Feng Office Mobile!

[melky]

Feng Mobile Brainstorming, post your ideas, join the project, collaborate...

[fengy]

hi there! a few ideas from my side:

I would like to have a native iPhone application that allows me to browse my tasks and see what can I do when I'm on the way.

For me it is important to be able to filter tasks easely, because I'm trying to organize my work according to David Allen's GTD and that's why I'm using tags to mark my contexts: @Home, @Work, @City, @Agenda, @Phone

I would like to access my list of tasks tagged @City when I'm on the way, away from my Desktop machine.

One of the most popular GTD apps for the iPhone is Things: hxxp://culturedcode.com/things/iphone/. ...It provides only tasks management.

Another good-to-have feature would be to sync fengoffice contacts with my iPhone's contacts.


Greetz!  

[fengy]

I would like to see an elegant design solution...something like:

- actionmethod.com/
- basecamp

Cheers !

[Mateus]

Such a mobile app is something i REALY need.
And i would like to see there my translations, and timeslots
i am using Fengoffice for registering my freelance jobs. And mobile app will be helpfull.

But the most needed feature is Google contacts/docs/calendar sync... but thats for Fengoffice @all not just Mobile

[melky]

Hi there, thanks for collaborate!
I think that either a google or an iphone sync is a great idea, a nice feature for Feng if I may say .
   -    You mentioned tasks and timeslots, which other feature would you like Feng mobile to have?
   -    Would you prefer  a native or a mobile web app?
   -    Facebook, linkedin, twitter integraton?

Hehe it may sound like an interrogation but we really appreciate your feedback and we want everyone to participate!
Keep it up

[Murz]

I think that mobile version must not repeat full version with full fengoffice functional. It must give only minumum functional that you can need in mobile:
1. View tasks by url from email (with comments), notes, contacts.
2. Add comments to current task, open-close task
3. Search within tasks, notes and contacts.
4. Small widget for time tracking: We has write for our neads already separate widget in jquery, that works directly with database, so users can see his current tasks, start, pause and stop tasks, here is screenshot: http://wstaw.org/m/2011/07/12/plasma-desktopTx2464.jpg After some bug-fixing we will post source in this forum.

And very useful for mobile users are exporting and syncing contacts, events, tasks via public interfaces:

Contacts: VCARD file (already exists), CardDAV (like vcard with small changes and 2-way sync), SyncML (will be good to do the 2-way sync),
Calendar and Tasks: iCal (already exists, but need improvements), SyncML.

[elbouillon]

I think feng moobile must be as simple as possible and as compatible toi. So nô native apps, but html5 and little use of Javascript would fit m'y needs (has in my company www have both, iPad, iPhone, android pad and phones)

To have contact access, and file (document)
Calendar could be sync native phone app via an URL and open protocol.

[karlstatt]

At first I thought that a simple solution would be sufficient. But that's not very reasonable, because I don't want to have a look on my data, I want to synchronize to use my smartphone with full functionally support.

If you could do in a first step, the full synchronization for contacts, appointments and tasks, that would be a great asset.

Have a look at www.tine20.org, the sync is working very well on Android, in cooperation with RoadSync.

It would be best, of course, if a relationship with the workbenches would be possible. I would be happy if these basic functions would be available soon - preferably an Android app, I would pay of course.

[karlstatt]

Today I tested GroupOffice. Sync is working very well with ActiveSync and z-push.

I have no more needs than synchronizing dates, contacts and tasks like GroupOffice and Tine20 do.

[tomopix]

Hello,
a long awaited feature, I'm very excited about it.

Web based mobile site would be the best approach for the first release as you probably won't be able to provide native apps for iPhone / iPad / Blackberry / Android / Nokia / Palm etc... platforms at the same time.
Mobile website would be a GREAT enhancement anyway compared to what we have right now.
Essential functions for mobile site:
 - Allow direct link open to follow email notifications coming from the system
 - View / add comments
 - View / download files
 - View / sort / edit / complete tasks
 - View contacts
 - View / add / edit notes calendar events

Sync features are another story which would also be much appreciated! SyncML is quite uniform and can be adopted on all mobile/desktop platform.
Syncing calendar, tasks, notes, contacts, docs would be great.

A desktop gadget or even a windows integration for save dialog for adding files to the system quickly would bring us the heaven to the earth. :-)
 
Anyway, go on FengOffice, we love you! 

