 123 0 9 904 201 New Gremlin 11 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 11 finished successfully to event 200 9 924 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 9 984 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 9 984 0 10 645 201 10 655 10 725 10 725 0 11 286 202 11 286 202 11 356 11 356 0 11 937 204 11 947 12 007 12 017 0 12 848 202 12 868 12 938 200 13 669 401 13 679 13 739 200 14 380 401 14 410 14 470 200 15 071 401 15 081 15 141 200 15 842 401 15 852 15 912 200 16 563 401 New Gremlin 12 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 12 finished successfully to event 200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent New Gremlin 13 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 13 finished successfully to event 200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event gt EvtAddEventToQueue appSt
32. 50 8 4 EVALUATION OF FRONT END 50 8 5 EVALUATION OF DEVELOPMENT 404 44 0 00000000030 51 8 6 EVALUATION OF DEVELOPMENT 52 BS J E VABUATIONOF SYSTEM 52 8 9 EVALUATION OF THE FUTURE OF 0 1 0000000000000000 54 1O0CONCEUSIONS LE 55 REFERENGES or TC M 56 APPENDIX A THE REFLECTION soper o pro So 59 APPENDIX B 8 55 5 e eo sana api iS 621 APPENDIX C PROJECT SCHEDULE 2 5 oen 62 APPENDIX D INTERVIEW WITH AA PATROL STEVE WILLINGHAM 64 APPENDIX E FORMS USED BY AA PATROLS AND THE SYSTEMS THESE ARE ENTERED INTO rr 67 APPENDIX LOGICAL DATA STRUCTURES DATA FLOW DIAGRAMS 69 APPENDIX DEVICE COMPARISON eeeesssennnnnnnnnvnnvvvssenesennssnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnsnnsnenssnnnnnnnnnnnnee 73 APPENDIX H ENTITY EVENT MATRIX ENTITY LIFE HISTORY DIAGRAM DA TA CHANGES 76 APPENDIX I PALM APPLICATION 7 1 1 82 APPENDIX J GREMLINS TEST RESULTS 83 APPENDIX USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING 2 INT
33. ASONS FOR PROJECT 0200 0000000000000 6 1 3 COBIECTIVES sist 6 1 4 MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS ccccssseessccccccceees 6 1 5 POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS insti esse 7 2 lene exe eas rea 8 2 1 INTRODUCTION TO MOBILE 2 1 2 7 222 0 60 enne eene nene nene nnn nennen 8 2 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE VEHICLE RECOVERY 8 9 2 3 INTRODUCTION TO THE AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION AA cessere enne 10 2 4 INTRODUCTION TO THE ROYAL AUTOMOBILE CLUB RAC essen 10 3 PROJECT MANAGEMENT 55 11 0 RENE eee RR EUR VINE EFE TURNER TER 11 3 1 1 Rapid Application Development 11 3 4 2 The Waterfall Model ea e e s ea eerie 11 34I 3 The V Process Model s e dedere n d idee 11 34 TheSpiral Model aee teer ua doe ei de 11 3 2 CHOSEN METHODOLOGY ne 11 3 9 MIEESTONES ts 12 3 4 PROJECT SCHEBULE russernes ete bu v o A 12 3 5 STRUCTURE OF 12 0000000 00000000 0000000000001 13 4 ANALYSIS OF SYSTEM Sasuke 15 4 1 FEASIBILITY STUDY E EEE EEE E E E EE 15 4T Problem Definition assa aee eee 15
34. ERVIEW WITH AA PATROL MAN STEVE WILLINGHA Mii scsscsscissssccccatinscsestcetsceies siscdiascectscatdsasseseadassasocessesdadcdescersessddeseais 88 APPENDIX L RECOVERY USER MANUAL eeeoseesnnnnnnnvvvvssvvssensssenssnnnnnnnnnnnnnsnnvnnennssenssnnnnne 91 1 Introduction 1 1 Project Aim The project will explore the possible solutions to data capture and transfer in work field environments specifically looking atthe data captured by vehicle breakdown companies on the road side The project will investigate which mobile front ends are currently available and which of these are most suitable for recovery patrols It will also look at the most appropriate methods of data storage and transfer from mobile devices The end aim is to produce an information system which replaces and improves the current manual processes used by breakdown companies and use this to assess the future of mobile computing 1 2 Reasons for Project Choice Intelligent wireless handheld devices are going to explode absolutely explode over the next several years Steve Ballmer CEO Microsoft The project was chosen as mobile computing is a field thatis relatively young and is currently growing Refer to section 2 1 Many believe as Steve Ballmer that field of mobile computing is the next evolutionary step in the development of computers Itis perceived as radically changing as revolutionary as traditional networks were when they were first introduced It was therefore an id
35. Further Non F unctional R equirements The further non functional requirements are as follows e Multiple copies of the breakdown report parts service form and application form should be available through a printout e Data should be accessible by other systems through a universal interface 25 6 Design 6 1 Technical System Options This section evaluates some of the available hardware and development options available and then details which are to be used in the project 6 1 1 Identification of Constraints There are several constraints that limit the technical system options these are mainly concerned with the availability of the tools and devices Any tools and devices to be used should be freely available either through open source installed on university machines Further details of constraints in the project can be found in section 4 1 the feasibility Study and in the following subsections 6 1 2 Front End Hardware Options The front end device is one of the most important factors when looking at mobile computing In the past the choice was very limited as the field of mobile computing was in its early stages currently however there is a real influx of new technology as the field begins to thrive and become widespread Manufacturers keep coming up with ingenious and smarter handheld wireless devices mobile phones personal digital assistants PDA s and combinations of any of the above For enterprises wishing to exploit mobil
36. I Palm Application Event Loop EuGetEvent Is there an event Remain in loop until there is an event SysHandleEvent Process event generate other events Is this system function as necessary return e g power off Graffiti input lt o MenuHandleEvent Is this a menu no Handle menu interface then go on ApplicationHandle Event Is this a frmLoadEvent this a frmLoadEvent FrmDispatchEvent Did application handler complete event processing no Load from resources set event handler for form loaded Dispatch event to application s handler for form FrmHandleE vent Provide default processing for event 82 Appendix J Gremlins Test R esults K K K K K K So K K 0 000 0 Gremlin Hordes started 0 000 0 0 000 0 Running Gremlins I to 15 0 000 0 Will run each Gremlin 200 events time until all Gremlins have terminated in error 0 000 0 or have reached maximum of 500 events 0 000 0 K K K K KK K K 0 000 0 New Gremlin 1 started anew to 200 events 0 911 201 Gremlin 1 finished successfully to event 200 0 921 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 0 981 gt EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent 0 991 0 New Gremlin 2 started from root state to 200 events 2 223 203
37. PC via a physical cable for example a docking station Recovery uses the Palm OS cradle which connects to a desktop PC 32 through a serial cable Using the HotS ync desktop software s built in conduit it backs up the Recovery database Therefore the minimum requirements were met they were not exceeded however Due to the lack of understanding of Palm development at the start of the project the extra functionality and features of the system could not be implemented in the appropriate time They will now have to be left as future enhancements Did the system solve the weaknesses found in the 5 existing system All the problems specified in section 4 3 1 2 were solved apart from one this was the problem of not having all the data held centrally After the shift in project scope the backend system originally devised was not developed therefore storage of all data could not be held centralised The data collected by the handheld is however held centrally on the handheld Did it fulfil the essential requirements Desirable requirements Further requirements All of the essential requirements were met however due to time constraints and the shift in project scope the desirable and further requirements were not met Was the system to the approval of the potential user For the simple purpose of data collection and the removal of the Breakdown Report Mr Willingham agreed the system was good and achieved what the basics required However it w
38. S 1997 Software Engineering a practitioner s approach U S A McGraw Hill 58 Appendix The Reflection The Experience The project was originally though up by myself as I had worked with people on my Industrial Placement who had been developing for wireless devices I found the whole concept fascinating and therefore decided to investigate it more for my final year project Starting off I had to find suitable system that I could improve and in the process investigate wireless technologies This however proved difficult and I eventually came up wit the idea of using vehicle recovery companies s soon as I started to research the systems I realised that it would be difficult to find information on the companies processes It was very difficult to locate someone who had the knowledge I required so I turned to a friend of mine whose father worked for the AA From then on gathering information became easier I have had many problems through this project from the start to finish it has been quite difficult Firstly I chose to do my own project which at the time I thought would be good Looking back however it would have been better to take one of the school projects as with those more help and guidance is available I found it very difficult adapting to completely new environment where all processing was based on events I underestimated the difficulty of the tasks that I originally set my self and underestimated the time it would ta
39. TS SPECIFICATION Lists the hardware and software requirements produced from the analysis of the existing system and research into other systems This chapter correlates to the Requirements Specification stage of SSADM Chapter 6 DESIGN 13 Section 6 1 details the possible development options and the eventual selections this correlates to the Technical System Options stage of SSADM Sections 6 2 onwards detail the various design stages that include data process and user interface design These correlate to the Logical and Physical Design stages of SSADM Chapter 7 IMPLEMENTATION Discusses the development of the application and problems encountered during the implementation Chapter 8 EVALUATION Deals with the testing and evaluation of the application and setting out a scope for future work Draws a conclusion on the whole project reviewing the projects achievements against initial objectives In addition the appendices contain additional information including the applications user manual and interview write ups 14 4 Analysis of Systems 4 1 Feasibility Study The following section is simple analysis of the problem which was used to decide whether to proceed to a full study It also outlines whether to proceed in a different direction from that envisaged in the initial problem and what limitations exist on resolving the problem 4 1 1 Problem Definition There are many businesses which have employees who have to collec
40. ansmission open with blank lt oom details and all NG Action Taken w other screens will ox ee ep Visited Opens Note DEE Figure 5 Screen designs The screen design was changed ata later stage due to difficulties in implementing multiple screens The amount of coding required for each screen was found to be quite extensive and therefore the time constraints imposed meant the Vehicle Details screen was merged with the Member Details screen Figure 6 shows the updated Member Details screen Member Num DOR 0000 Breakdown Figure 6 The redesigned Member Details screen now including vehicle details and Standard Palm OS menu options for editable text As the guidelines in 24 state that the use of menus should be kept to minimum the menu design for the screens was limited to the functionality that was required All screens which require text entry will have the standard Palm OS text editing menu structure see figure 6 The only other menu option that will be made available will be one allowing deletion of records This is only a temporary option and if the full system were to be built this functionality would be removed as patrols cannot remove members records 34 7 Implementation The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the development environment used outline the stages of development and mention some of the problems and issues tha
41. as clear from some of the answers given by Mr Willingham see Appendix K thathe was disappointed with the lack of additional functionality that the system offered and thathe was expecting a muchlarger integrated system This was due more to the actual hardware used the lack of understanding of Palm development and poor time estimation It was concluded that the system produced would be a Suitable basis for smaller vehicle recovery companies and companies which require simple data collection The AA however would still require full integrated system which was the scope of this project How does it compare to other existing computerised systems used in work field environments In comparison to such systems as eTrace see section 4 3 3 1 Recovery compares well to the front end of that system It offers similar electronic clipboard like capabilities for data collection It does however have a wireless method of transferring data although this could be added later In comparison to other systems such as OmniExpress see section 4 3 3 2 and the RAC s patrol PC see section 4 3 2 it will not compare well as these are large advanced systems and notin the same category as Recovery 53 conclusion the system produced fulfils the needs of basic data capture storage and manipulation By doing this it has fulfilled the minimum requirements solved most of the AA s current problems with data collection and fulfilled the essential requiremen
