The Winter 2025 release brings exciting enhancements to Resco products, including AI Assistant in Woodford and improvements for mobile workflows. Rolling out over February, these updates expand your development capabilities, refine user experiences, and empower frontline workers with better tools for mobile tasks.

Here’s a detailed look at the key updates. We’ve organized them into three categories to highlight how each feature benefits your mobile app development, user interface, and mobile workflows:

• Mobile app development capabilities: Innovations to simplify app customization and streamline workflows, including AI in Woodford or Data Model Explorer enhancements.

• UX/UI enhancements: Improvements to make applications more intuitive and visually polished, including redesigned setup in mobile app and ability to set a single card expansion in the mobile app.

• Improvements for mobile tasks: Updates that optimize task execution for frontline workers with newly supported RFID scanning on Zebra devices and multiselecting of map records.

Let’s dive into the details.

Mobile app development capabilities

AI Assistant in Woodford: Step-by-step guidance at your fingertips

Setting up apps or troubleshooting can sometimes be a tedious task, especially for more complex customizations. That’s why the AI Assistant in Woodford is now available for you to help with tasks like app configuration, troubleshooting, and optimization.

With the new update, you will be able to interact with the AI Assistant within a dedicated chat in Woodford.

It leverages Resco resources, including documentation and best practices for assisting your workflows. For instance, if you’re setting up synchronization filters or managing security roles, you can ask the AI Assistant to provide step-by-step guidance to speed up the set up and eliminate errors.

Data Model Explorer: See relationships clearly

A clear understanding of relationships between entities can significantly speed up troubleshooting or set up of complex data models. That’s why the updated Data Model Explorer now includes interactive relationship mapping, giving you a clear, actionable view of your data structure.

This enhancement simplifies optimization of your data models. For instance, if you’re investigating why a workflow isn’t triggering, you can easily see how entities are connected.

Background sync: Prevent conflicts and ensure data integrity

The synchronization engine in Resco empowers you with advanced control over how data syncs between the server and mobile devices. With the Winter 2025 release, we’ve further enhanced this capability by introducing new settings for the background synchronization.

This sync allows users to continue using the app while synchronization occurs in the background. However, in situations where users and the sync process attempt to write to the database simultaneously, there’s a small risk of inconsistencies – especially when fast user actions meet slower server processes. The new settings in Woodford provide administrators with additional options to better control these conflicts.

The new setup options include:

• Block save during sync: This allows you to prevent users from saving a form while background sync is running. This keeps synchronization on schedule but may momentarily delay data entry.
• Block save during sync, don’t start sync while form is open: With this option you can disable background sync when a form is open. If sync is already running, the user won’t be able to save the form until the sync process is complete. This prioritizes smooth data entry at the expense of sync frequency.
• No action (default): Maintains the existing behavior, where simultaneous changes from users and the sync process could lead to rare data conflicts.

These updates offer administrators the flexibility to tailor synchronization settings to their workflows, ensuring both reliable data integrity and a seamless user experience.

JavaScript support: Add dynamic logic to questionnaires on Power Platform

Questionnaires are now even more powerful with JavaScript support in model-driven apps and Power Pages. You can add custom logic to make your forms dynamic and responsive.

It’s especially helpful for complex scenarios like validating numeric inputs, calculating live metrics, or guiding users through step-by-step processes.

For instance, imagine a maintenance questionnaire requiring serial numbers. JavaScript can validate the input format (e.g., ABC-12345) in real time and alert the user if it doesn’t match, reducing the need for manual corrections later.

Advanced sync filtering: Better control over mobile data

Managing complex synchronization scenarios is easier with the new link-type=’in’ and link-type=’exists’ operators. These additions allow you to define advanced sync rules, ensuring mobile users have only the most relevant data while improving app performance, especially when working with large datasets.

For example, these operators are helpful when filtering specific records based on multiple conditions, such as syncing all user’s jobs with their related records (work orders, accounts, etc.). You can learn more about the “in” and “exist” links in this comprehensive guide.

Salesforce Chatter sync filter: Keep only relevant updates

Admins can now define Salesforce Chatter sync filters for each parent entity. This feature reduces unnecessary data synchronization, improving efficiency and ensuring your mobile users see only relevant updates.

For example, you can synchronize feeds for high-priority projects while excluding less critical ones, reducing data clutter.

Enhanced demo experience in the mobile app

The demo project in the mobile app has been modernized and improved. Users now have more options to explore, with updated demo data showcasing the latest features released over several updates.

UX/UI enhancements

Redesigned setup/settings: A more intuitive and modern experience

The mobile app setup and settings have been redesigned for a cleaner, more user-friendly experience. The new design simplifies navigation, making it easier to configure app preferences, adjust sync settings, and manage device-specific options.

• Streamlined navigation: Key settings are now grouped logically, reducing the time needed to find and adjust configurations.
• Improved readability: A modernized UI with better spacing and contrast enhances usability, even in low-light conditions.
• Faster access to critical options: Frequently used settings are now more accessible, reducing the number of taps needed to make changes.

This update ensures that both new and experienced users can efficiently manage their app settings with minimal effort.

Single card forms

Simplify your forms with the new single card design. Users can expand one card at a time, keeping the focus on relevant information while avoiding clutter.

This is especially useful for sales teams reviewing customer profiles, as they can focus on specific sections like recent interactions or purchase history without distraction.

Custom home theming: Align apps with your brand

Custom homes now seamlessly integrate with modern theming, using color tokens to align with your branding. The updated documentation provides step-by-step guidance for designing visually appealing apps with custom home screen colors and row designs.

Improvements for mobile tasks

Lasso select for maps: Pick records faster

Managing multiple records during field operations just got simpler. The new lasso tool lets you select several records directly on the map, enabling bulk actions with just a few taps.

For example, mobile workers can select all service locations in a specific area and update their status at once, saving significant time.

RFID scanning for iOS: Faster and more accurate data capture

Frontline workers using iOS devices can now benefit from RFID scanning thanks to newly supported integration with Zebra RFD4031 scanner. When the user scans RFIDs, the app can handle this event using JSBridge. This feature reduces manual data entry and speeds up workflows, ensuring accurate and efficient data capture.

For example, warehouse staff can scan inventory items in seconds, significantly improving productivity during stocktaking.

Developers can use two new JSBridge functions to connect to the scanner and process scanned RFID tags:

• MobileCRM.Services.ZebraScanner.connect – Establishes a connection with the scanner.
• MobileCRM.Services.ZebraScanner.onScan – Handles RFID scan events.

