NOTE

While creating this application, I am assuming that the customer complaint data is already transformed from the CRM database to an XML document.

To develop the application, the senior managers performed an analysis of the available technologies and decided to create the application by using the mobile technologies available as a part of the .NET platform. This is because the .NET Framework provides an easy and user-friendly framework for developing Web applications for the distributed environment. In addition, the Mobile Internet Toolkit, which is based on the .NET Framework, can be installed on the user’s computer. The Mobile Internet Toolkit provides the user with the tools and components that can be used to create a mobile application easily and efficiently.

Therefore, the senior managers have appointed a software developer who has experience in working with the .NET technologies. The software developer has decided to use C# as language to develop this mobile application. The following section discusses the stages in the life cycle of the MobileCallStatus application.

Project Life Cycle

You are familiar with the phases of a DLC (development life cycle) of a project. Therefore, in this chapter, I will only discuss the analysis of the organization’s requirements that were done by the software developer at Electronix, Inc.In addition, I will discuss the design of the application created by the software developer based on the analysis of the organization’s requirements. You, as a developer, will analyze the requirements of Electronix, Inc., and create a design for the MobileCallStatus application.

Analyzing Requirements

To develop an application, it is essential that you analyze the requirements of the customer in detail. This anal ysis is done in the analyzing requirements phase of the project life cycle. Based on the customer’s problem, you can create a plan for developing the application. The analysis of the customer’s problem is completed

720 Project 6 CREATING A MOBILE APPLICATION

on the basis of the problem statement stated by senior managers and the information gathered by the developer.

In the case of Electronix, Inc., the problem statement is as follows: “Electronix, Inc. needs to make the customer complaint data, which contains the status of the calls made by the customers, accessible to the engineers while they are traveling.”

After analyzing the problem statement, the developer created a detailed list of tasks to be done while creating the application:

The organization needs to make the customer complaint data containing the status of the calls accessible to the engineers while they are traveling.

The organization needs to save the time and effort of the engineers.

Because the engineers travel a lot, the application should be deployed on a mobile device, such as their mobile phones.

To provide a solution to the problems of Electronix, Inc., the developer plans to create a mobile Web application that can be accessed from the mobile phones of the engineers. The mobile Web application will have the following features:

The application will prompt the users to enter their logon name and password.

The application will validate the logon name and password of the users.

The information about the logon name and password of the users is stored in the Users.xml file.

The application will show the pending calls to the users.

When a user marks the status of a call as complete, the status is reflected in the Calls.xml file.

The application will show the unattended or new calls to the users.

When a user accepts a call, the status of the call is changed to pending in the Calls.xml file.

High-Level Design

Based on the plan that is created by the developer at Electronix, Inc., the developer needs to create a high-level and low-level design of the application in the high-level and low-level design phases, respectively. To create a design of the mobile application, the developer needs to identify the mobile Web forms to be

included in the application. In addition, the developer needs to identify the mobile Web form controls to be included in the Web forms. All this is done in the high-level design phase of the DLC of the application.

The MobileCallStatus application consists of four mobile Web forms, frmLogon, frmSelectOption, frmPending, and frmUnattended. You will learn about mobile Web forms in detail in Chapter 32, “Basics of Mobile Applications,” in the section, “The Mobile Web Form.” However, in this chapter, I will only discuss the designs of the four forms. Figure 31-1 shows the layout of the frmLogon form.

FIGURE 31-1 The design of the frmLogon form

The frmLogon form consists of two Label controls, two TextBox controls, two RequiredFieldValidator controls, and one Command control.You will learn about these controls in detail in Chapter 32 in the section “The Design of the MobileTimeRetriever Application.”

Figure 31-2 shows the layout of the frmSelectOption form.