42. ata entered into the Member Edit form two table call back functions were created E ditFormGetR ecordField returns a pointer to the current field of the record that was selected and EditF ormS aveR ecordField saves the current text field The E ditF ormG etR ecordF ield function is used by the EditF ormLoadT able function to load the fields within the table with the fields from the database The ormS aveR ecordField function however is used by the EditFormS aveR ecord 42 function to save record this function also checks to see if there has been text entered in any of the fields in the table If there has not then it will not save the record This was done in case the user accidentally creates a new member and still selects the done button instead of cancel The records are saved and loaded per field so that any changes in field does not require the entire record to be saved merely those that have been altered The changes in these fields are tracked using the RecDBRecordF lags structure which holds Boolean values for each of the fields The two buttons at the bottom of the screen details and note allow breakdown details or a note to be attached to the current record The details button simply creates an event that opens the details form whilst the note button will call the function CreateNote first to ensure that a note is created in the record before opening the form screen 7 3 3 Breakdown Details The manual breakdown repor
43. ble as actual projects in their own right 8 3 Evaluation of Chosen methodology One of the first decisions made was which methodology should be adopted Selecting the appropriate methodology would direct the project by setting out guidelines etc To assess this choice the following criteria were used e Was the methodology suitable for the project SSADM can be adapted to any project However it was found that many of the stages of SSADM required a fair amount of work even when using a reduced version It became apparent that the methodology caters more towards the collection and analysis of background data and the design It offered little help in managing the implementation and in testing for these extra research and other tools had to be used section 8 1 e Were the methodologies tools appropriate As the existing AA system is mainly based on data flow the techniques used See section 6 2 were very helpful in understanding the actual system and the flows of data e Was the process model used by the methodology suitable The process model used was the spiral model This was very helpful as it requires each stage to be reviewed this encouraged me to test each section implemented before moving on to the next In conclusion the methodology was suitable to an extent it would be more suitable towards a project which has more time for detailed documentation On reflection a simpler technique such as RAD may have been better and allowed
44. centrate on the AA and the RAC as more information on their business processes is available see section 4 2 for further details Currently all of these still have some manual processes which range from membership details to parts and service lists 2 3 Introduction to the Automobile Association AA The AA is the UK s largest motoring organisation with millions of members and some 3 600 highly trained patrols Originally formed by a group of motoring enthusiasts in 1905 intending to help motorists avoid police speed traps it now offers a number of services from recovery to personal loans The project will however only be concerned with the recovery aspect of the business 2 4 Introduction to the Royal Automobile Club RAC Founded in 1897 the RAC now has six million members who can access a large range of motoring products and Services These include roadside assistance in the event of a breakdown to continually updated legal and technical advice and up to the minute travel information They also claim to have the world s most advanced computer systems to deal with calls for roadside assistance Once again the project will only be concerned with the recovery aspect of the business 10 3 Project Management 3 1 Methodologies The choice of methodology plays an important role in the success of a project especially in project that requires the development of software where requirements may change It therefore makes sense to outline a su
45. d resources to produce a finished executable program e gdb The GNU debugger is a tool for debugging Palm OS applications at the source code level PRC Tools are the only freely available development tools officially supported by PalmS ource the commercial environment supported is the CodeWarrior package For more details on GN U PRC Tools refer to 22 7 1 2 Cygwin As the software provided with the Palm hardware ran under windows it was necessary to install the Cygwin utility so that PRC Tools could be used in a windows environment Cygwin is a UNIX emulator for windows that also installs the required files for PRC Tools It provides you with a bash shell so that you can run the tools and the compiler 35 7 1 3 Palm OS SDK v 5 The Palm OS SDK version 5 is set of libraries headers and example code for building applications for Palm Powered handhelds The version used was also specific to PRC Tools 7 1 4 Palm OS Emulator The Palm OS Emulator is software that emulates the hardware of the various models of Palm Powered handhelds It is extremely valuable for writing testing and debugging by connecting with PRC Tools applications It creates virtual handhelds by running the Emulator with a ROM image One can download the ROM image install it and the emulator becomes a copy of the ROM device 7 1 5 Palm The Palm hardware used ran on Palm OS v 3 1 and had a monochrome backlit display It ran on Motorola 16Mhz pr
46. e and c overed the following areas e Creation editing removal of member To ensure that members could be created then edited and finally deleted e Breakdown details selection Testing whether all the possible combinations of breakdown type and action are selected e Alteration to membership type Ensuring that membership types for members could be changed if needed e Creation editing removal of notes Testing that all possible methods of attaching a note worked correctly and thatthe note was attached and deleted from the correctmember e Ordering of Recovery List screen Ensuring that the sorting of the Recovery List screen worked for all cases A number oftrivial problems arose from the testing mainly to do with the displaying of objects on forms Some labels were found to be too large for the screen and interfered with other object altering their values Also some repeated changes required more memory than they were allocated These have all now been resolved 8 1 3 User Acceptance Testing User acceptance testing is the process of getting actual users to test the application This proved particularly difficult as the potential user who was to testthe application was in another city this meantthat had to postthe Palm device via special delivery to Mr Willingham for him to test As there was limited time had to send a prototype version of the software which had the menu and sorting functionality missing explained to Mr Willingham that th
47. e he found that using the stylus to control the menus etc was simpler than using mouse or keypad especially if you were out on the road Although he mentioned that the stylus would be very easily misplaced inside patrol vehicle He also said that the device was smaller than he expected Question 2 What did you think of the Palm devices methods of data entry Do you prefer them to manual data entry After I had explained to Mr Willingham how to access the built in keyboard and use Graffiti he commented on how the entry especially via Graffiti seems a little confusing He found that entry via the built in keyboard was a little slow and that using Graffiti would mean having to learn English all over again He did however find the separate foldable keyboard very easy to use and that it would allow two methods of data entry He said that he would probably have the keyboard installed into the patrol vehicle and use it their Mr Willingham prefers using keyboards than having to manually write out information He said that he would have to try the other methods more before he could comment further Question 3 How did you find the appearance of the Recovery software 88 It looks very straight forward commented Mr Willingham He said that the software layout and look was no frills and that it was very simple to understand It looks like the other applications said Mr Willingham He did comment on the lack of
48. e new system will have the same flow of data however there will be one computerised data store instead of multiple manual data stores Refer to Appendix H for data flow diagramof new system 6 2 3 Data Structure The data structure design went through several phases as the limitations of the handheld device came apparent The original data structure can be found in Appendix H 31 This design was based on the breakdown report Appendix provided by patrolman Steve Willingham There are a few sections from the report that had to be removed as they would have been to complex to implemented Palm device these are such objects as the customer signature This design was then c hanged to allow for variable length strings to save on storage space Some fields were also removed that were not essential to make the implementation simpler there was also the need to reduce the size of long strings as they would not fit correctly on screen The vehicles make and model were also changed from lists to Strings as a full list of all possible vehicles would take too long to implement The full changes are documented in Appendix H After some time programming the system it became apparentthat multiple screens would take much longer than expected to implement This was due to the large amount of code required to process events from each screen With this in mind the design was again changed so that it would be simpler to implement and could be comple
49. eal topic for a project as the project will assess the future of the field through the development of a mobile solution 1 3 Objectives The objectives of the project are e To research the current manual processes used on the road by patrols and explore the problems they face e and explore the possible hardware and software solutions to data capture on mobile computers e To implementa front end solution to replace the manual processes To evaluate the solution and review how it improves the current processes e To review how the solution could be extended Toreflect on the future of mobile computer technology and what possible applications wireless devices could be used for 1 4 Minimum Requirements The minimum requirements of the project are The front end should be portable and have the ability to capture and store information such as basic vehicle details basic member details and simple repair notes that are input by patrol vehicles when they respond to call This information should then be transferred from the hand held device to desktop PC via a physical cable for example a docking station 1 5 Possible Enhancements The possible enhancements to the project are Store the information in a database which holds details of all the breakdown jobs and members This database is located on the desktop PC Allow the ability to have all members held on the desktop and only those required for that day to be
50. ease refer to 19 6 1 2 2 3 GPRS General Packet Radio Service GPRS is a 2 5 generation protocol is a packet switched technology based on GSM which offers always on connection and bandwidth at speeds up to 115 kilobits per second This however is highly variable depending on the circumstances Both GPRS and GSM are used in the UK to implement wireless WAN For more detailed information please refer to 19 6 1 2 2 4 Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short range between 10 100 metres radio technology developed by Ericsson and other companies that makes it possible to transmit signals over short distances between telephones computers and other devices without having to interconnect them with wires It primary use is to simplify both communication and synchronization between devices to create wireless personal area networks WPAN For more detailed information please refer to 20 6 1 3 Chosen Front End Hardware The best choice for an actual system that the AA or other large recovery companies could use would be based tablet device By using one of these devices instead of either a smart phone or handheld they would have the storage 29 and processing power for an integrated system ultimately an integrated system is far beyond the scope ofthis project that would offer multiple services however there would still be some disadvantages It would still have shorter battery life than for example handheld devices would weight much mo
51. ed vehicle recovery companies will have to be left out initially They can however be added later if there is time remaining 4 1 4 Operational Feasibility The system to be produced will initially have reduced functionality than that required by an actual breakdown recovery company More functionality such as additional screens will be added later however an actual breakdown company would require more advanced features For example they may want continuous wireless connection integration with their GPS satellite navigation and even the possibility of engine analysis These are far beyond the scope of this project the system to be produced would only be a starting place for such integrated systems 4 2 Research Methods Extensive research was carried outto gather information on the recovery companies systems and processes and to examine other work field systems The following research methods were considered e Questionnaires S urveys e Interviews e Documentation Review e Observation e Case Studies The first task was to find a suitable contact in a recovery company who could provide the information that was required This proved very difficult with the larger organisations as many would only have one method of contacting them and this would be via their customer service department After numerous phone calls only one of the companies the RAC provided a name and address of a contact who could supply details of their systems 16 ensure
52. employed by the builtin Address Book application that comes with all Palm operating systems was used By doing this two database formats had to be implemented RecPackedDBRecord a packed format for actual record storage and DBRecordType an expanded format that is easier to access once a record has been retrieved In order for Recovery to make use of this dual record structure scheme two functions were created to translate records between the two formats The two functions are PackRecord and UnpackR ecord PackRecord takes a record of DBRecordT ype and converts it to a RecPackedDBR ecord This is done by taking all the strings in DBRecordType and compacting them all into one null delaminated string which is placed in RecP ackedDBR ecord UnpackR ecord simply takes the null delaminated string and iterates over the pile of strings placing each string in the appropriate field in the ecordType full explanation of each structure can be seen in Design section 6 2 3 38 7 2 6 Drawing Functions Much of the drawing in a Palm application is taken care of by the resource file which when compiled will produce buttons tables etc in the standard Palm format Drawing c hanging data or altering the user interface however is quite complex and requires the use of the Palm API in particular the window functions For further details on window functions see 22 Chapter 10 Drawing functions are used in both the Recovery List window and the Me