See the new features in action

Join our Winter update 2025 webinar to explore these updates in detail. Our team will guide you through live demos and answer your questions.

Register now

For a full list of updates, visit the Resco Wiki. Dive in and see how these features can help your mobile solutions.

Príspevok Winter 2025 update: AI in Woodford, Data Model Explorer, multiple UI/UX enhancements, and more zobrazený najskôr Resco.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Peter Becher, the Process Area Owner at Krones, to delve into the remarkable journey of Krones with Resco.

Peter Becher, a key figure at Krones, shared insights into his role as the global responsible for the service system and process environment. Reflecting on his pivotal position, Peter states, “In the Resco and Salesforce environment, my role as a Process Area Owner is crucial in ensuring the seamless integration and efficiency of our service systems.”

The quest for a comprehensive field service management solution

As Krones embarked on a transition in their IT system environment, they found themselves in search of a robust solution for their field service management.

Krones explored various options. However, due to the specific need for advanced offline capabilities on certain operating systems, they opted to delve into the Resco and Salesforce combination.

Peter describes the turning point, stating, “The story of how we got to Resco was a bit strange, or mad, or surprising – that’s probably even better. Salesforce recommended us to talk to Resco about their offline capabilities on Windows devices.”

The mobility empowering over 1,500 technicians around the world

The journey, as Peter describes it, was “nothing short of spectacular”.

Within a span of four to five months, Krones delivered the pilot of subsidiary Salesforce Field Service in combination with Resco, setting the stage for a global rollout.

Commenting on the speed of implementation, he notes, “We changed a lot of things in the project approach, moving to a more agile environment.”

Currently, live on all continents, including North America, Krones boasts more than 1,500 service technicians using Resco Mobile CRM as their sole front end.

The success story of the rollout resonates not only in numbers but in the positive feedback received, emphasizing the solution’s usability for sales and service technicians alike.

“It’s really a big success story for our company,” Peter remarks.

Expanding horizons with Resco Inspections+

Reflecting on the implementation journey, Peter highlights the flexibility and usability of the Resco solution. With an impressive 25 internal releases, the platform seamlessly integrated with Krones’ environment, proving to be a powerful tool for their service technicians.

The platform’s capability to minimize clicks and touches on smartphones aligns with the technicians’ preference for simplicity.

Recently, Krones expanded its Resco footprint by going live with Resco Inspections+. Peter describes this expansion as a strategic move to replace paper-based and report-based processes, “Resco, in the beginning, was a kind of solution for a challenge that we had – the offline capability for Windows devices. But the other possibility is moving more to that customer 360° view. That’s where we see a lot of possibilities around the Inspections.”

The inspections functionality, with its focus on condition assessment, guided procedures, and integrated processes aligns with Krones’ vision. Peter envisions leveraging checklists, assessments with scoring, automated workflows, and even generating leads or opportunities directly from Resco checklists, further improving their operational efficiency.

Looking to the future

As our conversation drew to a close, Peter expressed enthusiasm for the future collaboration between Krones and Resco. “The journey from our side has been amazing. We’re really looking forward to what we can do together,” he concludes.

The journey, marked by Resco’s continuous evolution from a solution for offline capability to a versatile development platform, exemplifies the tool’s adaptability to diverse business needs.

And Krones, a true hidden champion in the beverage industry, stands as a testament to the transformative power of mobile solutions for the frontline workers.

Príspevok How German manufacturing giant Krones uses mobility to empower 1,500+ technicians globally zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Here’s a detailed look at the key updates. We’ve organized them into three categories to highlight how each feature benefits your mobile app development, user interface, and mobile workflows.

1. New mobile app development capabilities
   
   This release introduces several features designed to expand your development toolkit, making it easier to build custom mobile solutions and ensure consistency across your projects.
2. UX/UI enhancements
   
   We’ve introduced several improvements to streamline the user experience both for app makers and end users, ensuring that your apps look and perform better.
3. Improvements for mobile tasks
   
   We’ve added new features to make mobile tasks easier for frontline workers. These updates streamline processes, improve efficiency, and ensure a smoother experience when completing tasks in the field.

New mobile app development capabilities

Delete signatures after report generation

You can now automatically delete signatures from the database after generating a report. This is especially helpful if you’re using the enhanced signature flow to sign reports at runtime.

Once the report is saved, the signature is removed from the database but stays in the generated report. When you create a new version of the report, a new signature will be required.

This feature helps you meet legal and security requirements and saves storage space. For a step-by-step guide on how to enable this, check out the Resco Wiki tutorial.

Global constants for Woodford projects

As a Woodford admin, you can now define project-specific global constants that can be used across business logic in the app. This makes managing values within your app simpler, and ensures you have a single source of truth, reducing potential errors. You can define constants in Boolean, Date Time, Decimal, Integer, and String formats, streamlining complex project configurations.

Field usage whitelist

The field usage feature, introduced in the previous release, helps you identify actively used fields in your app, allowing you to disable unused ones to speed up synchronization.

In this release, we’ve enhanced this feature by adding the ability to create a whitelist of fields that you don’t want to disable, even if they’re not currently in use. This ensures that important fields remain active, improving synchronization efficiency without compromising access to critical data.

Bulk update behavior change

The bulk update feature has been improved to ensure modifications to child entities are now accurately propagated across all views, and any associated handlers receive notifications.

This update changes how child entities are handled—previously, changes made outside the child list (e.g., via custom JavaScript or business rules) were ignored, but now they’re automatically refreshed, even if modified externally.

MSAL authentication control

You now have greater control over MSAL (Microsoft Authentication Library) authentication settings. Whether you’re an MDM admin, Woodford admin, or end user, you can customize these settings to fit your organization’s security needs, ensuring a secure and compliant authentication process. See MSAL authentication for details.

Simplified Resco Forms+ setup

New users of Forms+ can now take advantage of a default fallback Woodford project, simplifying the setup process. This means you no longer need to manually create a new project to get started, reducing friction during onboarding.

UI enhancements

Enhanced dropdown lists

Improved dropdown lists, initially available only for iOS, are now extended to Android and Windows UWP. This enhancement offers a smoother, more consistent experience across platforms, making navigation easier and more standardized for frontline workers.

Improved Theme editor

The preview in the theme editor now reflects all color properties displayed in the right panel. Tooltips with the names of the color properties appear when hovering over elements, ensuring changes are applied exactly where you intended. This enhancement provides more precise control over the colors used in your application, making it easier to create user-friendly, polished interfaces.

