Data Integration for Mobile Devices – MobileTogether Works with FlowForce Server

When an offsite manager can read and reply to company email on a mobile phone, it’s only a short step to wanting access to all up-to-the-minute company data from the most convenient device.

Previously we’ve written about using FlowForce Server to generate HTML output that communicates data integration results. And yes, HTML results can be made available to Web browsers on mobile phones and tablets, but that’s an inferior solution for several reasons – the data will be cumbersome to view because it is not formatted for each device, and there is no interactive support for user interface controls built into mobile operating systems like buttons, combo boxes, edit fields, etc.

Fortunately, FlowForce Server jobs can be triggered by Altova MobileTogether solutions. The results are delivered directly to the mobile device and presented in a beautiful native-client form.

Altova MobileTogether is a unique cross-platform mobile development solution that includes functionality to work with FlowForce Server, and by extension MapForce Server, to bring data integration results to mobile devices to integrate business intelligence dashboards, elegant enterprise forms, and much more.

Here’s how a month-to-date sales report can appear on a mobile phone as a MobileTogether solution:

When the solution launches, the sales manager selects the region and product, the report is generated by execution of the FlowForce Server job running on a server back in the enterprise data center, and the results are displayed.

Now Available: MobileTogether

We are pleased to announce commercial availability of MobileTogether. Altova's brand new, cross-platform mobile development framework lets you design mobile solutions in record time and deploy them to all device platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 smartphones and tablets, as well as Windows 8 tablets and computers, or any other browser-based client.

MobileTogether brings control of mobile data in-house, where your team can create, test, and deploy mobile solutions quickly, moving from business requirements to live mobile solutions within hours. Your organization retains full control of your data, user security, access control, and the entire development cycle.

MobileTogether works for enterprises of all sizes, across all verticals. Whether you need to create BI reports, data collection forms, department-specific dashboards, or something else altogether, MobileTogether makes it easy.

MobileTogether consists of three components that unify the development experience with a visual designer, a powerful simulator, and a streamlined deployment process:

• The MobileTogether Designer is a sophisticated mobile development tool that lets your in-house development team connect to backend systems and use a combination of visual design and functional programming to create mobile solutions, including sophisticated BI dashboards, dynamic enterprise forms, business analysis reports, and more. MobileTogether supports bi-directional connectivity to SQL databases, XML, HTML, and more. The MobileTogether Designer even includes a built-in simulator for previews matching supported devices.
  
• Mobile solutions are deployed to the high-performance MobileTogether Server, which handles security, workflow logic, and integration with database back-end systems. The MobileTogether Server is available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh platforms.
  
• Enterprise users access your mobile solutions on the server via the native MobileTogether Mobile Apps, which are available free of charge in the Android, iOS, Windows Phone 8, and Windows 8 app marketplaces. There is also an HTML5 browser-based client for any other device.

With today’s release, MobileTogether introduces several new features based on invaluable feedback from beta test users, including enhanced support for images captured directly from a camera or stored in a photo gallery, new Actions that can be assigned to UI controls or included in Action Groups, new XPath functions for image and geolocation processing, and additional new XPath functions.

MobileTogether is designed to be affordable for firms of all sizes. The MobileTogether Designer and MobileTogether Mobile App are free to use – so teams can get to work immediately. When they’re ready to deploy custom mobile solutions, the MobileTogether Server provides powerful data processing and affordable scalability that is licensed based on the number of mobile devices the enterprise needs to support.

Visit the Altova Web site for detailed information about MobileTogether, watch a MobileTogether demo video, or to get started yourself, download the MobileTogether Designer!