Whether you’re an integration partner, consultant, system admin, or a mobile worker, there’s something for you in the update.

The release is planned to be generally available in June.

Let’s look at an overview of what’s included in the latest release, divided into three main areas:

1. New mobile app development capabilities
   
   Explore the latest additions that make it easy to build exactly what you need and proactively enhance your apps, including new Resco Power Components for Power Platform, up to 6-time faster sync method, and other improvements.
   
2. UI enhancements
   
   Discover a polished and refined user interface that will enhance the experience for app makers and app users alike, including the new cell resizing feature, improved Questionnaire Designer, or form UI enhancements.
   
3. Mobile workflow improvements
   
   Embrace new features that focus on simplifying frontline processes, including optical character recognition (OCR) in Forms, support of QR codes in Power Apps, and Zebra integration on iPhones.

New mobile app development capabilities

Launch of Power Components

With the latest release, we are introducing a new product to our portfolio – Resco Power Components for the Power Platform.

Resco Power Components are designed to allow you make building business apps on the Power Platform faster and easier. They add a wide range of functionality to your apps immediately without needing to wait for and budget for custom code from developers.

Power Components are code components (PCF controls) that give app makers the ability to extend and customize applications built on Power Platform. They are downloaded once as a solution, installed in an app maker’s environment, and can be deployed across various projects.

Based on popular demand, we have selected the first batch of essential tools – an image gallery, Kanban board, multi-select dropdown list, advanced calendar picker and others. The first batch was released at Resco Next, our community conference, and will be generally available in June.

You can read the full announcement here.

New sync download method (preview/experimental feature)

Syncing large datasets impacts productivity if it takes too long. Therefore, we are working on a significantly faster way of accessing Dataverse data using the TDS endpoint. The new sync engine improves your sync speeds by up to 6 times while increasing reliability.

If you want to opt in and test the lightning-fast sync download, follow these steps:

1. Edit an app project in Woodford.
2. Go to Configuration > Offline Data Sync > Sync Advanced.
3. Enable the “Use TDS download method” option.

Alternatively, app users can enable this feature in the app’s setup. You can also disable TDS download for specific tables in Woodford if they show any issues.

Please note that this is an experimental feature, and it is recommended that you test it thoroughly before deployment in a production environment.

Field usage checker (preview feature)

Identifying where specific fields are used can be challenging in complex projects and can omit effective optimization of sync performance. The new field usage checker will help you identify where are the individual fields used much quicker.

The new functionality analyzes projects and shows you all elements where a field is being used, allowing admins to disable unused fields easily.

This simplifies project management by helping you optimize data fields without disrupting functionality, improving sync performance, and making data management more efficient.

Define score ranges for group results

Evaluating questionnaire responses can be much faster with clear categorization. You can now customize score ranges for each question group and assign distinct labels for different ranges.

This feature allows you to create more effective categorization and evaluation of responses, helping you draw better insights from the data.

UI enhancements

New cell resizing feature in View Designer

You are now able to take advantage of an important change to how cells resize within a row. Previously, you could sometimes experience overlaps of cells in rows, making the content unreadable due to misconfigured anchoring.

Now, newly added cells are set to be responsive by default, allowing you to avoid overlaps and makes scaling smoother.

This means as the row width increases, the cells will proportionally grow, maintaining gaps between cells and from the row edges. If an image needs to be fixed in size, you can turn off the responsiveness and set the anchoring to the left or right.

With these new options you’ll enjoy a smoother, more intuitive design process, ensuring that your layouts look great on all devices without overlaps or unreadable content.

You can learn more about these changes in our recent blog.

Form UI/UX improvements

These enhancements in forms improve experience for mobile workers by providing a more predictable and user-friendly interface, reducing confusion, and increasing efficiency.

Strict layout of cards: A new setting forces cards into their respective columns, avoiding unpredictable shifts, which enhances user experience by maintaining a consistent layout.

Required field markings: Required fields are now clearly marked with an asterisk in forms, reducing confusion and helping users quickly identify necessary inputs.

Confirmation toast: A toast notification confirms when a long questionnaire is saved, providing users with reassurance and reducing the risk of data loss.

Redesigned dropdowns: Improved dropdown navigation in iOS makes adding custom values and searching easier, making the interface more intuitive and user-friendly.

Questionnaire Designer improvements

The updated Questionnaire Designer features new icons and buttons for adding, deleting, and repositioning components. That makes the design process more intuitive and user-friendly for you.

Marking mandatory questions in questionnaires

Similarly to forms, mandatory questions in questionnaires are now clearly marked with an asterisk. Thanks to that, mobile users can identify required fields and ensure that critical information is not overlooked.

Mobile workflow improvements

Faster data entry with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in forms

You can allow users now to populate text fields on forms using OCR, saving time and effort by capturing a photo or opening an image to fill out forms automatically. This will accelerate data entry for mobile workers, reducing manual input errors, and increasing productivity.

Geo-fencing functionality

Field service dispatchers often struggle without knowing exactly when technicians arrive or leave a location. With the new geo-fencing feature, you can get immediate updates when your front-line workers enter or leave predefined locations like offices or service sites.

This feature works reliably across a wide range of devices (iOS and Android) without draining the battery or compromising user privacy. Only the presence at pre-set locations is monitored, not the overall location.

You’ll enhance the efficiency of your field operations with real-time location updates, ensuring better coordination and faster response times.