Tamás

[kaje]

I would suggest a navigation like this:

Beginning from the home screen (H) you can swipe vertically to switch between the workspaces and horizontally to reach the specific pages like mail, documents etc.

H  a  b

1 a1 b1

2 a2 b2

When you are at documents within your own workspace u can easily switch between all other documents pages. with the zoom gesture you could reach a screen with two drop-down menus to select the specific page you are looking for.
Don't forget to add a breadcrumb : )

To avoid a conflict between switching pages vertically and scrolling you might have to enter a page you selected with the zoom gesture or a double tab.

On the home screen I'd display recent milestones, activities, emails, added/ changed notes, etc.. and on top my tasks and to dos.
Each one is represented with an icon and the typical notifications circle in the upper right corner.

The view mode within might be lists. When editing a text the options are only visible when not displaying the keyboard.

What do you think?

In any case I am sure, that you will develop a great mobile solution.

[melky]

WELL thanks all for the great IDEAS!
Keep it up we wanna now what you need

[yannick-guerin]

Hello everybody,

As karlstatt said, I think first of all we need full synchronisation with other PIM applications,PDAs, smartphones, etc...

And then, on top of that, why not build native applications, with all the project, docs, management side.

That's because smartphones already have calendars,tasks management and contact management, and IMHO,  we just need this to synchronised and immediately usable in other applications or in our phones.

To achieve this, I suggest looking to ActiveSync or SyncML, or both at same time. I'm not an expert at all and rathert a newbie when it comes to sync, but with these two technologies there's a great chance to cover 90% of cases (thunderbird still doesn't support both, but phones supports at least one of them).

You can start working with two libraries that proved they work:

z-push.sourceforge.net/soswp/ that is used with Zarafa for ActiveSync

wiki.horde.org/SyncMLCustomBackend?referrer=SyncML that is developed for Horde Project, download from Horde Pear : pear.horde.org/, search for package Horde_SyncMl

This pear repository contains other libraries that can be useful when it comes to sync.

I use php at work but only works on backends (no GUI or so), if help is needed, I have some time until September.

Of course, it will be better if the solution could handle with the workspace concept. My idea is that PIM is managed on a personal basis. Then one could register to some workspace sync. Later on, when synchronising his phone for example, fengoffice looks after each registration for sync and send/recieve informations based on this workspaces. That's easy in Fengoffice -> phone way, but could be tricky in the phone -> Fengoffice way.


Could you give some news on the progress of this project?

Yannick

ps: I had some problem with inserting links (not allowed to post links said the board...) so I edited this quite a lot and then deleted it. To moderators: If there are double post, feel free to delete them

[Anders E]

If I may wish for free, it would be that all the Fengoffice functions were in one app.
But focus on mail, task, calendar, workspace.

Must be able to search on the tags so you can find for example all call or shopping to do.

Would also be greet whit task and Event Location Mapping so you can get a reminder when you are at such customer or the bank.

Today I use informants who are fantastic, as are GTD and calendar.
(.webis.net/products_info.php?p_id=pocketinformant_iphone)

[pranger]

I think everyone agrees that the first step is to sync calandar, contacts and tasks. And by syncing, I mean two way sync. One way sync would allow us to carry our personal information everywhere, but two way sync would be a huge time saver. Especially when considering applications like the Business Card Reader to create contact and then share it with the team using Feng Office.

An important precision on syncing is that tasks and calendar sync should be on a user basis. It's usefull to be able to check the calendars of others for their availabilities, but when syncing, getting their calendar along with mine, even on a workspace basis, makes the actual calendar syncing feature totally useless to me. 

As for the next priority, I think creating an interface adapted to mobile phones should be done quickly. It's the only way to get access to the entire application with the full features without re-writing the whole application.

Finally a feature I could use is the ability to manage pictures easily from my mobile phone. Of course this might require additionnal functionalities like a gallery within the Web app, or maybe a "drop box" on the phone. Mobile phones now have decent cameras and allow sharing pictures on social media, and Feng Office could take care of the team collaboration features associated with pictures in a working environment, like field inspection (ex : for building designers and builders), sharing design ideas, taking a picture of notes or drawings on a whiteboard used at a meeting, etc.

Hope this helps. Thanks for the great app.

Patrick