53. er Windows operating systems or Palm operating systems Older Windows based systems ran on Windows CE whilst newer systems ran on Windows Pocket PC In comparison the systems that ran on the Palm operating system were more stable as the Palm OS does not vary between versions as Windows does The hardware used to run these operating systems varies considerably from specialised hardware developed specifically for the software to off the shelf Pocket PC s A general theme noticed in the various systems was that they all offered a degree of integration with existing systems This was due to their development being based on Internet technologies and standards The eTrace system mentioned earlier uses a software module called QuickConnectthat converts the data output into XML so that it can be read by any existing system that has a standard XML connection XML seems to be the industry standard for integration one company 9 Road 13 has even produced a set of Application Program Interface s so that any combination of its modules can be chosen and integrated to the existing system In terms of the project if the data was transferred from the frontend device to a backend database system this transfer could be done via XML This would allow the front end device to connect to any device that can understand the XML standard This however would take some time and could not be done in the time provided It could however be a possible enhancement for the future
54. ere information is stored The replacement of the breakdown report store is essential whilst the replacement of the invoice for parts and service is desirable See Appendix F section 1 for Data Flow Diagram 5 4 2 Logical Data Structure This is a method for describing what information should be held by the system The approach used in SSADM is very similar to entity modelling in other methods diagrams are produced showing the entities and their relationships These have been broken down into essential desirable and further relationships See Appendix F section 1 for Logical Data Structures 5 5 Functional Requirements 5 5 1 Essential Functional Requirements The essential functional requirements are as follows e Member details should be viewable on the mobile device e Breakdown details should be viewable on the mobile device e Members vehicle details should be viewable on the mobile device 23 e As the front end device will be used on the roadside the time it takes to enter member details breakdown details mustbe kept to a minimum e There should be minimal typing of data this may be achieved by pull down menu s tick boxes etc e The method of data entry must be simple and fast 5 5 2 Desirable Functional Requirements The desirable functional requirements are as follows e Patrols details should be viewable on the mobile device e Parts service details should be viewable on the mobile device e The transfer of data from
55. es information on deployment the second system stores information on breakdowns and the other system stores information on memberships 4 3 1 2 Weaknesses of the Manual System According to AA Mr Willingham the existing system creates a large paper trail which becomes difficult to manage and store Presently the Breakdown Reportis not even used effectively as there is no computer system in place to Store this data hence the forms are kept by the patrols and stored for three to six months and then destroyed Also the design of the breakdown forms has caused some patrolmen to complain as they believe the form is too complex and time consuming to fillin ateach breakdown The systems that store the data collected have the ability of communicating to one another however they are still separate systems all information on a particular member and their breakdown history is not stored in one central system This means that when a member rings up the call centre to lodge a breakdown the call operative does not have any information on previous breakdowns only the member s details 4 3 1 3 Attempts to Improve Overall S ystem Currently the AA is in the process of redesigning their business processes and overhauling their entire operation by implementing supply chain management systems They have pilote d many schemes to improve their customer relationship management and improve their repair rate this has included the recent one year introduction of the
56. esses however they are far more advanced in terms of their computerisation of their business processes than the AA In May 2001 they gave each of their 1400 patrols their own laptop PC called the Patrol PC which has a variety of uses They use the PC to look up information in order to be able to fix vehicles at the roadside Stored on the PC is a large amount of technical data for car models and information on towing health and safety operations procedures parts information etc The PC is also used for diagnostic procedures on vehicle electronics very similar to the proposed laptop piloted by the AA The RAC do not collect data on the actual breakdown as the AA do they simply store fault code When a breakdown is assigned details such as member information and vehicle make and model are sent to a Mobile Data Terminal When the repair is complete the patrol uses the terminal to enter a fault code relating to the breakdown and make themselves available for the next job 4 3 2 2 Weaknesses of the System Applying for membership is still done manually however the process is soon to be incorporated into the frontend application on the Patrol PC The membership form once incorporated will have the ability to access the customer relationship database held at the Bristol office A laptop PC is heavy cumbersome and has poor battery life It requires the patrols to have somewhere to place the laptop whether that be on their lap when they are sitting dow
57. f third generation phone networks which will then provide the desirable bandwidth for affordable fast work field systems for mobile employees From the research carried out for this project the present future of mobile computing lies in the adoption of IEEE802 11b which is already starting to change the way the office operates by changing LAN s into wireless LAN s Looking past that the introduction of 3G will inevitably cause wide adoption of mobile devices and the movement from wireless LAN to wireless WAN The time shall come when wires become a thing of the past 8 10 Conclusions The projecthas metits objectives and met the minimum requirements and therefore has been to an extent successful After some additional work smaller vehicle recovery companies or any company that requires information to be collected by mobile employees could use the software produced The software and report produced could also be used as a platform for future development or a basis for research into the field of mobile computing 29 R eferences 1 JING J HELAL A and ELMAGARMID A 1999 Client Server Computing in Mobile Environments ACM Computing Surveys Vol 31 No 2 June 1999 Chapter 1 2 ZASLAVSKY A Z 1998 Mobile Computing Overview and Current Status School of Computer Science and Software Engineering Monash University URL http goanna cs rmit edu au zahirt Papers acj pdf 30th April 2003 3 The Software and Informatio
58. hat require user interaction processing need an event handler This event handler deals with all possible events that can occur within that form this includes the form being opened and closed Most ofthe Recovery List screen is taken up by a scrollable table that links to the Recovery database and loads each members record It displays their membership number lastname firstname whether they have been visited or not and if they have an attached note This task although sounding relatively simple was one of the most difficult The table has to be initialised first before it will interact with the user and this process is done in ListFormlnit All table columns need to have data types assigned to them and then made usable In the case of the Recovery List form the data type was actually a custom type as the data had to be loaded from the database and the columns of the record had to process stylus information rather than simply entered by the user With a custom data type the drawing of the data has to be handled by a call back function ListF ormDrawR ecord This call back function draws the simpler elements in the Recovery List such as the note icon however it uses the helper function DrawR ecordName to retrieve the members name and membership number from the record and then draw those for more details on exactly how drawing occurs see 3 Chapter 10 Figure 9 The Palm Ille and its main screen and the Recovery List screen
59. hought of don t exist The RAM available for the Palm Ille used for development is only 2MB This memory is used both dynamically like the RAM ina desktop and for storage like a hard drive The dynamic RAM is implemented using a dynamic heap whilst a storage heap implements the storage RAM Memory chunks in a storage heap are called records Each record is part of a database that is implemented by the Palm OS data manager A database is simply a list of memory chunks and some database header information All information on the member and breakdown in Recovery is held in a series of structures with one main structure that references the others Theses structures make up the database with each member being a record Recovery also has a database header which is known as the application info block This structure contains information on the labels for fields and generic application information The full structure can be seen in Design section 6 2 3 7 2 5 Data Compression Due to the limited memory on the Palm Ille device it was decided that data compression had to be implemented Recovery s record format is designed to use as little space as possible to store each record Much of the data stored in Recovery are strings devoting a fixed amount of space for strings would be wasteful therefore variable length strings were used instead Only enough space to store each string was really required To achieve this kind of storage efficiency the same technique
60. ication forms have to be sent to the membership department who input the details into the membership system invoice for parts service form has to be sent to the accounts department who enter the details into the accounts system The details captured in the Breakdown Report are currently not stored on any system Question 6 If you could improve the current processes what would you change Mr Willingham is currently using a laptop used for engine analysis This is explained further in question 7 He would like to integrate all the processes so that they can be done via the laptop This would involve having all the forms on the laptop and having wireless connection to the AA s back office systems The laptop would have the ability to order spares automatically when they are used and automatically send any information captured directly to the AA s systems All the information held on the member would also be available via the laptop so that details on the 65 member do not have to be input each time they breakdown The laptop would also have access to stock lists of the local suppliers PartCo is the supplier to the AA so that if part was required he could check the local supplier s inventory Each patrol would also have printer so that they could print off copies of the forms for the customers Question 7 Are there any methods of improving the current processes currently being implemented What are these currently
61. ilable the choice of language was limited see section 6 1 4 The choice made was to an extent the correct one it may possibly have been better to select S uperwaba the 51 based language instead as is known from the School of Computing module 5021 After some further investigation it was found that using Superwaba would have reduced the amount of code needed to write the application although the problems of Superwaba having limited support no development environment or debugger and it not being certified by Sun Microsystems would still have been factors It would have been preferable to build the application in one of the commercial development environments that support ava such as IBM Websphere Studio Device Developer but even then there are still no textbooks available on developing ava applications for the Palm OS In conclusion out of the options that were available C was the correct choice made 8 6 Evaluation of Development Environment Out of the possible development environments that could have been used see section 6 1 4 the correct choice was made The main reasons for this conclusion is that other environments did not offer debuggers and some did not even offer development environments A debugger is essential when developing Palm software as many of the errors the emulator generates are difficult to understand F or example a common error would be referencing memory in the incorrect location without the debugge
62. ions of the objects in the structures F or example the following produces some of the Member edit form in Recovery 36 FORM ID EditF orm 0 0 160 160 MENUID EditMenuBar USABLE BEGIN TITLE Member Edit TABLE ID EditTable AT 0 18 160 121 ROWS 14 COLUMNS 2 COLUMNWIDTHS 45 115 BUTTON Done ID EditDoneButton AT 1 147 35 12 Each of the variables used in the resource file must be declared in the header for file for the resource For example the variable E ditF orm used in the above code identifies the form this would be defined in the header file as define E ditF orm 1100 all allocated numbers must be different The files used to create the Recovery software are as follows e recovery c main code file e recovery h main header file e recoveryDB h includes the database structure e recovery rcp contains the code for building the forms menus lists tables alerts etc e RecoveryRsc h contains the definitions of the variables used in recovery rcp file 7 2 3 Palm Application Structure Once itwas understood what files were required to create an application the first basic piece of software was written By doing this an understanding of how Palm applications were structured was achieved Palm applications differ from many other applications they are totally event driven refer to Appendix for diagram showing how events are processed An event can be user initiated such as touching the screen with the stylus the Palm OS ca