Improved questionnaire integrity check

Working with incomplete templates or questionnaires can lead to inaccurate data collection from the field. The improved integrity check now detects incompleteness, preventing users from working with incomplete forms.

Ensuring the integrity of data collection enhances the reliability of your insights and decisions.

Resco Power solutions enhancements

These improvements enhance the usability and flexibility of Resco Forms+ solution on Power Platform, making the questionnaires easier to use in various scenarios.

Questionnaire Player – better support for images

Working with images and videos in Resco questionnaires within Microsoft Power Apps and Power Pages is now significantly smoother. You can easily incorporate components like tagged images and image galleries, enhancing the visual and interactive quality of your questionnaires.

This improvement makes it easier to collect and analyze visual data, enriching your data collection process.

Questionnaire Player – offline mode

In model-driven Power Apps, you can now use questionnaires offline. This means your team can continue working with questionnaires even without internet access, ensuring that data collection is uninterrupted.

QR codes in Power Apps

You can now scan QR codes to answer questions within Resco questionnaires in the Microsoft Power Apps app. This feature simplifies data entry and speeds up the process, making it more efficient for users in the field.

RFID scanning with Zebra devices

Resco mobile apps now support connecting to Zebra Technologies’ RFD4031 RFID scanner using Bluetooth. The functionality is available for iOS devices.

When a user scans RFID tags, the app can handle this event using JSBridge, providing a list of all nearby RFID tags for further processing.

Use case examples:

• Inventory management: Easily track and manage inventory in real-time by scanning multiple items at once. This is particularly useful in large warehouses or retail environments where speed and accuracy are crucial.
• Asset tracking: Quickly locate and identify assets in a facility, ensuring efficient use of resources and reducing the time spent searching for equipment.
• Field service: Technicians can scan RFID tags to verify equipment and parts during service, ensuring they have the correct items and reducing the likelihood of errors.

Stay informed with the Release Bulletin newsletter

Stay tuned for the official release at the end of May, and explore these powerful new features that will enable you to build mobile solutions faster and enhance the users’ experience.

For a comprehensive overview of all the new features, head to Resco’s Spring Update 2024 on the wiki. Dive in and explore the full spectrum of new possibilities.

Would you like to receive news about the Resco previews and releases directly into your inbox? Subscribe into the Release Bulletin newsletter and get notified about the new features first.

Príspevok Launch of Power Components, 6x faster sync, geo-fencing, and more: Discover Resco’s Spring Update 2024 zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Secure your spot to view presentations, engage in discussions, and join our mission to make enterprise development both profitable and sustainable. 

Keynote: Productivity unleashed 

Resco CEO Andrew Lorraine and April Dunnam, Principal Cloud Advocate for the Power Platform, will kick off Resco Next with a keynote on this year’s theme: Productivity unleased.  

The rapid pace of technological change is dramatically impacting business and IT. The result is a radical shift in how we think about productivity – from implementations, development, and billable hours to partnerships, no-code, and results. 

Join us to learn how we are addressing these challenges and supporting our partners and customers by expanding our alliance with Microsoft. We’re delivering new products across the Power Platform in addition to continued investments in our flagship Resco Mobile product. 

Roadmap: Key product achievements and future focus 

Eduard Kesely, Head of Product, and Tomas Michalek, CTO, will join forces to present our roadmap from both a product and technical perspective. 

Since the last Resco Next in October, we have made significant advancements in UX/UI, productivity, and AI integrations. Now, we are laying the groundwork for future innovations in enterprise mobility and productivity solutions.  

We will reveal our roadmap plans, which aim to make our flagship functionality more interoperable, enhance productivity with Power Components and shine a spotlight on our renowned mobile app. 

Mobile App Development Toolkit: Breakthrough in sync 

Organizations with a frontline workforce need an app that guarantees speed and responsiveness under any conditions. Our Mobile App Development Toolkit allows for building enterprise mobile apps on Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse with an offline mode, thanks to a sync engine that keeps data accessible on the go. 

Watch our software developer, Matej Vanik, as he introduces a new generation of our sync engine, designed for even faster and more seamless data synchronization. Explore the pros and cons of connecting via WebAPI versus the new TDS endpoint, shedding light on the effectiveness of each approach. 

Mobile Solutions: built for industry verticals and use cases 

The Resco Mobile App Development Toolkit is utilized not only for building complex mobile applications for individual clients but also across entire industry verticals. We are taking this approach a step further, giving you an edge when deploying solutions for specific industries. 

Join Trevor Metcalfe, Marketing Manager, as he demonstrates how our new approach empowers you to create industry vertical and use-case specific solutions. Experience our latest innovation in action, with a walkthrough of Resco Property+ solution by Dusan Polach, Consultant. 

Power Components: Unleashing productivity on Power Platform

At last year’s Resco Next, we sparked considerable interest with the launch of our new Power Solutions. This year, we are taking productivity on Power Platform a step further with Power Components.  

Resco Power Components for the Power Platform are designed to empower app creators—consultants, developers, and solution architects—who craft both model-driven and canvas business apps for their clients. These components expand their toolkit and simplify no-code app development, making it faster and more efficient. 

Join Ben Vollmer, Strategic Advisor, and Michal Magnusek, Senior Product Manager, as they unveil first batch of Power Components. Discover how these components can speed up project delivery, save costs on developer hours and custom coding, and guarantee security, quality, and future compatibility of code.