New home page of Resco Suite app

We’ve created the home page for the Resco Suite to provide better navigation and more intuitive access to key tools. The new design allows you to quickly navigate between designer tools, manager tools, and learning materials, helping you get the most out of Resco.

Collapsible side panes in Questionnaire Designer

The Questionnaire Designer now features collapsible side panes, giving you more screen space to focus on building your questionnaires. This makes it easier to design complex forms without unnecessary distractions, speeding up the design process.

Improvements for mobile tasks

Read Aztec codes with mobile app

The frontline workers can now scan and process Aztec barcodes with Resco’s mobile app. This is particularly useful for industries requiring fast and reliable barcode scanning, such as transportation, logistics, and inventory management. On iOS, the native iOS API is used, while Android and Windows platforms utilize the ZXing.Net library.

Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android

With the discontinuation of Google Cloud Messaging, Resco solutions now supports Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications on Android devices. This transition ensures uninterrupted communication and timely updates for your field teams, keeping workflows smooth and efficient.

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

Príspevok Fall 2024 update: New features to enhance mobile app development, user experience, and workflows zobrazený najskôr Resco.

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:

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:

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:

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.

The final preview of the upcoming Resco release has been published. See and test the new features coming to your solutions.

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.

G2, a platform based on user reviews, has given our solutions a big thumbs up this Spring 2024. But what exactly does that mean?

Understanding G2 Badges:

G2 awards badges based on user reviews and satisfaction. A “Leader” badge means we’re a top choice in a specific category, while “High Performer” shows we’re a strong contender.

Our winning categories

For spring 2024, we were recognized in three key areas:

• Field Sales Leader for our field sales app that empowers salespeople to work on the go.
• Field Service Management for our solution that streamlines scheduling, dispatching, and field operations.
• CRM (Europe & EMEA) for our mobile-first CRM platform that keeps customer relationships strong.

Now for the best part – what did people love so much about the Resco solutions to earn these badges?

Here’s why users are fans.

Offline functionality 

Resco lets mobile workers access data and complete tasks even without an internet connection.

Several reviewers praise this capability as it solves their field sales, data collection, or customer visits reporting challenges. One of the users highlights, “Synchronization with the backend and usage is very fast, even when there are millions of records synchronized to the offline client.”

Mobile support

Resco mobility products are built for frontline use, so users working out of the office can ditch their laptop and get things done from a phone or tablet. This mobility was the core benefit for several reviewers. Matthias, Process Engineer Sales & Service from the Machinery sector highlights:

“We have over 500 service engineers in more than 50 countries, which do our service tasks on ocean going vessels in nearly every harbor around the world. Resco allows us to bring them an easy-to-use mobile solution, where they can track the engineer hours, the changed parts, the measurements and recommendation.“

Seamless integrations

“There is a tight integration with Microsoft Power Platform which gives the ability to develop sophisticated mobile offline applications,” explains a reviewer one of the reasons they decided for Resco.

Solutions integrate natively with popular platforms like Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, giving organizations and software integrators a unified business system to work with.

No-code / low-code development

Users can easily customize Resco to fit their specific needs, even without coding. A reviewer appreciated this feature: “The form designer is very powerful. I can design an offline form that can do anything the customer is asking for. The tools for report design and managing users are very well designed. The API works perfectly, and I can configure the backend database to any need we have.”

Want to see what others are saying? Check out the user reviews on G2.

Príspevok Resco recognized as a Leader and High Performer by G2: Which features did users like the most? zobrazený najskôr Resco.

The Resco Winter Update is here, and it’s packed with a ton of new features. We’ve rolled out another bunch of improvements to help you create and use mobile business apps with ease.

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 the realm of building micro-vertical ISV business apps, Tom Moortgat, the mind behind Fearless Leader, shares valuable insights.

This blog delves into four key tips drawn from his seasoned experience shared during the recent resco.NEXT 2023 conference. The story of Tom and Fearless Leader solutions can help other ISV partners envision a roadmap to crafting successful business solutions.

The story of Fearless Leader

A decade ago, Tom embarked on a journey to transform sales solutions in the food and beverage industries. As the owner and managing director of Avento at the time, Tom initiated the development of what would later become Fearless Leader.

Born from this vision, Fearless Leader now helps to fulfill the needs of frontline workers such as sales representatives, inspectors, and medical professionals. It integrates mobile capabilities within the framework of Microsoft and Resco technologies, benefiting not only frontline workers but also their managers and back-office users.

Over the years, the solution has acquired a user community of over 1,500 individuals across 45 customers in Belgium and beyond. In the preceding year, Avento was acquired by Cegeka, and the company’s scope widened to pharma and medical industries.

Cegeka has also achieved the 2023/2024 Microsoft Business Applications Inner Circle award, placing it among the top 1% of Microsoft’s worldwide partners.

With these achievements under his belt, Tom Moortgat’s experience serves as a guide on crafting successful micro-vertical solutions combining Resco and Microsoft business tools. Let’s delve into his insights shared at resco.NEXT 2023 conference.

Love watching more than reading? Watch the full Tom Moortgat’s session from resco.NEXT 2023 to learn about his experience. 

1. Begin with the user in mind

When constructing business applications, Tom emphasizes the pivotal role of user-friendliness and simplicity, “What’s “important about solutions that you build for customers is how easy it is to use them. It’s a top argument. It must be very easy to use.”

It’s no coincidence that the key phase of development began even before the idea of Fearless Leader was born. “We started talking to the market while building the solution,” Tom remarked. Armed with a tablet, he initiated conversations with sales managers at industry fairs and conferences to gain knowledge about their needs.

From that point, the focus on user-friendliness became a cornerstone in the journey of constructing efficient and impactful business applications.

Fearless Leader has an interface made for easy navigation, ensuring that all users, regardless of their technical expertise, can integrate the solution into their daily tasks. “It has to be helpful for the person who uses it every day, every morning to the evening and not just for management with their reporting,” Tom asserted.

2. Don’t forget about offline, even in 2024

In an era dominated by 5G discussions, Tom remains an advocate for offline functionality despite seemingly abundant 4G and 5G connection, “We are in the year 2023 [at the time of conference] and offline is still the topic. Who would have thought of that?”

He illustrates the practical necessity of offline functionality in certain industries, such as food and beverage with supermarkets providing only limited connectivity.