63. is would be the case and he accepted that some parts of the application would be completed ata later stage A phone interview was arranged with Mr Willingham for the 13 of April 2003 so that feedback on the system could be received The interview took place over the phone as Mr Willingham needed to have the system explained to him as there was no user manual atthattime Appendix K is the write up to the interview and contains the questions asked The questions asked tried to evaluate notonly the application produced Recovery but also the platform Palm OS itwas provided on His comments can be summarised as follows Platform positives 48 e It s lotsimpler than Windows e Using the stylus is easier than using a mouse or touch pad out on patrol e device was light and small Platform negatives e Stylus would easily be misplaced in the patrol cab e Data entry without the foldable keyboard is a little awkward e device is too limited for the needs of a large corporation such as the Application positives e Very straight forward and simple to use e Much simpler than the manual breakdown form e a similar look and feel to other applications on the handheld e The amount of data inputis reduced as member information is already there e Small learning curve e Well suited to simple data collection e With the addition of wireless connectivity and communication with the AA s backend systems would save time a
64. itable methodology before the design stage of the project The choice of methodology can be divided into two stages the first stage is to selecta process model and the second stage is to select a methodology that uses or can be adapted to that process model The following summary on process models is based on 8 Chapter 4 and the methodologies were taken from 9 Chapter 6 3 1 1 Rapid Application Development RAD This process is designed to reduce the development time by removing some of the processes seen as bureaucratic The idea of the process is to quickly develop a system which has limited functionality but is accepted by the user This can then be enhanced to its complete functionality without the need to go through phases of user feedback and redesign One disadvantage of RAD is thatit does not fully support the analysis and requirements processes 3 1 2 The Waterfall Model The waterfall model is a simple eightstage model where each stage follows on from the one before The simplicity of the model is one of its main advantages however it has limited scope for iteration and therefore is more suitable for projects where there is a definite specification that is unlikely to change 3 1 3 The V Process Model The V process model is very much like the waterfall model however it expands the testing activities and stresses the necessity for validation The biggest advantage of this model is that it insists on going through phases of use
65. ity for business itis a huge challenge to identify which of these will provide the best solution for them According to Ken Dulaney vice president of Gartner a leading researcher in mobile computing every six months or so there will be dramatic shifts in device designs and capabilities and in development platforms and this will continue through 2006 80 probability 14 In selecting a suitable device there are a number of issues that affect a devices potential use in businesses The main factors are the type of hardware the operating system that runs on the hardware the user interface and the devices wireless connectivity these factors are detailed in the next few sections Different enterprises obviously have different requirements tailored to their needs the detailed requirements for vehicle recovery companies specifically using the AA as basis can be found in chapter 5 As there is such a vast choice of devices they have been roughly grouped together for the purpose of this project into the following categories Tablet computers laptops so called smart phones which combine mobile phones with personal digital assistants P DA s and handheld computers These are compared and contrasted in Appendix G It is worth noting that all of these devices are available in some fashion of rugged device 26 6 1 2 1 Operating Systems This section details the differenttypes of operating systems available for mobile computers and some of the advan
66. ives OmniE xpress the ability to operate in conjunction with other systems on one unit 20 4 3 3 3 Other Systems Other systems researched included Wireless Vehicle Inspection software used to capture information and images of vehicles a Mobile Point of Sale system used on the forecourts of car dealerships and a system for technology engineers to input service information 4 3 3 4 Conclusions After analysing the systems it is clear that there are many methods of approaching the problem and developing system There is yet no single method of implementing a system of this type as the technology is continuously moving and hence implementations and their capabilities vary Many systems that have been developed are deployed on rugged hardware such as those produced by Symbol technologies 12 This is because operating in a work field environment can be hazardous and normal devices are not built to endure such environments F or example a device used at the side of a road has to be rugged as it has to withstand being moved in and out of a vehicle being handled by various people and being exposed to the elements wind rain dust etc It is clear from the systems investigated that software producers are creating solutions for the processes of both data collection and workforce management Workforce managementis a possible extension to the system that could be implemented if more time was available Most of the systems run on eith
67. ke large amount of time With small modifications suc h as displaying the members name at the top of the form the note form was quickly added By selecting this button the menu bar is displayed Figure 12 The Note Form in Recovery and the Member Edit screens hidden menu 7 3 5 Menus The menu s in Recovery were fairly simple to implement as they were kept to a minimum in the design see section 6 4 The selection of a menu generates an event that is caught by the active forms event handler For an example the Member Edit screen has a event handler called E ditf ormHandleE vent which will process the menu event when menu selection is made see figure 12 whilst that form is active E ditF ormHandleE vent will then pass the event onto the appropriate menu handler The Member Edit screen menu is handled by theHandleC ommonMenus function which was used so that the standard menus could be used in all text editing screens This then calls the appropriate functions for standard features such as cut and paste calls the Palm OS FldCut aste respectively These take the current field highlighted as their argument and the Palm OS handles everything else 44 The only other menu options implemented apart from the standard text editing functions was the deletion of the current record and the about option The delete record option would just callthe function DeleteR ecord which deletes the curre
68. ke to learn the how to develop for mobile devices What would I do differently If I had the option to do it all over again would certainly have not chosen my own project without first establishing some methods of help and guidance I would have more thoroughly investigated what was required to produce the systems that I originally conceived It would have been helpful to look at previous code speak to some developers etc In terms of methodology I would have used more RAD approach so that I could actually have built more of a system instead of being weighed under with documentation such as SSADM seems to have done I would have also started much earlier although I started before Christmas I think the it would have been better to have more written up at that point so there is less to do at the end 59 Conclusions In conclusion I have learned many valuable lesson from this project about research time management and investigating choices more thoroughly I have enjoyed the work at times and also at other times found it very difficult I have however learned lot from the research carried out in the project and in the development I now believe I have the knowledge to produce systems on Palm devices and may consider developing for other mobile computers 60 Appendix Milestones 12 12 2002 Hand in Mid Project Report Schedule and initial background reading complete 22 12 2002 Complete background research and chapter 22 1
69. lear not laid out well and of poor colour for these reasons many of his colleagues had made complaints The advert on the customer copy of the report also caused the handwriting to appear incorrectly at times on the second and third copies 64 The other problem Mr Willingham found was that one copy of each form had to stay with the patrol for between three to six months this created large amount paper that had to be stored Question 4 Apart from having multiple copies what do you do with the documents after they have been filled in On the copies of the forms obtained prior to the interview the destination of each of the multiple copies was listed These are explained in section 4 3 2 The copies held by the patrol are kept for three to six months and then thrown away explained Mr Willingham He then said that they were kept by the patrol in their patrol vehicle or as he does in his house After six months they were disposed of by a specialist service employed by the AA that shredded the forms This was so that member information was kept confidential Question 5 What happens to the forms once they are given to the Membership Department Accounts Department or Suppliers Mr Willingham said that the AA has three separate systems that hold information collected by the patrols These are the Deployment Breakdown and Membership systems Currently there is no central system that holds all the data Therefore the membership appl
70. lete the requirements analysis and definition System and Software Design 30 12 02 03 02 03 10 02 03 10 02 03 Design of code structure for front end communications module Design of user interface for front end communications module Design of database structure Design of data transmission method Implementation and UnitTesting 17 02 03 19 02 03 24 02 03 25 02 03 Coding of front end communications module Unit testing of front end communications module Coding of database Unit testing of database Integration and Systems Testing Coding of data transmission method and connection of database and front end communications 5 03 03 module Systems Testing 10 03 03 Extend front end functionality 12 03 03 Store the database on a server and transfer the information from the current desktop to the server via 17 03 03 the internet 31 03 03 14 04 03 21 04 03 Transfer the data using wireless technology directly onto the desktop instead of via a physical cable Write up of Report Write up of user manual 62 Revised Project Schedule Milestone Objective Requirements Analysis and Definition Start Due Date DD MM YY Research the existing manual systems used by breakdown companies 12 12 02 Research other systems that have been adopted to solve similar problems 12 12 02 Research the wireless hardware options available and decide on the most suitable platform including the most appropriate 05 20 12 0
71. mately between 2 100 250g 5Kg Wireless e GPRS e IEEE 802 116 IEEE 802 116 GPRS Accessibility GSM Bluetooth Bluetooth GSM Bluetooth Bluetooth IEEE 802 11b Development As devices are new As devices are new Developer support is strong Developer support is Support developer support and developer support and as development is the same much stronger than literature limited literature is extremely as a desktop PC smart phones or tablet limited computers as handheld devices have been produced for some time 74 Sony Ericsson P800 Electrovaya Scribbler SC Compaq Evo 800c Symbol SPT1800 800 ben Veg Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Palm OS 4 Triband GSM and Windows XP Tablet Processor M 1 8GHz IEEE802 11b and Cee IEE802 11b WLAN card 512MB DDR SDRAM GPRS Stylus user interface 866 MHz Processor 30GB or 60GB HD 16 MB RAM Infrared and Bluetooth 512MB RAM 2 5kg in weight 33MHz Processor 30GB HD Optional IEEE 802 11b Full workday 1 72Kg in weight or Bluetooth connectivity capacity battery life connectivity Open J2ME MIDP PersonalJava and C 10 16 hours battery life Windows XP Pro For more information refer For more information For more information refer For more information refer refer to 12 to 16 to 17 Table 1 Hardware comparison of mobile computers 22 Appendix H Entity Event Matrix Entity Life history Diagram Data Changes Entity Life History Diagram Vehicle recovery s
72. mber E dit window On the Recovery List window members names and their membership numbers have to be displayed To display the data Recovery uses the WinDrawC hars AP I function which is wrapped in DrawCharsinW idth function The DrawCharsInWidth function returns the passed in string with concatenated dots if it exceeds the length of the column in the table refer to figure 9 Like many of the windows functions WinDrawChars takes four arguments a pointer to the characters to draw the length of the characters in bytes and the x and y coordinates of where the characters should appear 7 2 7 Categories Every record in a Palm OS database has an attribute field which contains half a byte of category information about the record T his mechanism allows the user to have customisable categories for classifying records Although this is not mentioned in the original design the categories were added as they are used in almost all applications including the builtin Address Book To Do List and Memo Pad applications The code was simply taken from the Address Book application and modified This was quite easy as the Palm OS provides a category manager to make managing implementing them easier In order to provide some default categories in the Recovery application the category names are stored in the resource file recovery rcp as strings These are then initialised into the application info block when the application starts and runs AppStart Recover