Interested in taking part? There is still time to book your spot. Registrations close on May 23 — don’t miss out.  Contact your Business Development Manager or our team at events@resco.net to claim your spot. 

Príspevok What’s new in our product portfolio and how can it benefit your business? Come and see at Resco Next  zobrazený najskôr Resco.

As we approach the full release of Resco’s next update at the end of May 2024, we encourage you to test these new features and provide early feedback to ensure a seamless integration into your production environment.

Let’s dive into what’s new.

Mobile App Development Toolkit

Enhanced View Designer in Woodford

In the Mobile App Development Toolkit, the new View Designer boasts a modernized interface, making it easier to configure and manage your views.

Plus, you can now see all rows at once, simplifying workflow. Create flexible layouts with fields that automatically resize based on available space, improving readability on any device. You can learn more about this functionality in the explanation blog.

Also, map pins customization has been streamlined for better visual representation of your data points.

Location tracking with geofencing

Stay informed when the field workers enter or leave designated areas (offices, service locations, etc.).

Works reliably across devices with minimal battery drain and strong privacy controls.

Identify used fields in Woodford (Preview)

This new tool helps you optimize your synchronization by identifying which fields are used on mobile devices.

RFID scanning for iOS mobile apps (Zebra Technologies)

You can now connect to Zebra RFD4031 RFID scanners via Bluetooth for streamlined data collection.

Faster Woodford for Dataverse and Salesforce

Experience quicker download times for metadata-heavy actions, like opening an app project or filter editor, in Woodford and Report designer.

Mobile and Power Solutions

Faster data entry with OCR in forms

You can now use OCR to populate text fields on forms.

Capture a photo or open an image and populate form fields automatically, saving time and effort.

Streamlined image handling in Power Apps questionnaires

Work with images more efficiently using tagged images and image galleries.

Scan QR codes in Power Apps questionnaires

Leverage QR codes to answer questions within Power Apps questionnaires, boosting user experience.

Inspections and questionnaires

Mark mandatory questions

Easily identify required questions with an asterisk symbol.

Support for zero instances in repeatable groups

Create questionnaires with optional repeatable sections.

Define score ranges for groups

Set score ranges and labels for group results, providing clearer insights.

Improved questionnaire integrity check

Detect incompleteness and don’t allow user to work with incomplete templates or questionnaires.

New announcements

Power components (New product)

Introducing a new product – Resco Power Components for the Power Platform.

Available in June, these code components empower app makers to customize and extend their Power Platform applications. You can read the full announcement here.

The initial preview will include a Kanban board, image gallery component, and configurable calendar picker.

Guides for Salesforce

With the latest preview, Guides are now available also for Salesforce users, enabling you to manage and organize knowledge across organization.

For more detailed information and full list of the upcoming features, please refer to the developer release notes.

This blog is part of the Release Bulletin newsletter. Subscribe to get notified about the new features and release previews available.

Príspevok Release preview: Test the final release candidate for Resco 17.1 Update zobrazený najskôr Resco.

This change should not affect the old way of responsiveness, and all settings should be handled seamlessly. However, we would like to verify with you whether all your important projects will correctly represent the design in the mobile application.

It would be great if you could try out all the important customizations in the latest preview version of the mobile application.

Why the change?

Users sometimes experienced overlaps of cells in rows, making the content unreadable due to misconfigured anchoring. The anchoring tool was quite complicated, with some options having zero effect on the final layout, contributing to the confusion.

How we’re fixing it

Newly added cells are now set to responsive by default. This means that as the row width increases, the cells will proportionally increase as well, maintaining gaps between individual cells, but also distances from the row edges.

In the case of inserting images, such as avatars in contacts, you do not want them to be responsive, as they have a static size. In such a case, it is necessary to turn off the responsiveness and set the anchoring either on the right or left side. The new algorithm for cell responsiveness within the row will take care of everything else.

What you’ll see

In the design editor, when selecting a row, you will see not only cell boundaries but also an arrow either to the right or left according to the activated anchoring in the properties pane.

How does responsiveness work?

If responsiveness is set to “On,” a cell will stretch as the screen expands to avoid leaving empty space. If it is the only element in a row, it maintains consistent margins from its parent row, behaving as though its right and left sides are anchored to the edges.

If two responsive cells are adjacent, they keep a distance from both sides.

However, if an overlap occurs that wasn’t originally designed, it gets corrected according to the template pattern, preserving the proportion of widths and their mutual indentation.

Responsive is set to “Off”

When responsiveness is disabled, the cell will have a fixed width and will be anchored on the selected side. Consequently, when the width changes, the cell will maintain its fixed width and distance from the marked side of the row.

Tips for designing

Make sure your row width fits the smallest screen you’re designing for. This helps avoid overlaps and makes scaling smoother.

This means that if you want to use a view as part of a tree view, you must take into account the width of the row in this component. Otherwise, overlaps may occur.

Scaling works best from the proposed width upwards.

Font size matters

In the latest version, font sizes now look the same on the canvas as they do on devices. So you’ll see exactly how your text will look. We recommend setting cell height a bit bigger than the font size to avoid cutting off text.

Starting from version 17.1, the font size has been standardized to match the actual size on devices. As a result, the canvas preview will reflect the true appearance. This allows you to see, for instance, if text is getting cut off due to insufficient cell height. We recommend setting the cell height to about 15 to 20% greater than the font size. For example, for a font size of 15 dp, the minimum cell height should be 17 dp.