“If you go into a supermarket, there are now solar panels on the roof, but there is no 4G or 5G connection yet. Maybe that will change a bit in the future, but often there is no connectivity as soon as you walk into a supermarket,” he explains.

For sales representatives operating in such environments, it would mean a challenging user experience and an inability to fulfill their work.

During his presentation, Tom emphasized the necessity of the right combination of tools and platforms to achieve seamless offline functionality. It’s a field where Resco and Microsoft complement each other. “We can have Dynamics 365 and SharePoint connected, and Resco takes it all offline. That’s very good and future proofed,” Tom noted.

And it’s the futureproofing of the solution that makes another important topic in Tom’s presentation.

3. Opt for flexible development

Tom draws attention to the challenges faced by traditional, custom-developed apps, particularly when dealing with supporting every new iOS update or device.

“We have replaced many apps that were built previously. Why? Because at a certain point, those apps didn’t work on the new iOS anymore,” he noted.

This observation underscores the obsolescence and escalating costs associated with custom-developed applications. That’s where systems and tools like Microsoft Power Platform and Resco Mobile App Development Toolkit provide solutions for ISV partners.

Mobile App Development Toolkit makes customization easy, eliminating the need for complex coding or ongoing maintenance. This ensures that the ISV partner can adapt and improve their solutions without the hassle of constant maintenance.

As Tom positioned it, “What we did was we made one solution compatible for all those industries – food, beverage, pharma, medical – which makes it very interesting for us for maintenance and support because it’s one whole system. It’s configurable for a food person as well as a pharma person.”

New device support is especially important for ensuring seamless experience for frontline workers. “For instance, many sales reps use their smartphone with their calendar in their car to check the visits that they have to do that day. It’s connected to Waze and then as soon as they go into the supermarket, they have a tablet, and they continue their work with it as the app runs the same on any device.”

Tom underlines the economic advantage for clients, stating, “For them, it’s important that they take the licenses, a few days of work training, but they don’t have to buy new hardware.” This cost-efficient approach positions no-code / low-code development tools as a powerful ally for ISV partners, enabling them to provide future-proof solutions without imposing significant financial burdens on their clients.

4. Leverage advanced functionality

The incorporation of Azure Maps, Google Maps, and Resco technology stands out as a key functionality in Fearless Leader, allowing sales representatives to optimize their routes and maximize their efficiency.

In a live demonstration, Tom showcased how this technology translates into tangible time savings and increased visit capacity. “The sales reps must plan their day and they must do that very effectively. It’s the only result that counts,” he emphasized during the presentation.

Additionally, Tom highlights the flexibility to add languages upon request, ensuring adaptability to the specific linguistic needs of different markets.

Fearless Leader goes beyond language barriers with its comprehensive multilingual support. Tom notes, “We use all languages by default, English, French, Dutch, German, and we also now have Italian in it.” This inclusivity allows the solution to cater to a diverse frontline workforce.

“And there’s reporting, of course, behind it. You want to know as a manager ‘where are my guys? How many visits did they do? Is our assortment delivered?’ So the reporting is there as well,” explained Tom, listing several new features used by Fearless Leader during the presentation.

In conclusion

Tom’s journey with Fearless Leader provides multiple important insights for ISVs: Keep it simple, don’t forget offline, go for flexible development, and spice it up with the latest features.

Think of these tips as your roadmap to cook up successful solutions for the unsung heroes – the frontline workers. If you are hungry for more insights, watch selected sessions from the resco.NEXT 2023 conference for free, and get ready for the 2024’s event edition coming to Vienna.

Príspevok 4 tips to master industry-specific software solutions as an ISV: Insights from Tom Moortgat zobrazený najskôr Resco.

A recent Microsoft survey indicates that 65% of frontline workers view artificial intelligence as a tool that can alleviate their workload and amplify their contributions. This points toward a future where AI seamlessly augments human impact.

The collaboration between Resco and Microsoft is a testament to such digital integration’s power.

Previously, we explored how the fusion of Resco and Azure Custom Vision’s AI digitized health and safety processes in the construction and oil & gas industry.

Now, let’s shift our focus from safety inspections to field service and equipment recognition.

The use case: Equipment recognition in field service

Efficient equipment recognition is a critical aspect of field service operations.

Technicians need to identify and validate various equipment pieces swiftly and accurately, whether for maintenance, repair, or replacement purposes.

This process often relies on manual documentation or memory, leading to potential errors and delays. But now you can combine Resco (including the new Power Platform solutions) and Azure Custom Vision to create a faster and more comfortable solution for frontline workers.

The solution: Smart forms and AI working together

Field technicians can employ mobile forms in Resco Inspections+ or the newly announced Resco Forms+ to capture images and details of equipment on-site, creating a comprehensive visual database.

This solution enables inspectors to collect and evaluate data digitally. Technicians can fill out information about work progress or create reports without needing to rewrite data or use desktop devices.

All data is synced with the core databases of organizations thanks to native integration with Microsoft’s platforms and data management tools, including Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Dataverse.

Integrating Azure Custom Vision’s AI empowers workers to automatically identify and classify equipment, eliminating the guesswork and significantly enhancing efficiency.

For example, if they find a defective part, they can easily document it with a photo and quickly secure a replacement. No time is wasted searching for the correct part, as the system performs this task automatically.

This technology can also be used for other questions, like looking up items in a product list. If the captured image matches a tag in the pre-trained model, it becomes the answer. This saves time and ensures accuracy in various field service tasks.

Technical integration: Synergy of Resco and Azure Custom Vision

Let’s assume you’ve already pre-trained your Custom Vision model for the image recognition of various spare parts typical for your industry.

Accordingly, you’ve also established a link between this model and your mobile project in Woodford. You’ve also created an existing questionnaire template used during technician visits to monitor assets (e.g., elevators in our case). If not, find the steps to do this in our documentation.

Now, let’s find out how to leverage custom vision to identify and find a missing part in a lookup view.

Imagine that during your site visit, you find out that some parts are subject to corrosion. You must photo-document the defects and simultaneously secure the supply of new spare parts.

Compliance with all technical prerequisites and picking up the proper production types and models are mandatory. You’re already capturing the defective part, why not speed up the process?

Use the “image recognition” question format in Questionnaire Designer to capture the spare part. If the captured image matches a tag in the pre-trained model, the tag’s name becomes the output answer.

This outcome may be applied to other questions as well, such as a lookup question pointing to the product list in our case.