73. more implementation to have been produced 8 4 Evaluation of Front End Hardware As mentioned in section 6 1 2 the hardware used for the Recovery software was selected due to constraints on the availability of other options This consequently impacted the software produced and the devices appropriateness towards the requirements of vehicle recovery companies such as the AA To evaluate the Palm device the non functional hardware requirements for the front end device see section 5 6 were used as criteria These were broken into essential and desirable requirements 50 Essential Front End Hardware requirements e The mobile device needs to be inexpensive so that all breakdown companies large or small can use it Palm is inexpensive approximately 100 e The mobile device needs to be lightweight so that it can easily be carried by patrols Device is very lightweight and can easily be held in your hand operating system the mobile device runs on needs to be simple and easy to use Mr Willingham the potential user commented on how simple the interface was see section 8 1 e The battery life of the mobile device needs to be good with enough life to last at least a full day without a recharge preferably longer Device lasts many days on three AAA batteries e The mobile devices screen needs to be viewable in the dark Device has a backlight Desirable Front End Hardware requirements e The mobile device needs to
74. n version can be developed that solves some of the problems This also means there is a limited time for learning and hence development languages and techniques chosen should be those already known where possible Theoretically if this was to be implemented by an actual company the benefits should out way the costs Therefore theoretical hardware costs should be kept to a minimum If the system was actually implemented the expected benefits would be e Improved customer service through the storage of previous breakdown details e Removal of physical storage e Better knowledge of customers as their details are stored and can be analysed 15 e Elimination of repeated data entry e Patrols have an extra level of insurance as they now have a permanent record of the breakdown work carried out 4 1 3 Technical Feasibility As the main objective of this project is to produce a completely new system we only need to consider possible methods of outputting the data for use by another system We do not have to actually integrate the system with any particular existing system If information needs to be output to another system then a universal method such as XML should be used Therefore there are no restraints on the technology that can be used apart from that it should be freely available for use The system should also be feasible in the set time period it cannot therefore be too technical This means that certain complex processes of examin
75. n Industry Association 2001 Building the Net Trends Report 2001 Trends Shaping the Digital Economy URL http www trendsreport net wireless 1 html 30th April 2003 4 FORMAN and ZAHORJAN J 1994 The Challenges of Mobile Computing IEEE Computer Vol 17 4 38 47 5 AA Breakdown Recovery Home Page URL http Awww theaa co uk breakdowncover join brejoi001 asp 30th April 2003 6 RAC Breakdown Recovery Home Page URL http www rac co uk breakdowncover 30th April 2003 7 Green Flag Breakdown Recovery Home Page URL http www greenflag co uk breakdown index html 30th April 2003 8 HUGHES B COTTERELL M 1999 Software Project Management Second Edition McGraw Hill 9 AVISON D FITZGERALD G 1995 Information Systems Development Second Edition McGraw Hill 56 10 Gearworks eTrace Home Page URL http Awww gearworks com products etrace cfm 30th April 2003 11 Qualcomm Incorporated OmniExpress Home Page URL http Awww qualcomm com qwbs products omniexpress 30th April 2003 12 Symbol Technologies 2003 Mobile Palm SPT1800 Home Page URL http www symbol com products mobile_computers mobile_palm_spt1800 html 30th April 2003 13 At Road Inc 2001 Home Page URL http Awww atroad com usa productsandservices products_othersol htm 30th April 2003 14 GREEN ARMYTAGE J 2002 Choosing Mobile Applications Symposium ITxpo 2002 News Coverage URL http symposium gartne
76. n also initiate an event For example the Palm OS may send an event saying that synchronisation with the desktop is about to occur The application will do nothing if there are no events to be processed it will gladly sit there idly waiting until an event occurs The structure of an application is therefore built around this concept All Palm applications will have a main function PilotMain and this is the entry point for the application Normally an application will have an initialisation function in Recovery its called AppStart which is the first function called in PilotMain This function sets about opening databases and retrieving the applications saved preferences etc Once this is completed the application will enter the main event loop in Recovery its called AppE ventLoop which keeps processing events and sending those events to their appropriate event handlers When a StopAppE vent arises the 37 application will call its close function in Recovery its AppStop which closes any databases memory handles and saves the applications preferences 7 2 4 Storage of Data on Palm 05 Once itwas established how Palm applications were created the next step was to think about how the data collected would be stored on the device The storage of data on a handheld P alm is very different from storing data on your average desktop There are limitations on the amount of memory and storage available and hence databases as they are normally t
77. n details for the member select the details button and this will display the Breakdown Details screen To attach a note to the members record select the Note button and it will display the note screen 5 Breakdown Details Screen The Breakdown details screen allows you to enter basic breakdown details against the member record These details include the vehicle fault and action taken The screen also allows the member s membership type to be changed and the member record to be made private By selecting a record and making it private that record will be hidden when the Palms security is set to hide private records see your Palm OS user 92 guide for more details The visited checkbox is used to keep track of which members have been visited and which have yet to be visited Selecting this arrow will allow you to specify the fault of the vehicle By checking the visited box The member is tagged as visited Selecting the Delete button will delete the current member record By Selecting OK you will have saved the breakdown details and the screen will close Selecting this arrow will allow you to change member s membership type By checking the private box The record will be made private Selecting this arrow will allow you to select the action taken to resolve the fault specified Selecting the Note button opens the note screen The Delete button at the bottom will delete the current member rec
78. n or applications e Itdisplays a report immediately when an error occurs By running a number of Gremlins over a period of up to one hour I could with a fair amount of certainty say that all functions buttons menus etc in that unit were tested Appendix contains an example gremlins log This testing produced some errors regarding display parameters and unlocked memory handles Most problems were resolved however the application occasionally has a memory leak when the Gremlins are run over a long period of time more than one hour This is due to a memory handle staying locked when the application terminates S ome time was spent trying to find the cause of the memory leak however as itonly occurred very occasionally the exact cause was not detected Although this is unwanted memory leaks do not effect the application as it will not even notify the user that 47 a leak has occurred only in the emulator does it notify the user This is because all handles are released when the Palm is turned off therefore to an extent they are tolerated If time permitted then it would have been better to find the cause and resolve it however with the time constraints and that the error was not serious it was left as a future enhancement 8 1 2 Black Box Testing Black box testing is designed to test the functionality of the application and uncover any omissions and deficiencies in the way thatit works This was carried out once implementation was complet
79. n or on some flat stable surface 4 3 2 3 Conclusions As the project is focusing on the removal of manual processes to improve the process flow the RAC will only be used as a source for further improvements The RAC have already removed almost all manual processes and do not collect customer or breakdown information at each breakdown therefore the project shall be focused more towards the using the AA system as a basis 19 4 3 3 Examination of Other Work Field Systems Currently there are numerous systems being developed and used in work field environments These range from Systems to store information on deliveries to more advanced systems that are used not only for data capture but also for communication and global positioning Although many of these systems are beyond the scope of this project they provide an insightful look into the platforms used for development and the hardware choices available In particular the solutions researched have been for businesses that have mobile workers 4 3 3 1 One system called developed by Gearworks 10 was the closest system to resolving the problem definition see section 4 1 1 It is a generic product produced for dispatched mobile workers however it is modular and elastic so that it can be customised to the particular client eTrace is a web based wireless application that runs on either Windows PocketPC or Palm OS this means that it operates on a handheld de
80. nd effort transferring information e Removes the paper trail Application negatives e Lacked some of the functionality of the existing breakdown form e Would require a fair amount of work and additions to make it a viable solution for the AA e An integrated system that could incorporate their existing frontend systems would be better It was clear from some of the answers given by Mr Willingham that his outlook of what should be included in the Systems was based on user patrol preferences rather than the business needs In general the feedback was positive for the application produced although itseemed that Mr Willingham was expecting a much larger and complex system 8 2 Future Improvements There are a number of improvements that can be made to the system in the future the main ones are as follows e Implement another vehicle screen to allow the user to have more than one vehicle e Add more advanced objects from the breakdown report e Add the additional invoice parts and service screen to the handheld 49 e Write conduit for the handheld so that data manipulation can occur e Develop backend to centrally store all the information gathered e Develop a wireless method of transferring the frontend data to the backend device e Create some sort of interface with a printer so that reports can be printed Some of these improvements however would take a long time to implement as they are quite complex These may be suita
81. nd these are presented in 24 These include e Palms are pocket sized devices small screen and no keyboard e Applications must therefore limit data entry e Menus in Palm applications are hidden and hence their use must be limited e Buttons are of a set size which means only a few can fit on a screen atone time Therefore they should be used only when necessary e Less is more where possible functionality should be moved to the desktop server e Applications should be fast and simple to use Therefore the number of steps required to perform a task should be kept to a minimum e User interfaces should be consistent throughout the application and be similar to other P alm applications Taking these factors into accountit was decided that the user interface should be similar to those applications that already exist In the case of this project the nearest application was the Address Book and hence screen designs were modelled on those screens see figure 5 The application will be called Recovery therefore the first screen that appears when the user opens the application is the Recovery List screen This screen will display all the members on the handheld The user can simply view one of the members by selecting the members record This will open up the Member details screen which will display information on the member This screen also allows access to the Vehicle details screen through the vehicle buttons and the Breakdown Details screen through
82. ne to one see figure 13 this was however necessary to complete the system in the required time the extra screens can be implemented at some point in the future It was originally perceived that the front end would connectto a server so that data would be transferred This to an extent has occurred an actual conduit the software for handling the data transfer has not been implemented however the generic conduit handles the backup Recovery s database backup bit which tells the conduit to back it up is set in the RecGetDatabase function which is called when the application opens A purpose built conduit would be better as it would allow data manipulation and checking to occur However after investigating the requirements thatthis would take it was decided thatthe time did not permit this feature Creating a conduit requires a completely different Conduit S DK a different development environment and language Visual or ava and requires code to interface with the handheld devices cradle This is a large task in its self and will have to be a possible extension 45 e Other minor problems that could be improved include data type masks that insisted in a set format It would be better for name fields to be capitalised automatically and the date of birth field to have specific type Member Breakdown Vehicle Vehicle Figure 13 The relationships between entities as they currently stand 46 8 Evaluation The purpose
83. nt record and the about option shows the details of Recovery These menus can be added to in the future so that they offer additional functionality such as infrared beaming of member records this can be left as a possible enhancement 7 4 Problems and Issues The first problem not anticipated was the actual length of the coding task Recovery was developed ona Palm OS handheld as one could be accessed easily It was programmed in C due to the available support from the Palm developers website and the existing P alm programming books However only after reading through 22 and building the Hello World program did it become apparent that the time set to produce the complete system was too little This was resolved by shifting the project scope to be more handheld focused and research based so that there was more allocated time for the handheld device From Palm OS 3 5 onwards the operating system would use different data types than those used before This would not change backward compatibility for the older P alm operating systems as later SDK s included header files that dealt with the conversion Therefore the text book being used for development was changed from 27 to 22 The number of screens in the system could have been improved on If the time had permitted it would have been better to have one screen for the member details and one for the vehicle details so that multiple cars could have been allowed The relationship is now only o