Give it a try

Before the official release in the end of May, we’d love for you to test out these changes in the preview version. Try your important customizations and let us know what you think!

Let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Príspevok Test-drive new cell resizing feature before launch zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Resco Power Components are designed for app creators to make building business apps on the Power Platform faster and easier.

They are made for consultants, developers, and solution architects—who craft model-driven and canvas apps for their clients in low-code / no-code. Code components allow app makers to add a wide range of functionality to their apps immediately without needing to wait for and budget for custom code from developers.

This makes project delivery more efficient, letting app makers digitize processes quickly and be more productive with ease.  

What are Power Components?

Power Components are code components (PCF controls) that give app makers the ability to extend and customize applications built on Power Platform. They are downloaded once as a solution, installed in an app maker’s environment, and can be deployed across various projects.

First batch based on popular demand

Based on popular demand, we have selected the first batch of essential tools – an image gallery, Kanban board, video player, signature area, multi-select dropdown list, and a calendar picker.

The Resco Power Components are customizable, meaning that app makers will be able to use them for more than one use case. Instead of having to code components in JS from scratch, app makers will be able to use our components and configure them as they need to without needing to code. Using the configuration section doesn’t require code knowledge.

Each code component can be used for different business use cases. For example, you can use the Kanban board for managing tasks or to build a sales funnel – depending on the data you map it on.

Working with a well-managed library of code components takes care of security concerns as well as maintenance issues. We plan to develop the components continuously, extending their features where needed and adding more components to the library.

Benefits of using Resco Power Components:

• Speed up project delivery to clients
• Save costs on developer hours and custom coding
• Guarantee security, quality, and future compatibility of code
• Build components compliant with Power Apps licensing

Príspevok New product alert: Build on Power Platform faster with Resco Power Components zobrazený najskôr Resco.

We have organized these images into folders based on their specific purpose within the application. For instance, if you are looking for icons used on the home screen (menu), you can find them in the Home folder.

It is important to note that all icons should be in PNG format, and a size of 24x24dp. Also, if you want to recolor the icons in the Theme editor, keep all icons monochrome and transparent.

When adding images to the project, it is crucial to keep in mind that all files are synchronized on the device, even if they are not actively used. Therefore, we highly recommend maintaining content without any redundant images.

In default mobile projects, we use a combination of Resco’s default icons, which we have developed internally, and icons from the Material Design library, which is an open-source project. If you need an icon, we strongly recommend selecting one from this extensive database.

To export Material icons, you will need to set the density to 2x and the size to 24dp in the properties panel. These icons can then be downloaded in PNG format.

Once downloaded, the file will be in a zip format and will need to be extracted. Inside the extracted folder, you will find two versions of each icon: 1x and 2x. For our project, we utilize double-sized icons (2x).

Importing these icons into Woodford can be accomplished by either using the “Add new icon” button or the icon located in the main toolbar “Add”.

Once the dialog window appears, clicking on the placeholder will provide you with the option to select an icon. Simply choose the desired icon from your computer and insert it into your project.

Additionally, remember to include the icon’s name and ensure its colorization. Complete the process by pressing the “Add” button. After uploading the images, it is important to save your progress.

Now you can freely utilize the newly added images within your project. For example, if you have added an icon to the Home folder, it will now be available as an additional option in the “Images” panel.

To get started, you can download a zip file with default icons set. You can directly import this zip file into your project.

Príspevok How to upgrade your business app’s look: Easy steps to import and organize Material Design icons in Resco zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Whether you’re an integration partner, consultant, system admin, manager, or mobile worker, the Winter Update has something in store for you.

Discover highlights from this release, categorized into three main areas:

1. New platform capabilities

Explore the latest additions that make it easy to build exactly what you need and proactively enhance your apps, including new Data model explorer, embedded code editor, and other improvements.

2. UI enhancements and AI-driven innovations

Discover a polished and refined user interface and AI-powered features that will enhance the experience for app creators and app users alike, including new segmented buttons, AI assistant, or export wizard.

3. Mobile workflow improvements

Embrace new features that focus on simplifying frontline processes, including optical character recognition (OCR), local photo saving, and questionnaire repeat command.

1. New platform capabilities to enhance your business app building

Explore improvements aimed at enhancing what your mobility solution can do, simplifying your app-building, and making your apps even better.

Data model explorer

Managing sync settings in complex projects can be daunting. The newly launched Data model explorer is designed to simplify this process for you and all the admins.

Instead of clicking through each entity, now you can see and sort all settings in one place. The explorer is particularly useful in scenarios where quick identification and adjustments of sync settings are crucial for you, ensuring a more efficient and error-free management experience.

Imagine overseeing a project with numerous entities. Instead of navigating through each entity, the Data model explorer allows you to view and sort all settings in one comprehensive view.

Embedded code editor

The new embedded code editor brings an advanced, Visual Studio Code-like experience to the admins’ fingertips. This feature helps you in scenarios when you require to implement a complex business logic.

You can use the new code editor integrated within Woodford for more efficient scripting thanks to functionality including line numbering, syntax highlighting, or HTML / XML syntax validation.

The editor serves as a middle level of customization between no-code customization of rules in Woodford and more complex JavaScript coding. The code editor enables simple re-use of business logic elsewhere in your mobile project by simply copying and pasting relevant portions of the code.

For example, when customizing rules for a unique sales process, the syntax highlighting and command palette provide a clear and efficient coding environment, reducing the time spent on coding and minimizing errors.