If there exists any product with the name matching the recognized tag, the lookup is automatically filled in with detected part. No other data input from the technician operative is necessary.

Why it matters

Operational agility: Instant recognition optimizes equipment-related tasks, enabling technicians to take informed actions.

Enhanced productivity: Real-time evaluation and automatic recognition saves time for field technicians, boosting overall efficiency. At the same time, it saves them a mental capacity needed for remembering or finding the correct equipment.

Compliance and records: Digital data collection, paired with visual documentation, strengthens data integrity and regulatory compliance for field service organizations.

Code-free integration: The native integration with Microsoft platforms and no-code development enables IT teams, consultants, and partners to seamlessly leverage digital forms and AI’s advantages without spending resources on coding and maintenance.

Conclusion: AI as the booster of efficiency

The solution combining Resco and AI enables technicians to scan and recognize equipment efficiently through image recognition, bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms.

This capability not only accelerates workflow but also ensures accuracy and consistency in equipment identification.

But the combination of AI recognition and mobile forms isn’t just limited to equipment recognition.

It can be an accelerator of processes in various fields:

Inventory management: To streamline retail and warehouse operations by scanning and cataloging products accurately, reducing errors, and optimizing restocking processes.

Quality control: Enhance quality assessments in manufacturing by automatically identifying and categorizing product defects, increasing accuracy.

Retail and e-commerce: Simplify product searches for shoppers by allowing image-based product identification, making the shopping experience more efficient.

Healthcare: To improve patient data capture and medical image tagging for healthcare professionals, simplifying data retrieval and analysis.

If you’re intrigued by the prospects of integrating Microsoft business apps with Resco mobility, reach out for more information.

Príspevok How Resco and AI offer faster, more accurate equipment recognition in field service zobrazený najskôr Resco.

The Resco Fall Update 2023 is here, bringing over 100 improvements to help you create mobile business apps even more efficiently and deliver new capabilities to both the office and the field.

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.

The Resco Fall Update is here, and it’s packed with a ton of new features. We’ve rolled out over 100 improvements to help you create even better mobile business apps with ease.

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.

Executing form commands from rules

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

We’ve explored how Resco Inspections+ and Microsoft Azure Custom Vision integrate together. Find out how they create a solution for easier and faster inspections in the oil & gas or construction industry.

In today’s digital age, technology provides multiple ways of automating and simplifying work tasks.

And the latest accelerator of frontline work transformation is AI.

A recent study shows that 65% of frontline workers believe that AI is their ally. They envision a future where technology can lighten their load and amplify their impact.

The collaboration between Resco and Microsoft exemplifies the potential of such digital integration.

This article looks at how Resco Inspections+ and AI in Azure Custom Vision can digitize health and safety processes for the construction industry. And the resulting solution provides benefits in terms of speed and accuracy of safety inspections.

The use case: Safety inspections on worksites

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Inspections are a common and important part of several industries. Helmets, goggles, or protective clothing are all part of mandatory equipment in oil & gas or construction industry.

It helps workers prevent injuries and mitigate safety hazards. But it is also important for organizations, as it helps them ensure safety and comply with regulations.

For example, one of the biggest OSHA fines in 2022 included penalty for failing to provide eye and head protection on a construction site. The fine totaled $321,956. The risk of work injuries on oil & gas rigs is even higher, making it critical to use new tools for safety improvement.

PPE inspections are often done with pen and paper, which creates a risk of losing or damaging the reports. Some field workers use spreadsheets that aren’t integrated with the core backend systems of organizations. This creates extra manual work for workers and it’s a complex task for organizations to keep all documents in order for years.

The solution: Mobile forms and AI that automate tasks

Mobile forms in Inspections+ enable inspectors to collect and evaluate data digitally. Inspectors can take notes, photos, or videos on site, providing visual proof of health and safety measures. 

The native connection to Dataverse, Dynamics, or Power Platform allows inspectors to sync data in real-time with their organization’s main database. Doing so mitigates data silos and allows organizations to set up a single source of truth.

The AI can automate and optimize related processes. For example, it can make evaluation of workers wearing protective equipment quick and error-free.

The integration: Technical part of integrating Inspections+ and Azure Custom Vision

The integration allows users to classify images in questionnaires or entity forms using Azure’s Custom Vision service. It requires an Azure Custom Vision subscription and at least one model for classifying images.

It is necessary to pre-train this model prior to use in the mobile app. The main steps for setting up Custom Vision include creating a new project, selecting project types and classification types, and obtaining the prediction URL.

You can read more about the process in the technical documentation.

The connection to Azure services itself is set up in Woodford. You can do so by adding a new model definition with all the necessary information in the ‘Settings: AI Image recognition’ section.

Once the training and setup are complete, users can utilize image recognition in questions, views, and forms. It allows them to scan images and match them to specific fields or records.

The entity where image recognition is to be used, must include a string field with barcode formatting on. For example, you can add a row button to the form that uses the ‘Scan Image’ step. Then, simply fill in the value or find the record you are looking for in a lookup view.

Another use case of how you can leverage the custom vision service is to answer questions in questionnaires directly. To do so, you can use the ‘image recognition’ question type.

If the captured image matches the tag in the pretrained model (with a probability above a customizable threshold), the tag’s name serves as the question output. You can apply this result to the other questions (e.g., string fields or lookups) and build your questionnaire business logic based on the tags.

POV: A health & safety inspector with Resco and AI at hand

Let’s have a look at one real-life scenario where technicians cannot start their duties until the safety standards are met.

The legal requirement states that until the protective equipment is not demonstrably present and documented, the mobile worker can’t begin the inspection on a worksite.

You can easily achieve this by integrating Inspections+ and AI in Custom Vision service. The upcoming release will enable this option even for Power Platform.

A technician simply takes a picture of his or her protective equipment at the beginning of the work order process.

The picture will be automatically attached to the documentation and well represented in the overall report. Only after taking the picture and detecting all the required safety protection (e.g., helmet in this case), the operative can proceed with the inspection.

Why it matters:

Real-time safety: Instant safety evaluation means workers can start their work faster and without a burden of administrative tasks. Organizations can also ensure compliance according to OSHA policy.

Audit trail and compliance: Digital data collection and the combination of photographic documentation, signed reports, and cloud storage ensure data integrity and easier document storage. 

Digital data collection: Real-time evaluation, inspections scoring, and elimination of data rewriting will help save inspectors’ time. 

