Mobile Workspace Overview

The Mobile Workspace app allows field workers to synchronize their mobile devices with a LiveCycle server and then work on tasks. The application works seamlessly when the device is offline by saving data locally on the device. Using annotation features such as scribble and photographs, field workers can provide accurate information to integrate into the business processes and simplify decision making.

For more information on key capabilities of the application, see Introduction to Mobile Workspace.

Mobile Device support

LiveCycle ES4 Mobile Workspace app is available on the following platforms:

iOS:

• iOS 5.1 and above.

For details on how to set up the iOS environment, see Set up the Xcode project and build the installer.

Android

• Android Jelly Bean and above [API Level 16 and above].

Certified on 7 and 10 inch Samsung Galaxy tablets and 7 inch Google Nexus tablet.

For details on how to set up the Android environment, see Set up the Eclipse project and build the installer.

Getting Familiar

LiveCycle ES4 includes a demo application that demonstrates an end-to-end workflow scenario of a sample government organization. For a detailed description of the walk-through, see Demo Application Walkthrough.

Also, for details on how to download and install the demo app, see Download and install the demo app packages.

Functional Overview

Working with Startpoints

You can synchronize your app with the LiveCycle server and can work on Startpoints from your mobile device. A Startpoint on the mobile device contains the form defined for the Startpoint of a process created in LiveCycle Workspace. All Startpoints defined in Workspace are placed within the category in the Possess tab. A Startpoints moves to the My Tasks folder when you perform a submit action on the Startpoint. When working on a Startpoint, you can make changes to the Startpoint and save a draft copy of Startpoint on the LiveCycle server. Startpoints saved as draft on the LiveCycle server can be viewed in Drafts folder. For details, see Saving a task (Save as Draft).

Working with Tasks

You can synchronize your app with the LiveCycle server and can work on tasks on your mobile device. A task on the mobile device contains a form, attachments, Summary URL, and annotations. By default, tasks assigned to you are placed in the My Tasks folder. A task moves to the Outbox folder when you perform a submit action on the task. When working on a task, you can make changes to the task and save a draft copy of task on the LiveCycle server. Tasks saved as draft on the LiveCycle server can be viewed in Drafts folder. For details, see Saving a task (Save as Draft).

Offline Support

You can work on your mobile device in the offline mode. You can log into the application even if there is no network connectivity and can work on all the tasks that were synchronized with the device when you were last online. For details on how to synchronize your tasks, see Synchronizing the app. If you synchronize the form and attachments associated with a task, you can open the form and attachments in the offline mode. You can edit the form, add annotations and submit or save a task in the offline mode. The task is synchronized with the LiveCycle server the next time you are online.

For details, see Working in the offline mode.

Adding Annotations to a Task

You can add the following annotations to a task on your mobile device

• Scribble - You can use the Mobile Workspace Scribble feature to quickly scribble a note and add it to your task. For details, see Adding a scribble.
  
• Camera - The Mobile Workspace app includes an annotation feature that uses the camera functionality of your mobile device. Using the photograph annotation, you can take a photograph and immediately include the photograph with the associated task. For details, see Adding a photograph.
  

Customizing the Mobile Workspace app

The Mobile Workspace application is easy to customize for organization-specific needs. The source code for the application is provided along with LiveCycle ES4. You can make changes to the source code and build your own mobile workforce solution. You can also sign the app with your own enterprise key.

For more information on setting up a Mobile Workspace project for customization, see Before you begin customizing Mobile Workspace

You can customize your app for:

Branding: Change the app icon, app name, launch images, and pages in Mobile Workspace. You can also change text to localize the app for a specific region. For more information on branding the Mobile Workspace application, see Branding customization.

Theme: Change styles such as colors, fonts, and spacing in the Mobile Workspace user interface. For more information, see Theme customization.

Gesture: Change gestures such as swipe right and swipe left in the Mobile Workspace user interface. For more information, see Gesture customization.

Architecture

Mobile Workspace provides a mobile solution for field workers to work on tasks assigned to them. The application caches the complete data from the server and provides an efficient user experience by saving all the work locally. The data from the disk is sent to the server via timely synchronization updates.

Mobile Workspace is a PhoneGap2.1-based application in which the Backbone model is efficiently used to present data stored in the models through views. All native operations are performed through PhoneGap plugins.

Distribution Model

The source code for the Mobile Workspace app can be extracted from the adobe-lc-mobileworkspace-src.zip that is available as part of the LiveCycle ES4 SDK.

For iOS:

For details on how to create an iOS app(.ipa), refer Set up the Xcode project and build the installer.

For details on how to sign the Mobile Workspace app with your provisioning profile, see iOS Code Signing Setup, Process, and Troubleshooting.

For Android:

For details on how to create an Android app(.apk), refer Set up the Eclipse project and build the installer.

For details on how to sign the Mobile Workspace app, see Signing Your Applications.

For details on how to distribute the app via MDM, see Distribute the Mobile Workspace app.