“Not Older Than” operator

Filtering data just got more straightforward with the “Not Older Than X Days” operator. This new addition to your toolkit allows you to write much more efficient sync filters for the field service use cases.

Mobile workers in these scenarios often need to see recent tasks, work orders, or bookings in their apps. The newly introduced “Not Older Than X Days” operator let you set up this filter to effectively display only the most recent and relevant data, based on the date of record creation or change.

Plugin search and sort

Managing your Dataverse plugins is now easier with the ability to search and sort. This enhancement is particularly useful if you handle numerous plugins, allowing you to quickly find and organize the plugins as needed.

Sync optimizations for faster operations

Keeping your data synchronized is now more efficient. The ability to customize download page sizes and Salesforce-specific optimizations mean you spend less time waiting for syncs to complete.

New language options

Expanding our language support, Woodford now includes Dari, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, and Central Kurdish to support nonprofit organizations and their mobile workers operating in the areas.

2. UI enhancements and AI innovations for app creators and app users alike

Discover a polished and refined user interface and AI innovations that will enhance your experience, making tasks easier and your work more efficient.

Form UI improvements: Cards, segmented buttons, and chips

Interacting with the Resco’s mobile app is now more intuitive and efficient thanks to multiple UI and UX enhancements.

The new cards on flexible forms offer a clearer overview of related fields, making it easier for mobile workers to process information at a glance.

Text input fields can now be formatted as segmented buttons which allow you to improve navigation for users when using dropdowns and multi-selections.

Additionally, controls that allow you to select multiple options can now display selected items as chips. This feature provides a more intuitive and visually appealing way to display selected options.

The introduction of these UI improvements allows you to streamline data entry, reducing the likelihood of errors, and enhancing overall user interaction with the app.

AI Woodford assistant

Navigating through extensive documentation is faster and more intuitive with the AI Woodford assistant. Trained on our whole Wiki and Academy resources, this tool helps you when you’re looking for specific information or troubleshooting.

By providing quick, AI-powered answers to your questions or prompts, it significantly reduces the time and effort needed to find solutions.

For now, it is provided on request base, so don’t hesitate to contact our Support to enable it.

AI-powered enhancements in Resco Guides

AI-powered enhancements in Resco Guides offer several valuable features:

• Guides creation and localization: You can effortlessly convert existing documentation into digital guides, saving time and resources. This means you can digitize manuals, SOPs, or guides much quicker, streamlining your app development process.

• Automatic translations: Instantly localize your guides with the automatic translation feature. This is ideal for businesses and workers in multilingual environments, ensuring everyone has access to crucial information in their preferred language.

• Automatic tagging: Keep your tagging consistent across users with AI-driven automatic tagging. This feature ensures a standardized approach to organization and retrieval, making your app more user-friendly.

• AI Guides assistant: Guides, Finding out what Guides users what  need is now easier with the AI Guides assistant. The guides assistnat can quickly search for a relevant guide using a prompt. It can locate relevant information easier and faster, whether they’re performing a new task or seeking guidance on machinery troubleshooting.

Faster style editing in Questionnaire designer

Editing question styles is now just a click away in Questionnaire designer. You can now access the Style editor directly from a question, which eliminates the need of remembering and searching for styles.

The new contextual button is particularly beneficial when you are making quick, on-the-fly adjustments to questionnaires, allowing for a more efficient and user-friendly experience.

Import & export wizard for questionnaires and reports

With the latest update, you get better control over transferring reports together with related questionnaires in Inspections and Forms+. The new Import & Export wizard allows you to precisely select versions and associated reports, ensuring you have exactly what you need.

For example, you can take advantage of this new feature when updating questionnaires across different teams or projects, ensuring consistency and efficiency.

Questionnaire designer options dialog

Essential questionnaire settings are now consolidated in one place, allowing you to quickly modify the main setup of any questionnaire.

You can control settings features like scoring or data mapping, rules version, JSON compression, and more.

3. Mobile workflow improvements simplifying the frontline tasks

Start to use the new features with a focus on simplifying frontline processes, automating repetitive actions, and providing user-friendly tools to enhance productivity in the field.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Inspections+

Retyping text from physical labels is now much faster and more efficient for mobile workers. The OCR feature in Inspections+ allows them to capture text from labels, plates, or panels in seconds and automatically fill in questionnaires.

Imagine inspecting equipment and needing to record serial numbers. With OCR, the workers can simply take a photo, and the text is digitized instantly, speeding up the process and ensuring accuracy.

Workers can freely choose which text string to use and fill in. Furthermore, they can edit the input and use the OCR capabilities even when offline.

Photo saving in local storage: Enhanced accessibility

Users can now save photos taken through the Resco mobile app directly into their device’s gallery.

That comes in handy for mobile workers who need to store images for future usage or to send via email or messaging apps like WhatsApp. By having immediate access to these photos in the local storage, sharing and referencing becomes more straightforward and efficient.

Questionnaire repeat command

Filling out multiple, identical questionnaires has gotten quicker with the latest update.

With the ability to automatically open a new identical questionnaire after completion, tasks such as registering multiple individuals in situations like humanitarian aid become much more efficient.

Reuse answers in repeatable groups

This feature allows selective reuse of answers in repeatable groups, streamlining the data entry process.

For example, when conducting surveys where several responses are identical, you can choose to pre-fill answers to selected questions. This then saves time and reduces the risk of errors when filling out a questionnaire.