No-code integration: A fast solution for ISV partners, consultants, and internal IT teams to incorporate the benefits of Inspections+, Power Platform, and AI technology without lengthy and expensive development.

Conclusion

That’s the showcase on Resco and Custom Vision joining forces. Quick photos, AI analysis, improved health and safety – all for a safer oil & gas rigs or construction sites. It’s tech that works for the frontline workforce, without the hassle. 

Príspevok Keeping worksites safe: How Resco and AI enhance safety inspections zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Have you ever worked with a client who struggled with ineffective inspections?

HG Technology, a Resco partner that specializes in cloud-based business solutions, has faced a similar challenge.

As a Microsoft Silver Partner, it uses the full Microsoft 365 suite to help clients with digital transformation. The company creates tailored systems that enhance its clients’ business operations. These include inspection software, data and document management, and bespoke applications.

When the HG Technology’s team realized its construction industry client’s workers were still using paper reports during routine inspections, they wanted to help them improve this process. So, they looked for a digital solution.

That’s when they found Resco Inspections+.

In this interview, Millie Beere, Product Manager at HG Technology, shares how Inspections+ improved the client’s inspection process, saving time and money.

When you looked for a digital solution, why did you choose Resco instead of similar solutions available?

At HG Technology, we primarily use the Microsoft suite to provide cloud-based business solutions. So, when we learned that Resco’s products were also cloud-based and could be integrated with Microsoft applications, we knew Resco would fit perfectly with our company ethos. We saw it had the potential to enhance our client’s operations.

Resco offers an out-of-the-box app that’s ready for implementation. To what extent did you customize it to match your clients’ needs? 

One of our main customers is in the construction and aggregate industry. For this client, Inspections+ didn’t suit the business’ needs straight out of the box. So, we customized existing entities to better store equipment data. Specifically, we wanted to present this information in a Tree format with which client users were comfortable.

How did you go about this customization?

First, we customized the Asset entity so that it was suitable to store equipment data. This primarily involved creating new fields. 

We also customized the Tree entity so that it replicated the existing equipment configuration. This meant the equipment was stored in a structure that the users were familiar with. The Tree entity now builds itself and maintains its structure when new equipment data is brought across from an external platform.

To import equipment data into Inspections+ and constantly keep it up to date, we used Microsoft Power Automate and SharePoint lists. We then integrated them with Inspections+. The purpose was to export and store completed questionnaires, inspections, and audits. This way, our client can now view live equipment data from within the Inspections mobile application.

The client can now use the application to access the relevant inspections and reports anytime. This integration works fully automated; the client can extract completed reports and store the PDFs in a SharePoint document library. That can be helpful for future reference and external auditing. 

Did you also make any other customizations of the app?

Yes, we have also made several customisations to questionnaire templates to help our clients get the most out of their inspections. For example, we have implemented ‘Fault Notifications’, which notify the managers on the client’s side when an inspector picks up on an issue on-site. This notification informs managers of the fault, its location, and whether it has been resolved.

In addition, we have also implemented calculated fields, as inspectors often need to enter a range of measurements. Thanks to our customized rule, the questionnaire generates an average of these measurements.

You mentioned integrations with Power Automate and SharePoint. Have you integrated Inspections+ with any other Microsoft applications?

Being a Microsoft Silver Partner, we’ve encountered a few scenarios where a client has benefited from such integrations. Apart from integrating Power Automate and SharePoint, we have also implemented a Microsoft Power BI dashboard directly into Inspections+. 

Our client wanted to view department-specific data at the drop of a hat. It included data such as how many inspections have been completed in the current month, which pieces of equipment have been inspected, and so on.

In our solution, the Power BI dashboard uses the data stored in Resco to provide interactive and drill-down dashboards. This integration allowed our client’s users to manage their team’s performance quickly and effectively.

As a result, our client’s data is more secure and easier to navigate. It also prevents users from having to sort through large amounts of information to find what they are looking for. And we can choose which users can view what data. These are just a few benefits of being able to create unique app configurations.

To better understand your clients’ context, can you tell us more about their industries, use cases, and how the solution helps them?

As I mentioned, we have worked with a client from the construction and aggregate industries to implement Inspections+.

Before implementing Resco for this client, its users conducted routine inspections using pen and paper. They often couldn’t find the time to create digital copies of these inspection reports, which resulted in misplaced inspections. 

Going digital has allowed our client to run inspections from the users’ mobile devices. They can do so anywhere, anytime, and whether they are online or without access to the internet.

We also learned that the aggregate industry experiences routine external audits. 

For these audits, they must provide data from their routine equipment inspections. But as inspectors often lost their paper reports with no digital copies, they couldn’t always provide auditors with the data they required.

After implementing Inspections+, and integrating SharePoint, all their digital inspections are exported and stored in SharePoint automatically. 

Can you give an example of any quantifiable benefits that using Resco solutions brought to your client?

Before going digital, our client’s inspectors used to spend several hours a week in the office typing up their paper reports. Sometimes this didn’t get done, and the process was incredibly time-consuming.

Now, they’re able to save that time, as they complete inspections much faster. Plus, the inspections are more likely to be done. Their work is much more efficient.

Which Resco features do your customers find most useful? 

We have found the Tree entity to be very beneficial to the aggregate industry. Our client users store their equipment in a system called SAP, so they appreciate we have been able to replicate this structure in Inspections+. Now, inspectors can follow the familiar layout to find the piece of equipment they are inspecting.

Thanks to the Tree structure, inspectors can easily find the questionnaires associated with each piece of equipment. That’s another feature we have found useful. It avoids incorrect inspections being conducted, saving the users valuable time.

Being able to capture an image when inspecting is also very beneficial. Now, when an issue arises, inspectors can just take a picture and tag the image with the relevant information.

As users usually take images when an issue occurs, we have also set up a notification system informing managers of any faults that arise. As a result, the client can now resolve faults quicker and with less machine downtime.

You just mentioned a few of your clients’ favorite features. What are the best features from your point of view?

Firstly, the ability to create department-specific app projects means users don’t get overwhelmed. They only see relevant inspection information. This is both secure and timesaving. 

Secondly, being able to set up notifications is another important feature. The main purpose of conducting inspections is keeping on top of what is or isn’t working. That’s why being able to notify certain members of the team when a problem occurs means issues get resolved much quicker.

Thirdly, we’ve found that inspectors are often without internet access throughout the day. Therefore, being able to access inspections whilst offline is very beneficial. It increases the likelihood of inspections being conducted.