84. ocessor had 2MB of memory and had TCP IP and infrared capabilities 7 2 Outline of Development The following sections provide some detail into the structure of Palm applications and where these structures have been used in the Recovery software produced 7 2 1 Resources used Many resources had to be used during development as there was a lack of prior knowledge how to develop for Palm OS The main resource used was 22 and much of the code used was taken from the examples given in the book Many of the functions that are used to produce the Recovery software are generic and can be used for many Palm OS applications These generic functions were downloade d from the books companion website then modified Other resources used included newsgroups 25 knowledge bases 26 and numerous websites 7 2 2 Palm File Structure As PRC Tools were being used to build the software learning the file structure that PRC Tools requires to produce a fully working application was necessary A myAppprc file is the final compiled code file similar to an exe file and this is the file that actually gets installed onto the device To create this file a myApp c file is required containing all the main code its appropriate myApp h header file a myApp rcp resource file which contains code on how to build the user interface and its appropriate header file normally called MyAppRsc h The resource file specifies structures such as forms menus etc and the posit
85. of the edit categories screen you can edit delete or create new membership type 94 9 Menus Menus are only accessible in the Member Edit Screen and the Note Screen Both the Member edit screen and the Note screen have general text editing menu options which includes changing the font size The Member Edit screen menu also has the functionality to delete member and attach detach notes Select delete member to delete the Common member text record editing functions Brings up the in built keyboard 95
86. on Palm OS are as shown in table 1 The choice is quite broad and it includes J ava which is known from the School of Computing Module 5021 One problem is however that PalmS ource the owners of the Palm OS currently only officially support C development Many of the development environments available such as Codewarrior Appforge and J builder Handheld Express require purchasing the software Having to find free development software reduces the number of possible programming languages dramatically The free environments available were e PRC Tools a complete GCC based compiler tool chain for building Palm OS applications in C or C Superwaba ava is a free open source programming platform that lets developers write one program that can run on Palm OS Windows CE or any device that supports J ava e Pocket Smalltalk a rapid application development tool for business quality applications using the Smalltalk programming language Pocket Smalltalk was not chosen as it required learning the Smalltalk language 5 uperwaba would have been ideal but itis only ava based and not officially a certified by Sun PRC Tools allows C and C development and is 30 officially supported by PalmS ource The final decision was made after investigating the literature available on the platforms All the books that were researched are based on the C programming language there were no books available that dealt with development using Superwaba
87. opEvent New Gremlin 14 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 14 finished successfully to event 4200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event EvtAddEventToQueue appStopEvent New Gremlin 15 started from root state to 200 events Gremlin 15 finished successfully to event 200 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 1 to 4400 events Gremlin 1 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 2 to 400 events Gremlin 2 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 3 to 400 events Gremlin 3 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 4 to 400 events Gremlin 4 finished successfully to event 400 Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 5 to 400 events Gremlin 5 finished successfully to event 400 84 16 583 16 654 200 17 835 401 17 845 17 905 200 18 456 401 18 456 401 18 526 200 19 027 401 19 037 19 097 200 20 199 402 20 209 20 269 200 21 000 401 21 010 21 070 200 22 342 401 22 352 22 422 200 23 103 401 23 113 23 173 200 23 804 401 23 814 23 874 200 24 425 401 24 435 24 505 200 25 116 402 25 126 25 186 400 25 596 501 25 596 501 25 606 25 666 400 26 237 504
88. or Pocket Smalltalk If one of these options were chosen it would mean total reliance on the languages website and message boards Therefore the software will be developed using the PRC Tools As C is known from the many School of Computing modules such as 5012 the transfer to C should be relatively simple This would also allow use of the books available as well as support from the PalmS ource developer website For more details on the development languages and environment available see 21 6 2 Data Design 6 2 1 Relational Data Analysis As the focus of the project has moved more towards producing the software for the frontend device the relationships Appendix F will be implemented in stages To produce an initial prototype which can be added to later only the Member Vehicle and Breakdown entities see figure 3 will be implemented at first so that the frontend caters for the minimum requirements The other relationships will be implemented when the additional screens are added Member Breakdown Vehicle Vehicle i Figure 3 The Member Vehicle and Breakdown entities and their relationships Note Due to constraints on the time available the only the initial entities were developed The other relationships will have to be left until the other screens are implemented Appendix F 6 2 2 Data Flow Diagram The new system will improve the existing system by removing the manual stores in the process of breakdown callouts Th
89. ord and the note button will create note for that record and open the note screen 6 Note Screen The Done button will take you back to the previous screen Delete will delete the note from the current member The Note Screen allows you to add note to any members record If nothing is typed then the note will not be saved when the done button is selected 93 7 Recovery Preferences screen Selecting one of these changes the layout and sort order of the Recovery List Screen Selecting OK will return you to the Recovery List screen By checking the as well as saving the preferences Cancel will return you to the Recovery List without saving show visited box The visited column in the Recovery List screen is viewable The Recovery Preferences screen allows you to select the column order of Recovery List This also sorts the order of the list to the first column The show visited check box allows you to specifiy whether you want to see the visited column in the Recovery List screen 8 Editing the Memberships Select delete to delete the members elect PRE to rename the members hip type By selecting the membership type in the corner of either the Member Edit or Recovery List screen you can access the Edit Categories screen which allows you to change the names of the membership types Consult with your company before you do this By simply selecting the buttons at the bottom
90. ost an event Resuming Gremlin 1 to 500 events Gremlin 1 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 1 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 2 to 500 events Gremlin 2 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 2 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 3 to 500 events Gremlin 3 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 3 success fully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event Resuming Gremlin 4 to 500 events Gremlin 4 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin 4 successfully completed Hordes PostFakeEvent did not post an event 85 27 519 400 28 000 501 28 000 501 28 010 28 070 400 28 661 501 28 661 501 28 671 28 731 400 29 192 501 29 192 501 29 202 29 262 400 29 732 501 29 732 501 29 742 29 812 400 30 463 501 30 463 501 30 473 30 533 400 30 974 501 30 974 501 30 984 31 064 400 31 585 501 31 585 501 31 595 31 655 400 32 266 502 32 266 502 32 276 32 336 400 32 857 501 32 857 501 32 867 32 927 400 33 297 501 33 297 501 33 307 33 378 400 33 848 501 33 848 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 33 858 501 Resuming Gremlin 5 to 500 events Gremlin 5 finished successfully to event 500 Gremlin
91. ould be drawn 7 3 2 Member Edit The Member Edit screen is where the user can input and change the data belonging to member see figure 11 This screen is opened when the user selects the new button or when the user taps on an existing member record in the Recovery List screen Like the Recovery List form Member Edit also has a event handler EditF ormHandleE vent a initialisation function ormlnit and is mainly made up of a table In this case however the table is made up of two columns one which holds text labels and the other which allows the user to input text Each row in the table represents a text field in the Recovery database see section 6 2 3 with its appropriate label string labels are declared in recovery rcp The table however uses standard column types of labelT ableltem and textTableltem so that the Palm OS deals with the drawing of the characters without the need of custom draw back functions This can be done here as the fields are editable and don t launch other windows as the list table in the Recovery List form Figure 11 The Member Edit form and Breakdown Details pop up form If the Member Edit form is opened using the new button on the Recovery List form then the text fields are left blank as the new record is filled with nulls If the form is opened from the user selecting a record in the Recovery list then the text fields are filled with the details of that record To deal with this and the saving of d
92. placed Repaired No Action Temp Repair Note Char 255 Visited Not Visited Boolean ob Number Uint16 Staff Number U int16 Make Char 20 List Model Char 20 List Mileage Uint16 Reg Char 20 Condition Note Char 255 Membership Number Uint16 79 Data Structure Revision 1 Member Membership Number Uint16 Last Name Char First Name Char DOB DateType Post Code Char Second form of ID Char Breakdown Fault Type Char List Battery Charging Electrical Ignition Fuel Cooling Engine Exhaust Transmission Wheels Tyres Security Body Vent Steering Suspension Brakes Other Char Action Taken Char List Replaced Repaired No Action Temp Repair Note Char Job Number Uint16 Visited Not Visited Boolean Staff Number Uint16 Vehicle Make Char Model Char Reg Char Condition Note Char 255 Membership Number Uint16 80 Data Structure Revision 2 Member Membership Number Uint16 Last Name Char First Name Char DOB DateType Post Code Char Second form of ID Char Breakdown Fault Type Char List Battery Charging Electrical Ignition Fuel Cooling Engine Exhaust Transmission Wheels Tyres Security Body Vent Steering Suspension Brakes Action Taken Char List Replaced Repaired No Action Temp Repair Visited Not Visited Boolean Note Char Vehicle Make Char Model Char Reg Char 81 Appendix
93. r feedback and then corrections T his produces a system that will be accepted by the user but requires large amounts of user communication and is very orientated towards one set of users 3 1 4 The Spiral Model The spiral model is another way of looking at the basic waterfall model however there is a larger level of detail considered at each stage The system is considered in more and more detail in each sweep and an evaluation process is undertaken before the next iteration is embarked upon One advantage of this model is that it can easily be adapted and modified to suit the specific needs of a project 3 2 Chosen Methodology For this project an iterative process is more suitable as the project scope may change and therefore the requirements may also change By using a modified spiral model combined with a methodology each stage of the project can be 11 reviewed and possible changes can be implemented In terms of user interface building however RAD will provide the ability to build the user interface without having to communicate with the users at each stage which is known difficulty in this project This will ensure that the user interface design does not impact the progress of the projects investigation The modified spiral model will be based on the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology SSADM version 4 see figure 2 As the system to be produced is concerned with the collection of data a data orientated methodolog
94. r com story php id 2918 s 5 html 30th April 2003 15 Sony Ericsson P800 homepage URL http Awww sonyericsson com P800 main htm 30th April 2003 16 Electrovaya Home Page URL http www electrovaya com 30th April 2003 17 Compaq Evo 800 Home Page URL http h41102 www4 hp com products notebooks evo n800c index html 30th April 2003 18 IEEE 802 11 Main General Info Page URL http grouper ieee org groups 802 1 1 main html 30th April 2003 19 GSM World URL http www gsmworld com index shtml 30th April 2003 20 Optimising Bluetooth Bandwidth Online Library for Bluetooth Developers URL http www csr com enews sw007 html 30th April 2003 21 Palm OS Tools and Downloads URL http www palmos com dev tools 30th April 2003 37 22 FOSTER L R 2002 Palm OS Programming Bible 2 Edition Wiley Publishing Inc 23 ASHWORTH C GOODLAND M 1990 SSADM a Practical Approach McGraw Hill Book Company 24 OSTREM JEAN 2002 Palm OS User Interface Guidelines URL http Awww palmos com dev tech docs 30th April 2003 25 Google Groups Pilot programmer URL http groups google com groups hl en amp lr amp ie UTF 8 amp group pilot programmer 30th April 26 PalmSource Developer Knowledge Base URL http kb palmsource com cgi bin palmsource cfg php enduser std alp php 30th April 2003 27 RHODES N MCKEEHAN J 1998 Palm Programming the Developers Guide Orielly 28 Pressman R