Conclusion

Whether you’re managing complex projects, entering data on the go, or seeking AI help, these new features are here to make your work easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable.

We invite you to join the upcoming webinar to explore these enhancements in detail and discover how they can enhance your mobile business apps.

For a comprehensive overview of all the exciting new features, head to Resco’s Winter Update 2024 on the wiki. Dive in and explore the full spectrum of new possibilities.

Príspevok Explore the latest innovations from the Winter 2024 update, including AI-driven enhancements and UI improvements zobrazený najskôr Resco.

In this article, we will delve into:

1. Power Platform’s role in simplifying app development.
2. How Resco Power Solutions enhance Power Platform.
3. The benefits of Resco Forms+, Docs+, and Steps+.

Understanding Power Platform, the democratization of app development

The Microsoft Power Platform is a low-code / no-code platform designed to simplify the application development process.

It makes digital transformation accessible to both tech professionals and business users. By enabling app development without coding, more people can be engaged in transforming their business in less time. This opens a world of new opportunities: any member of an organization can come up with an idea, develop it, and integrate it seamlessly with the existing framework.

How Resco Power Solutions enhance the Power Platform

The best suggestions for digitizing workflows can come from anywhere, not just the front office. They often come from the frontline, where business meets the world.

Frontline workers, always on the move, require efficient tools regardless of where they are: on the rooftop, in the basement or on the outskirts. They can’t afford to use tools that don’t align with their daily tasks. Simply put, workflows need to be tailored to fit their operations.

This is where Resco comes into play.

Resco is the product of 20+ years of experience, accumulating decades of frontline know-how and turning it into software solutions attuned to the needs of mobile workers.

And now, we are bringing the best of it to Power Platform.

As a seasoned ISV partner of Microsoft, Resco is built to natively fit Microsoft Business Applications portfolio – whether with Dynamics, Power Platform, or Business Central.

By using our solutions, businesses can satisfy the needs of their frontline workforce quicker, at a lower cost, and make their projects easy to maintain.

Exploring Resco Forms+, Docs+, and Steps+

We proudly present three inter-compatible solutions for Power Platform. Designed as modular building blocks, you can just reach out and use them whenever needed.

Resco Forms+ enables frontline personnel to collect data – from conducting surveys, audits, and inspections, to using guided workflows, to getting customer signatures. Everything can be done seamlessly within Power Apps and Power Pages. You can use simple drag-and-drop tools to make the form align with the needs of frontline workers. This maximizes user adoption, which in turn means higher data quality.

Resco Docs+  combines Dataverse and field data to automatically create invoices, contracts, and reports in PDF or any format you choose. Users can design pixel-perfect document templates in a drag-and-drop editor and use Power Automate to build flows for automatic document creation, data population, and distribution.

Resco Steps+ allows businesses to share knowledge in a simple, accessible form. You can create step-by-step instruction guides with text, images, and videos to prevent errors and speed up onboarding, making them available exactly when and where frontline workers need them.  

Why choose Resco Power Solutions

Let’s look in more detail at how the new solutions can cut your costs, reduce maintenance and pave the way for the future.

Use the advantages of Power Platform and the ISV community

Building in the Power Platform ecosystem means you can count on its longevity in futureproofing your projects.

The partner community is one of the biggest competitive advantages of Microsoft, providing a smart solution to almost any of your challenges.

Leverage native integration

With Resco, you can leverage Microsoft licenses and connect through Active Directory. Resco is not only natively integrated with Microsoft architecture but is also a part of the ecosystem it enhances.

Ready-made solution thanks to our focus on customers

Customers have always been our singular focus. Thanks to countless conversations with organizations that rely on hundreds of frontline workers, we know what the industry needs and have designed ready-made solutions for pressing problems.

We implemented the insights of clients working in the most demanding conditions and armed our solutions with advanced features to cater to their needs. Even if you won’t need every feature from the onset, you can take advantage of them as your company grows. Need new features? Deploy them instantly without any additional costs.

Cut time to market and cost to market, increase ROI

Having a ready-to-go, scalable solution means you don’t have to invest your time and resources in building. You can simply start using it.

When using Resco Power Solutions, you can get prototypes ready for testing within weeks, not quarters. This reduces your time-to-market, and consecutively cost-to-market, over a solution built from scratch.

By using fewer resources, your initial threshold for calculating ROI (return on investment) is lower.

Simplify Maintenance

Implement stakeholder suggestions without discarding your existing code. You can even re-use parts of your projects. Not having to maintain custom code lowers the cost of maintaining your whole project and the risks that come with it.

Use the offline mode of Resco mobile app on Power Platform

Resco is well-known for its mobile app with full offline mode. With an advanced sync engine, it is the mobile app of choice for businesses in the most demanding industries.

When offline is needed, you can always use the Resco Mobile App on top of your Power App license. Your users benefit from our offline-first architecture to avoid increased internet traffic/consumption, latency due to shaky reception (even in urban areas), or even shortened battery life.

If you want to learn more, you can visit the Power Solutions landing page, or watch a recording from our Power Platform masterclass webinar.

Príspevok What are the new Resco Power Solutions? zobrazený najskôr Resco.

You’ll encounter these enhancements across all our products, encompassing Resco Inspections, Resco Cloud, Resco Guides, and all supported systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Salesforce.

Whether you’re an integration partner, consultant, system admin, or mobile worker, this update has something for you.

Discover the highlights of this release, categorized into three main areas.