Do you plan to further scale your Resco solution or try other Resco products in different scenarios in the future?

Absolutely. We are always looking for new Resco clients and hope to expand our skill-set as we go. In 2021 we branched out and started networking in the Middle East—we see great potential and hope to expand our clientele in this industry. 

Would you recommend Resco to other companies?

I would recommend Resco to businesses that conduct inspections regularly. Especially to those who haven’t yet digitized their inspections.

By working with a Resco partner, implementing the solution can require only minor work. It can help businesses conduct inspections anywhere, anytime, from their workers’ mobile devices.

Príspevok How HG Technology improves its clients’ inspections and audits thanks to Resco zobrazený najskôr Resco.

As a leading provider of mobility and productivity solutions, we strive to deliver the best user experience and continuous improvement to our partners and customers.

With this in mind, we are switching from a quarterly release cycle to a more efficient and impactful approach. This change will bring even greater value to our community.

Starting this June, we will switch to a schedule of three major releases per year, alongside twelve monthly feature previews.

The new schedule will give our partners and customers more time to test, share feedback, and plan the integration of new capabilities into their production solutions.

It’s a switch from the current cycle of four quarterly releases and only four beta previews a year.

“We have carefully considered feedback from our users, market trends, and industry best practices to devise a more efficient and impactful approach for updates.

Through the new schedule, we can provide an enhanced user experience to our users as it will enable significant improvements in development, testing, and integration phases,”

explains Marek Eštok, CTO at Resco.

How to take advantage of the new release cycle

The major releases will come in January, May, and September each year.

You can look forward to seeing the previews at the beginning of each month.

The new release schedule will bring our customers and partners several ways to enhance their operations.

There are four main areas we’ve improved:

1. Extended testing period

With fewer releases and earlier preview, you will have more time to thoroughly test and evaluate the new features before integrating them into your production solutions. This extended preview period will empower you to make informed decisions and ensure a seamless transition.

“The monthly previews guarantee that most features will be available for testing and evaluation for several months. Through this timeframe we will provide ample time for our users to try, feedback, and plan the rollout of the new features,”

adds Marek Eštok

2. Enhanced feature maturity

By dedicating more time to development and testing, Resco features will reach a higher level of maturity and stability. This will lead to a smoother user experience, increased performance, and a reduced likelihood of unexpected issues for the partners and customers.

“By streamlining our release cycle, we can focus more on delivering mature and robust features. Yet, we also aim to maintain the overall quantity of enhancements available for our users throughout a year,”

confirms Marek Eštok.

3. Alignment with industry standards

Resco’s new release cycle will also align more closely with the release schedules of core platform providers such as Microsoft and Salesforce.

With this synchronization, you can facilitate easier integration between products. This will enable you to better leverage the combined power of Resco and solutions like Dataverse and Power Apps.

4. Agile and fast-moving roadmap

With this enhanced release cycle, we can incorporate your feedback faster than ever before. It’s another way for you to take an active part in shaping the future of the Resco products.

“The valuable insights from the community will help us prioritize and develop new features in a faster and more responsive manner. It will help us ensure that our partners and users have an industry-leading technology always at hand,”

adds Eduard Kesely, Head of Product at Resco.

How to test the preview features and provide feedback

Similar to our previous beta testing process, every partner and customer can join the preview program to gain access to new features before they are officially released.

The key difference is that now, instead of waiting for quarterly beta releases, you will have the opportunity to test and provide feedback on new features every month through the Resco Support portal.

This continuous testing approach ensures that your input directly impacts the development of Resco’s offerings. It helps us address issues, refine functionalities, and optimize user experience promptly.

Joining the preview program is straightforward. You can find detailed instructions for each platform on Resco’s Wiki.

How to get the latest information about releases and previews

Resco wiki documentation

To keep up with the latest releases and stay informed about new features, visit the Resco Release Summary page to find all relevant information. The page will be continuously updated, and will serve as a comprehensive resource, providing in-depth information about each release and preview.

Release Bulletin newsletter

We are also launching the Release Bulletin newsletter, that will deliver regular updates directly to your inboxes, ensuring that you never miss out on the latest advancements from Resco.

Regular communication channels

We will share important updates and regular information about new features on our social media channels and through our blogs. And as always, you can reach out to your account manager at Resco for more information.

Enhanced experience coming

With extended testing, enhanced feature maturity, alignment with industry standards, and a more agile roadmap, we are dedicated to delivering a top-notch experience and providing you with the tools you need to succeed.

Stay tuned for the upcoming preview features. To make sure you don’t miss a thing, join the new dedicated newsletter and get the most up-to-date information directly to your inbox.

Príspevok Introducing Resco’s new release schedule: More power, control, and innovation for you zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Are you looking to deepen your knowledge and explore the potential of Microsoft Power Platform? resco.NEXT conference 2023 is just around the corner, offering a valuable opportunity to dive into the world of Microsoft Power Platform, Power Apps, Dataverse, advanced mobility, and more.

Join us for a dynamic and enriching event where you can discover the latest advancements, learn from industry experts, and network with like-minded professionals.

What is resco.NEXT conference about

resco.NEXT is a community event bringing together enterprise mobility experts & professionals, including Power Platform enthusiasts, developers, and business specialists to share insights, best practices, and real-world experiences.

The conference’s agenda is packed with sessions designed to empower you with the knowledge and skills needed to leverage the full potential of advanced mobility & Power Platform for the frontline workforce.

What you can experience at resco.NEXT – Power Platform focused sessions, technical trainings, community, and more

1. Engaging keynote presentations

Kickstart your resco.NEXT experience with captivating keynote presentations that set the stage for the conference. Be inspired by the insights and gain a fresh perspective on how a combination of Microsoft Power Platform, Resco, and AI can transform the mobile workforce.

2. Microsoft Power Platform sessions

Immerse yourself in a series of in-depth sessions dedicated to mobility solutions on Power Platform from business focused lectures and updates to advanced technical sessions. Industry experts will cover a wide range of topics, including Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse, and more.

Learn practical tips, discover hidden features, and unlock the true potential of advanced mobility for Power Platform from experts like Pierre Hulsebus or Ivan Stano.

3. Interactive demos and implementation showcases

Experience the power firsthand through interactive demos and showcases of real-word Resco + Microsoft Dataverse & Power Platform implementations. Get a chance to explore the latest features, tools, and capabilities of Resco technology in Microsoft ecosystem in a guided and interactive way.