95. r some more additional screens were added enough for simple data collection and storage such as the breakdown report He replied by saying for that suppose it would be fine He thought that the Palm device itself was too limited for the needs of a company such as the AA and it would be more suited to smaller companies or for simple data collections such as the breakdown form Question 10 Is their anything that you don t like or would like to see added to the software Mr Willingham said that it would have been nice to see a few more screens and more functionality He added that wireless connection to the AA s systems would be ideal so that he would simply have to return to his depot for the information to be transferred 90 Appendix L Recovery User Manual Note this user manual does not detail specific Palm OS functions for those details see the Palm OS user manual 1 Installation Note To install the system you must have the Palm Desktop Software installed and cradle linked to the desktop To install the system double click on the recovery prc file and when the installation box appears check that recovery prc is listed in the window and click done The dialogue should indicate that the file will be installed next time you run HotSync 2 Running the software To open recovery select the following icon The first screen to appear will be the Recovery List Selecting this arrow will allow you to view the
96. r this would be extremely difficult to locate 8 7 Evaluation of System To evaluate the Recovery software produced itis necessary to compare the system with the existing manual system and other systems implemented It is also essential to judge the system against the minimum requirements see section 1 4 the requirements specification see chapter 5 and finally evaluate the comments made by the potential user See Appendix K To evaluate all of these the following criteria were used Did the system meet the minimum requirements Exceed them e Did the system solve the weaknesses found in the 5 existing system e Did it fulfil the essential requirements Desirable requirements Further requirements e Was the system to the approval of the potential user e How does it compare to other existing computerised systems used in work field environments Did the system meetthe minimum requirements Exceed them The minimum requirements of the project are as follows e frontend should be portable and have the ability to capture and store information such as basic vehicle details basic member details and simple repair notes that are input by patrol vehicles when they respond to call Recovery is extremely portable as it runs on a Palm device it allows the user to capture and store the details mentioned and also allows the entry of breakdown details e This information should then be transferred from the hand held device to a desktop
97. r to the interview from Mr Willingham and are in Appendix E The forms consist of a Breakdown Report two membership application forms and an invoice for parts service Question 1 Why are the current paper forms used Mr Willingham stated that there are three main reasons for the Breakdown Report Firstly itis a means of advertising other products the AA offers to the member This is done through the advert printed on the back of the copy given to the member Secondly if the vehicle has to be taken to a garage the Breakdown Report provides the garage with the details of the breakdown and what minor repairs have been done or are needed Finally it is used as insurance for patrolmen so that they have a record of what they did in case a complaint is made The membership forms are used for people who wish to apply for membership The invoice for parts service is used as a record of the parts used if any during the repair These parts are charged to the customer at an additional rate The invoice is also the members receipt for the guarantee of the parts used Question 2 How often are the current paper forms used According to Mr Willingham one Breakdown Report is used per breakdown and the other forms are used as and when needed Question 3 What problems have you found using the existing methods and forms Mr Willingham did not like having to complete a form at every breakdown He found that the current Breakdown Report was not c
98. re than handheld devices and would be limited to WLAN connectivity only Finding a tablet device to actually use for testing would also prove to be very difficult as they are very new and notyet widespread This is the same for smart phones it would be extremely difficult to borrow a device as most people will not have one Using a laptop would be the simpler solution however problems such as the weight and the poor battery fail some essential requirements Therefore the system will be developed on handheld device More specifically a Palm as one can be borrowed for development from a friend Andrew Tilley Palm devices have been around for some time and there is a strong developer network established They should be more than adequate for the collection of recovery data and they have room for expansion As Palm devices are backwards compatible the software can theoretically be ported to a Palm OS smart phone there is also the possibility to expand the software so thatit uses some of the Palm OS 5 features mentioned in section 6 1 2 1 1 For the data transfer Palms also offer both wired and wireless possibilities Initially implementing transfer over a serial cable through a cradle there is the possibility to expand to wireless transfer This however could only be coded and not tested as the device to be used does not have wireless capabilities 6 1 4 Development Language and Environment Options The options available for the development language
99. store information outside of the main office would suffice Figure 1 shows some of the industries that mobile computing could benefit Many of these industries have already adopted mobile computing and for some it has even transformed the way they operate The examples ofFedEx and UPS companies in the delivery industry are listed in 3 They have been using mobile computing for some time by adopting mobile terminals for their employee s they have revolutionised the delivery business 10 Energy Supply companies Figure 1 Industries that could use mobile computing Source Zaslavsky A 2001 Mobile Computing at Monash University One such industry that is yet to use the full benefit of mobile computing is the vehicle recovery industry Vehicle recovery is the business of recovering and where possible repairing vehicles when they break down These companies often have membership schemes where only members are capable of receiving a call out Many of the companies in the industry already use GPS tracking and mobile data terminals to direct and keep track of the patrols However simple data collection storage and transfer in some cases still manual One problem is that many of the current mobile data terminals are bespoke and will not cater for such collection There are numerous vehicle breakdown services in the UK however the largest ones are the AA 5 RAC 6 and Green Flag 7 Therefore the project will particularly con
100. t arose It also describes the methods used to test the software to ensure that it was robust 7 1 Development Environment The first stage of starting the implementation was to set up the required development environment so that a program could be coded compiled tested and debugged To access the required development tools the Palm 05 Developer program was entered into see 21 This gave a step by step guide on how to set up a development environment for The tools used had to be freely available therefore the ones used were Cygwin GNU PRC Tools the Palm OS SDK and the Palm OS Emulator The hardware used was Palm Ille kindly donated by a friend The following sections describe each of these and their uses 7 1 1 GNU PRC Tools GNU PRC T ools is set of development tools created by the open source development community It contains e M68k GNU C compiler modified version of the GNU C compiler gcc which transforms source code to Motorola 68000 the majority of Palm s use this 68k proc essor object code e PiIRC The tool is a resource compiler that transforms text descriptions of a user interface and other resources into the correct binary format expected by the Palm OS For more details on resource files see section 7 2 2 e build prc This utility converts the Motorola 68000 code into the prc refer to section 7 2 2 for more details format expected by the Palm OS and also combines that code with create
101. t data in the work field environment whether thatis in a client s office or out on the roadside All these businesses have some problems in common how to collect this data how to transfer it where to store itand how to use it effectively to improve their businesses With the new portable devices out on the market and the new emerging wireless technologies these problems can at last be solved ata cost that is acceptable One such sector of business that has these problems is the vehicle recovery sector information about the breakdowns has to be recorded transferred and stored Currently these processes are manual and could be computerised This project will therefore attempt to solve the general problems stated in the above paragraph by designing and building a system for use by the vehicle recovery sector By doing this it will investigate the new technologies mentioned above and evaluate their possible uses and future 4 1 2 Economic Feasibility As the project has not been initiated by a company there is no budget and hence the software tools that are to be used have to be either freely available or university owned There also cannot be a hardware cost therefore any testing and development must be done on existing university machines on available emulators or on a device that is freely available As there is a restricted time period a large system to resolve all the problems mentioned in section 4 1 1 cannot be produced Instead cut dow
102. t used in the design was far too complex for all the details to be presented on the Palm device see section 6 4 for more details Therefore breakdown details were kept to a minimum which lead to the production of the Breakdown Details form that allows the user to change the breakdown status types which are declared in the recoveryDB h file The breakdown status types are as follows the actual fault leading to the breakdown faultS tatus the action taken to solve the fault actionS tatus and whether the member has been visited yet or not visitedS tatus The basic layout of the form see section 6 4 was taken from the built in Address Book application and from the code given in 22 The Breakdown Details form is much simpler than the previous forms as it does not require the use of tables Much of the functionality such as the pop up lists are handled by the Palm OS and specified in the recovery rcp file The Strings to be used by the lists and the position of the pop up trigger which launches the list are simply specified in this file The application then gets the current member record using the R ecG etR ecord function and sets the lists to display the status values held in the rec ord This is done through the DetailsF orminit function If the record is new then the lists are set as default Apart from the statuses there are two other options that can be changed in the form these are the builtin Palm OS options category see section 7 2
103. tages and disadvantages of each 6 1 2 1 1 PalmOS The Palm operating system has been the market leader since it was first introduced in 1996 Until recently the Palm OS was seen as the only option for mobile enterprises and businesses With the introduction of Windows CE based operating systems this has slowly changed It still leads however in terms of development support and backing with a large back catalogue of both commercial and public software It therefore has a proven track rec ord of being a platform that can be developed for The biggest advantages of Palm OS are that each new operating system is backward compatible with the last and that they all have a similar look and feel thatis simple and straightforward This is even true with its use in smart phones which run Palm OS 5 Similar to Pocket PC 2002 Palm OS 5 offers wireless connectivity through Bluetooth IEE802 11b WiFi see section 6 1 2 2 for details on wireless connectivity methods and the mobile phone networks inc luding wide area wireless networks They also offer connection to existing enterprise back ends such as those developed in Oracle SQL server etc via third party software In terms of development language support see table 1 Palm OS 5 also has 128 bit data encryption and Secure Socket Layer SSL support for Internet email Web browsing and commercial transactions 6 1 2 1 2 Windows CE Pocket P C S martphone 2002 Windows CE was originally released in 1996 but failed
104. tails on the mobile device e Creation of vehicle members details on the mobile device e Updating of vehicle members details on the mobile device e Creation of a breakdown report on the mobile device e Updating of current breakdown report on the mobile device 5 3 2 Desirable System P rocessing The desirable processing tasks are as follows e Creation of invoice for parts service on the mobile device e Updating of current invoice for parts service on the mobile device 22 e Viewing of members previous breakdowns on the mobile device 5 3 3 Further System Processing The further processing tasks are as follows e Creation of member details on desktop server e Updating of member details on desktop server e Creation of vehicle members details on desktop server e Updating of vehicle members details on desktop server e Updating of breakdown report on desktop server e Updating of invoice for parts service on desktop server e Payment transaction on the mobile device 5 4 Data Models Using two types of model taken from the SSADM methodology we can easily represent the d ata requirements of the system These are detailed in the next sub sections 5 4 1 Data Flow Diagram Data Flow Diagrams are a widely used technique for representing the information flows of a system The diagrams represent the external agents sending and receiving information processes that change information the information flows themselves and wh
105. ted in the required time Once again the full changes are documented in Appendix H The three different entities Member Breakdown and Vehicle would now be linked to the same record through an overall structure that wrapped the entities This is a method taken from the example given in 22 Chapter 14 Figure 4 shows the basic principal of this technique DBRecordType Figure 4 DBRecordT ype Data structure 6 3 Process Design The processes that occur in the system can be modelled using the SSADM techniques of Entity Life Histories and Entity Event Matrices Entity Life Histories model the system from a viewpoint of how information is changed What the Entity Life Histories show is the full set of changes that can possibly occur to the information within the system together with the context of each change See Appendix H for the Entity Life History diagram for the system The Entity Event Matrix Appendix H accompanies Entity Life Histories and shows which events affect which data groups for more information on these techniques see 23 Chapter 7 32 6 4 User Interface Design The user interface in a handheld device is a very important factor to consider In Palm OS applications there is a standard format for such objects as buttons and lists forms etc These are all handled by the Palm OS and simply have to be specified in the code with their coordinates There are a number of concepts to consider when designing Palm applications a