1. New capabilities enhancing your business apps

Explore these exciting additions that enhance what your mobility solution can do, simplify your app-building, and make your apps even better.

Virtual tables

Simplify the connection of various data sources through virtual tables, natively integrating SQL Server and SharePoint. Custom virtual tables can be created using OData v4 custom data providers from a large scale of applications.

File columns

Simplify data management with the support for file columns in Dataverse, ideal for handling larger files.

Form commands

Execute commands directly from rules, reducing manual intervention and enhancing user interactions.

Distance calculations

Ensure workers are in the right place at the right time with distance calculations for automated check-ins and improved scheduling.

Calculated fields in Resco Cloud

Effortlessly calculate values with defined formulas using calculated fields in the Admin Console.

SyncStats analyzer

Fine-tune synchronization performance with 30+ indicators for problem identification and resolution.

2. UI enhancements for app creators and app users alike

Discover a polished and refined user interface that will enhance your experience, making tasks easier, and your work more efficient than before.

Accelerated theming

Save time and maintain consistent designs with automatic color palette generation and dark theme support.

Revamped form style editor

Customize your app with a redesigned form style editor that streamlines styling for individual components.

Redesigned toolbar

Simplify form building with a modernized and icon-based Questionnaire Designer toolbar.

Flexible header and supporting text in questionnaires

Create detailed section descriptions within questionnaires for improved content clarity.

Supporting text and Placeholder in forms

Enhance forms with supporting and placeholder texts, saving time and reducing errors.

3. Workflow improvements simplifying the frontline tasks

Start to use the new features with a focus on simplifying frontline processes, automating repetitive actions, and providing user-friendly tools to enhance productivity in the field.

Image editor

Simplify image editing on mobile devices with annotation, cropping, and text enhancement features.

Tagged image support

Precisely define asset locations with tagged images, improving efficiency for technicians.

Full-text search in Guides

Quickly find information within guides with keyword and phrase searches.

Guides localization

Provide content in multiple languages to your workforce, promoting better comprehension.

Take your business to the next level with Resco

This release streamlines app building, introduces new capabilities, and improves workflows, empowering you to transform your ideas into practical solutions for real-world frontline needs.

It’s also thanks to your valuable feedback. If you’re eager to get early access to the latest additions and want to be part of shaping these features before they’re officially released, join the preview community.

For a comprehensive overview of all the exciting new features, head to Resco’s Fall Update 2023 on the wiki. Dive in and explore the full spectrum of new possibilities.

Príspevok Resco’s Fall Update 2023: 100+ improvements for your mobile business app development [Summary] zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Whether you’re an integration partner, consultant, system admin, or mobile worker, the Fall Update has something in store for you.

Discover the highlights of this release, categorized into three main areas:

1. New capabilities

Explore the latest additions that make it easy to build exactly what you need and proactively enhance your apps, including full support for virtual tables, a distance calculator, or a new sync analyzer.

2. UI enhancements

Discover a polished and refined user interface that will enhance the experience for app creators and app users alike, including new accelerated theming, dark mode, or revamped Questionnaire Designer toolbar.

3. Workflow improvements

Embrace the new features that focus on simplifying frontline processes, including a new image editor, localized guides, or full-text search.

1. New capabilities empowering your business apps

Explore these exciting additions that enhance what your mobility solution can do, simplify your app-building, and make your apps even better.

Full support of virtual tables in Dataverse

Digital operations within companies usually require multiple platforms, systems, and apps. Sometimes it’s hard to integrate and connect all the data without extensive coding.

To make the connection of various data sources easier and faster, Resco now fully supports virtual tables in Dataverse. You can use all write operations related to the virtual tables, including creating, updating, and deleting the displayed data within the context of the Resco solution.

Microsoft supports SQL Server and SharePoint as virtual table sources out of the box. Custom virtual tables can be created using OData v4 custom data providers from a large scale of applications. Resco can then integrate with their data seamlessly.

Support for file columns in Dataverse

The newly supported storage method increases Dataverse compatibility and makes processing of data collected by Resco tools easier for you.

You can now use a file column to save documents when managing your integration. They present a versatile alternative to traditional notes and are ideal for larger files.

Executing form commands from rules

Thanks to the Fall update, you can reduce the number of clicks required to perform tasks in the Resco mobile app. The key to this efficiency lies in the ability to execute commands directly from rules.

You can now set the app to trigger command logic as a response to a field change or button click. The capability allows you to create dynamic, responsive workflows that adapt to user interactions and data changes.

This way, it’s possible to reduce the need for manual intervention and make complex tasks more intuitive for frontline users.

Woodford admins can also move repeatedly used business logic to commands that can be subsequently called from rules as snippets.

Also, it’s possible to hide commands from the menu, ensuring that users only execute commands through predefined rules, and providing a consistent and controlled user experience.

Distance calculations

Whether in sales, construction, or maintenance & repairs, being in the right place at the right time is important for frontline workers’ productivity and great customer service. The new functionality for distance calculation, now available on all mobile platforms, will help you ensure that.

With distance calculation, you can set virtual boundaries around work areas, ensuring workers’ presence at any location of interest. For example, this allows you to set up a solution for automated check-ins, enhance security, and streamline work order scheduling.

Calculated fields in Resco Cloud

Calculated fields efficiently derive their value from other fields, bringing higher versatility to your solution. Imagine the need to automatically calculate the total price of equipment or other complex computations within your mobile app.

With calculated fields, you can now effortlessly define these fields in the Admin Console, setting up formulas to calculate their values.

SyncStats analyzer

Fast synchronization is critical for successfully deploying digital data collection in the field. And the latest release brings a powerful enhancement to make it easier for you to analyze and fine-tune this performance.   

The brand-new SyncStats analyzer allows you to use 30+ indicators to identify the most frequent problems and provide statistical information about sync performance across devices and users in the field.

This addition is part of our ongoing effort to empower admins and consultants to fine-tune synchronization. When shared with Resco, the outputs of this tool can significantly speed up the resolution of complex support cases.

2. UI enhancements for app creators and app users alike

Discover a polished and refined user interface that will enhance your experience, making tasks easier, and your work more efficient than before.

Accelerated theming

Maintaining consistent and visually appealing designs across multiple projects can be a time-consuming and complex task. Design updates are often challenging, especially when applied across various elements within an app.

With the latest release, a more straightforward way of selecting colors is available in Woodford, saving you a ton of time when designing an app.

Now, you can select a single brand color, and Woodford uses Google’s proven Material Design algorithm to automatically generate a matching color palette for you.

Moreover, you can even let users switch the app into an automatically generated dark theme. The algorithm ensures that the generated colors offer sufficient contrast and meet accessibility requirements so that you can design an app theme without the extensive administration and time required.

Furthermore, we kept the possibility to customize color settings in detail and made it more straightforward by introducing color tokens. They allow you to define named colors (tokens) once and use them in various locations within the app.

It’s the answer to simplifying the design process and ensuring design system consistency.

Tokens are most helpful and efficient in these situations:

• You plan to update your product’s design or build a new product
• You want to maintain or update styles in the future easily

Revamped form style editor

To simplify the customization of your business app, you can now use a redesigned form style editor with neatly organized parameters into dedicated tabs and new custom styles tailored to specific component types.

While still allowing the creation of generic styles that apply to all component types, we’re introducing the option to define dedicated styles for specific components like text fields, dropdowns, or buttons.

This means that only the relevant style properties for the selected component type will be displayed, simplifying the process of styling individual components.

When you choose a style for an item, you’ll see only the styles compatible with that particular item, whether they’re dedicated or generic. We suggest you consider minimizing generic styles and explore the convenience of creating dedicated styles for individual components, making app customization more straightforward.

Redesigned toolbar in Questionnaire Designer

Listening to your feedback, the redesigned toolbar of Questionnaire Designer in Resco Inspections provides another way of simplifying the form building.

The modernized and enhanced toolbar now gives you simpler navigation and more confidence with tools as it relies preferably on icons. The global settings were shifted to dedicated setting windows where you can find all related options under one roof.

Flexible header and supporting text in questionnaires

Now, with the new flexible header and supporting text feature, you can create more detailed and informative section descriptions within your questionnaire.

This improves the clarity and understanding of the content, ensuring mobile workers are well-informed, which helps them progress smoothly.

Supporting text and placeholder on forms

A similar capability is now available on forms. You can now make them more intuitive for mobile workers by providing additional information using supporting and placeholder texts. They are available for all detail items and can save frontline users time and mitigate errors during data collection.

3. Workflow improvements simplifying the frontline tasks

Start to use the new features with a focus on simplifying frontline processes, automating repetitive actions, and providing user-friendly tools to enhance productivity in the field.

New image editor in the mobile app

Field and mobile workers can now simplify image editing thanks to the new Image Editor in the Resco mobile app. This tool simplifies on-the-spot image editing, allowing users to instantly annotate, highlight, and add context to images on their mobile devices.

Field workers can easily annotate with free-hand drawings and shapes, zoom in for a closer look, crop images in two simple steps, and improve text visibility. All that helps them enhance efficiency, communicate clearly, and issue resolution in the field.

Tagged image support on Dataverse

Imagine a field tech coming to repair an assembly line machine at a big factory. While he knows the site’s location, the asset’s exact position is often buried in notes or not specified at all.

With the Tagged image functionality, now also supported on Dataverse, managers and mobile workers can precisely define the asset’s location. This will make it much easier for technicians to find the assets and save time.

This can significantly improve your mobile experience if it involves floor plans (maps of factory floors with annotated locations), electrical wirings and pipes, vehicle or complex machinery photos with defects highlighted, and many more.

Full-text search in Resco Guides

Frontline workers can now quickly and easily find the information they need within guides thanks to full-text search capability. With the full-text search feature, they can instantly search for keywords or phrases related to the equipment, machine, or problem they’re encountering. This enables them to quickly access step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting guides, or relevant documentation, saving time and effort.

Guides localization

A company with frontline workers is often spread across different regions and deploys different languages. With the Guides localization feature, you can now provide content in multiple languages, ensuring that each worker can access critical information in their preferred language.

This promotes better comprehension, adherence to procedures, and overall effectiveness in their roles, regardless of their language background.

Take your business to the next level with Resco

This release streamlines app building, introduces new capabilities, and improves workflows, empowering you to transform your ideas into practical solutions for real-world frontline needs.

It’s also thanks to your valuable feedback. If you’re eager to get early access to the latest additions and want to be part of shaping these features before they’re officially released, join the preview community.

For a comprehensive overview of all the exciting new features, head to Resco’s Fall Update 2023 on the wiki. Dive in and explore the full spectrum of new possibilities.

Príspevok The Fall Update is here with 100+ improvements for your mobile business app development zobrazený najskôr Resco.