106. that can be used to produce a solution to the problem by investigating similar systems 4 3 1 The AA s Existing System Steve Willingham provided all details about the AA s existing system during an Interview over the phone on the 14 of November 2002 A write up of the phone interview together with the questions asked can be seen in Appendix D 4 3 1 1 The Manual System The AA currently has a number of forms which can be filled in by the patrols These are the breakdown report membership application form and an Invoice for parts service Photocopies of these can be seen in Appendix E The Breakdown Report has to be filled in on each breakdown attended The top copy of the reportis given to the customer while a second copy is given to either the garage the vehicle is taken to or the second patrol if one is required see Appendix E The third copy of the form is kept by the original patrol If parts are used in repairing the vehicle then an Invoice for Parts S ervices form has to be c ompleted If there is someone who requires a membership then the Membership Application Form is filled in These also have multiple copies which can be given to customers garages other patrols suppliers accounts and the membership department See section 5 4 1 which explains a data flow diagram which shows how the data flows through the 5 current system 17 The data collected by the patrols is then entered into one three separate systems One system stor
107. the internet Tablet PC s Replace traditional laptop PC Stylus pen Touch screen Keyboard Microsoft Windows CE based Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition laptop computer is simply a portable PC They all have keyboards a screen and are clamshell devices Used the same as normal desktop PC From word processing to development Keyboard Linux Microsoft Windows based 73 Handheld handheld computer is as the title suggests computer that fits in the palm of your hand they are also known as personal digital assistants or PDA s Stores personal information allows use of cut down applications Stylus pen Touch screen Keyboards clamshell devices Microsoft Windows CE based PocketPC2002 Symbian OS Processor Clock Between 30 130 MHz Up to 1GHz Up to 2GHz Between 16 400MHz Speeds Storage Memory Between 2MB 16 RAM Up to 255MB RAM 60GB Up to 512MB RAM 80GB Between 2MB 16MB HD HD RAM Battery Life Between 10 hours to 15 Between 4 to 12 Hours Between 3 to 8 hours Varies considerably days between 6 hours to 2 Size and Weight Normally slightly larger than Slightly larger than an A4 Vary between screen sizes Quite small normally normal mobile phone yet piece of paper to be larger than other smaller than hand smaller than PDA Approximately between 1 mobile devices Approximately between Approximately up to 2000 2Kg Approxi
108. the Recovery application 40 Once the drawing call backs have been set the records from the database are actually loaded into the table using ListF ormLoadTable which in turn are drawn by the call back function refer to figure 9 Now that the records were displayable method of creating new record was needed Previously for testing purposes records were simply created within the code Now a new blank record would have to be created and then appended to the database The new button at the bottom of the Recovery List screen creates a new member and opens the Member Edit screen see section 7 3 2 To create a new member it calls the E ditF ormNewR ecord function which creates a new record in memory fills the record with nulls and then attaches that piece of memory to the Recovery database For the user to open an existing record they had to have a method of selecting a member which opens the Member Edit screen and loads the screen with the member data This could have been done using a button however it was decided that Recovery should behave like similar Palm applications and allow the tapping of a record in the Recovery List screen to open the Member Editsc reen All tables in Palm OS have the ability to raise events that notify the application that that particular column and record has the focus The ListF ormltemS elected function handles these events using a case statement Depending on the column selected the ListF ormltemS elected
109. ts specified After some expansion it would be suitable for use by smaller vehicle recovery companies and could be adapted for other businesses that require data collection in the work field environment If the AA only required mere data collection and storage then it would also be suitable for them however they require more advanced systems and therefore it would not be suitable This is due to the actual Palm devices limitations which in turn limit the Recovery software 8 8 Evaluation of overall project To assess the overall project itis necessary to check that the initial objectives set out have been met The projects objectives were as follows e Toresearch the current manual processes used on the road by patrols and explore the problems they face This research was completed and a list of problems was compiled e and explore the possible hardware and software solutions to data capture on mobile computers Extensive research has been performed and the results of this have been input into the report Toimplementa front end solution to replace the manual processes The Recovery software was produced which replaces the manual Breakdown Report To evaluate the solution and review how it improves the current processes The solution has been extensively evaluated against various criteria e To review how the solution could be extended A list of possible enhancements is provided in section 277 e To reflect on the f
110. uture of mobile computer technology and what possible applications wireless devices could be used for A evaluation on the future of mobile computing is provided in section Therefore the project achieved its objectives and provided a detailed investigation into the field of mobile computing 8 9 Evaluation of the Future of Mobile Computing With the influx of wireless technologies and mobile computers itseems thatthe time has come for the wireless revolution Currently all the big players in the computing world are joining the rush to add wireless technologies to their products and software to enable mobile system Due to the technology market slumping after the Dot com bubble burst many development companies are seeing mobile computing as the only way to generate income whilst businesses see mobile computing a method of streamlining their systems to reduce costs 54 There are however still major problems that need to be resolved before wireless computing will fully be utilised by businesses and consumers The new mobile devices such as the tablet PC and handhelds have now come to point where they offer the storage and processing that can replace conventional PC s yetthey do not have the wireless infrastructure to operate successful wireless wide area networks Current wireless protocol systems such as GPRS simply do notoffer the bandwidth required see section 6 1 2 For the real revolution to start we shall have to wait for the release o
111. vice The front end of the system has SmartForms which acts as an electronic clipboard which can be used to enter any repetitive data such as customer information or vehicle details This data can then be exchanged in real time with the central office The back end of the system is a Mission Control for dispatchers to plan route and measure the performance of the mobile workforce The most interesting aspect of this software is that it is built on open standards which means it can integrate with existing systems easily It has a software module that allows integration to an enterprise system through XML 4 3 3 2 OmniExpress One of the more advanced systems researched was OmniExpress developed by Qualcomm the world s largest mobile data solutions provider 11 This gave some insight into what can be produced with a large development team and substantial investment OmniE xpress is a system designed for large fleet operators who would like to communicate with and locate their vehicles at all times Ittakes advantages of the latest technology available in the USA CDMA to transmit data and GPS to relay positioning information This does however mean the system requires Specialist hardware This includes a GPS antenna used to position the vehicle a TCU used to transmit and receive information and an in vehicle computer As with many of the systems researched the in vehicle computer ran on the Windows CE OS which allowed for a degree of customisation and g
112. y has default categories 100 Roadside 200 Relay 300 Homestart and 400 Relay Plus see figure 8 These representthe membership types ofthe AA The categories can be changed in the Recovery List Edit and Breakdown Details screens Figure 8 The membership categories displayed in the Member Edit screen and the Edit Categories screen accessible by selecting E dit Categories 39 7 3 Recovery Screens and Menus Once the underlying functions had been implemented such as the creating writing and reading from the database the next phase was to produce the screens of the Recovery system In the design it was decided to follow similar design rules as those of the built in Palm applications such as the Address Book to ensure that the system had similar look and feel to other Palm applications refer to section 6 4 for more details The following sections outline Recovery s screens and detail how each one works and which functions are called by which screens 7 3 1 Recovery List When the user taps the Recovery icon refer to figure 9 it starts the application and the Palm OS calls the AppStart function which then calls the FrmGotoForm API This is used throughout the application it generates an event that will open a form This event is processed by the main event handler AppHandleE vent which passes the event to the corresponding forms event handler in this case ListF ormHandleE vent All the forms used in Recovery t
113. y seemed to be more appropriate SSADM is data orientated and can easily be adapted to the spiral model In addition not all parts of the methodology are compulsory which means that it can be scaled down This is important as a project of this size does not require such in depth processes Itis also a tried and tested methodology all government departments use itas was developed by the Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency CCTA Other methodologies investigated included Merise Object Orientated Analysis 00A Rational Unified Process RUP Euromethod EM and J ackson Systems Development SD The object orientated methodologies and RUP were deemed unnecessary as the system would not be object orientated The other methodologies were not data orientated or easily adapted to the spiral model As mentioned above a cut down version of SSADM will be used and diagrammatic representations of the system will not be used at all stages Many of the stages will be altered to reflect the management issues of a student project This includes removing some stages such as Define Business Options As there is no specific business Detailed Cost Benefit Analysis and the creation of multiple Business Options is not required and is beyond the scope of a Student project 3 3 Milestones The milestones of the project can be seen in Appendix B These milestones were later revised when the scope of the project changed to focus more on mobile
114. ystem Optional Event is New Member Account Account Member Life Cycle Closure Deletion Create Create Breakdown Request Change Member Vehicle Assistance Details Details Patrol Supplier 29 Change Change Arrives Garage Patrol Address Vehicle Customer Needed See next page for continuation Same as patrol arrives see next page 76 Entity Life History Diagram Vehicle recovery system continued Optional Event is repeated Patrol Arrives View previous breakdowns Parts M Required Update Member Update Update 9 Vehicle Breakdown Report Breakdown Report Invoice for Take Parts Service Payment 77 Entity E vent Matrix HEAD OFFICE PATROL CUSTOMER Register new member Change members details Change members vehicle details Close members account account View previous Fill in breakdown Fill in Invoice for parts and Service 78 Data changes Original Data Sructure Member e e e e Membership Number Uint16 Last Name Char 20 FirstName Char 20 DOB DateType Post Code Char 20 Second form of ID Char 20 Breakdown Vehicle Fault Type Char 20 List Battery Charging Electrical Ignition Fuel Cooling Engine Exhuast Transmission Wheels Tyres Lock Alarms Immobilisers Body H eating Ventilation Steering S uspension Brakes Other Char 20 Action Taken Char 20 List Re
115. ystem with the introduction of an extension pack that allows the use ofthe special features This method can also be applied to applications built by other developers although any applications have to be altered so thatthey can interact with the special features of a tablet PC such as the stylus Windows XP tablet edition as Pocket PC and Palm OS offers handwriting recognition although the software used for this is more advanced Italso unlike the other operating systems mentioned offers the ability for speech recognition A big disadvantage with the operating system atthe momentis that it currently only supports IEEE 802 11b WiFi and Bluetooth but no other wireless connectivity methods Windows XP Tablet Windows CE Based Symbian EPOC Palm 05 ition Yes Yes Yes Yes Visual Basic Visual J Visual C Visual C lt D wn bedded VB Embedded C Table 1 The Programming languages available for use with which operating system 6 1 2 1 4 Symbian EPOC EPOC was the originally a operating system developed by Psion however in mid 1998 Psion joined forces with Ericsson Nokia and Motorola to form a new joint venture called Symbian T here aim was to establish EPOC as the de facto operating system for mobile Wireless Information Devices and seeking to drive the convergence of mobile computing and wireless technology Today Symbian OS v7 supports wireless data transfer through exiting phone networks such as GSM GPRS and

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