Resco’s experts will be available to answer your questions and help you gain a deeper understanding of the solution’s functionalities.

4. Networking and collaboration opportunities

resco.NEXT conference is not just about learning. It’s also about building connections and fostering collaboration. Engage with fellow attendees, exchange ideas, and establish valuable professional relationships.

Share your experiences, challenges, and success stories with like-minded individuals who share your passion for Power Platform, Dataverse, and advanced mobility.

How to join resco.NEXT 2023

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of advanced mobility and Microsoft Power Platform.

Visit the conference website to explore the full agenda, secure your spot, and get ready for an unforgettable experience. See you at resco.NEXT conference 2023!

Príspevok Discover the power of Microsoft Power Platform & mobility at resco.NEXT 2023 conference zobrazený najskôr Resco.

The Intersolar event held in Long Beach, California, showcased the latest advancements and trends in the field of green energy.

Trevor Metcalf, our Marketing Manager from Resco North America, attended the event and shared his insights on the top five trends observed at Intersolar 2023.

This blog post will delve into these trends and provide a glimpse into the exciting future of renewable energy.

1. Scalable energy solutions

One of the prominent trends witnessed at Intersolar 2023 is the emergence of scalable energy effects.

Various companies showcased cutting-edge technology and software solutions that enable the initiation and expansion of green energy projects.

This trend signifies a shift towards empowering individuals and organizations to actively participate in the renewable energy transition.

Key points:

• Scalable energy solutions offer the flexibility to start small and expand gradually.
• Technology and software play a crucial role in facilitating the growth of green energy initiatives.
• The trend emphasizes democratization and accessibility of renewable energy resources.

Key data:

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that 90 percent of the world’s electricity can and should come from renewable energy by 2050.

One of the main drivers of increasing adoption of renewable energy has been the rapid decline in the cost of green technologies.

For example, the cost of electricity from solar power fell by 85 percent between 2010 and 2020. Costs of onshore and offshore wind energy fell by 56 percent and 48 percent respectively.

This has made renewable energy more competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources and has led to an increase in the adoption of green energy solutions.

2. Home energy tech revolution

Intersolar 2023 highlighted the rise of companies specializing in home energy tech. These innovative products enable individuals to adopt green energy practices within their residences.

Examples include solar panels, collapsible homes, and other eco-friendly solutions designed for domestic use.

This trend signifies the increasing emphasis on sustainability and self-sufficiency at the individual level.

Key points:

• Home energy tech products empower homeowners to generate and utilize renewable energy on-site.
• Solar panels and other green energy solutions are becoming more accessible and affordable for residential use.
• The trend reflects the growing awareness and demand for sustainable living practices.

Key data:

Especially in Europe, there is a growing trend of households integrating green energy into their homes. According to The Guardian, 2 million Europeans are now involved in 7,000 local energy communities across the continent, with numbers growing rapidly since EU directives promoting clean energy and energy communities were introduced in 2018 and 2019.

These local energy communities allow households to produce, consume and sell their own renewable energy. Examples include solar panels in the Netherlands and biomass burners in Spain. The EU sees the engagement and involvement of citizens producing and consuming energy locally as vital if the bloc is to meet its climate targets.

3. Safety and compliance solutions

Safety and compliance solutions emerged as a crucial trend at Intersolar 2023. Companies showcased products and software designed to ensure the safety of workers involved in green energy projects.

Additionally, these solutions facilitate proper data collection and compliance with industry standards, enhancing overall project efficiency and risk management.

Key points:

• Safety and compliance solutions prioritize worker well-being in the green energy sector.
• Enhanced data collection and compliance software streamline operations and improve project outcomes.
• The trend highlights the industry’s commitment to maintaining high safety standards and regulatory compliance.

Key data:

The hazards renewable energy workers encounter are often universal issues that people in similar fields experience. That said, clean power alternatives, like wind, have specific challenges that increase safety risks for operators and mechanics. This industry isn’t immune to threats.

Some of the most significant safety concerns for employees who work in renewable energy include machinery misuse, fall hazards, electrical currents and confined spaces. Therefore, processes like lock-out/tag-out and tools like Energy+ are important in improving industry’s safety standards.

4. Hydrogen energy advancements

Intersolar 2023 showcased significant advancements and interest in hydrogen energy.

Numerous companies presented novel technologies and products related to green energy and hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a promising alternative fuel source with vast potential to revolutionize various sectors, including transportation and industrial processes.

This trend signifies the increasing focus on hydrogen as a clean energy solution.

Key points:

• The emergence of new companies and technologies indicates the growing investment in hydrogen energy.
• Hydrogen offers a sustainable and versatile energy source with applications in multiple sectors.
• The trend highlights the potential of hydrogen to complement other renewable energy sources.

Key data:

The International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes an annual report called the “Global Hydrogen Review” which tracks hydrogen production and demand worldwide, as well as progress in critical areas such as infrastructure development, trade, policy, regulation, investments and innovation.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global hydrogen generation market size was USD 145.67 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to USD 220.37 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.6% from 2021 to 2028.

This growth is driven by increasing interest in hydrogen as a clean energy solution and the development of new technologies and products related to green energy and hydrogen.

5. Software standardization for field operations

The final trend observed at Intersolar 2023 pertains to software standardization for field operations.

Many companies in the green energy industry face challenges in integrating pen and paper processes and different software solutions for various procedures in inspections, installations, and maintenance.

This trend calls for the development of a standardized software solution that simplifies and optimizes field activities, enhancing overall efficiency and collaboration.

Key points:

• Field operations in the green energy sector require a unified software solution for improved productivity.
• Standardization eliminates the need for multiple tools and enhances data sharing and communication.
• The trend emphasizes the importance of streamlining processes and ensuring seamless collaboration among stakeholders.

Key data:

The green energy sector can be considered an early adopter of digital technologies, however it must now be enabled to be a continued and efficient adopter.

By 2030, digital technologies have the potential to help resource-intensive industries in particular reduce their global Co2 emissions by 20%. In other words, these technologies can save 9.7x more emissions than they produce and digital tools will be a significant driver of the increased efficiency.

Conclusion

Intersolar 2023 provided a platform to explore the most exciting trends in the field of green energy.

The trends discussed in this blog post, including scalable energy solutions, home energy tech, safety and compliance, hydrogen energy advancements, and software standardization, highlight the industry’s continuous evolution and commitment to a sustainable future.

And tools like Energy+ can definitely help to shape the future of industry.

Príspevok 5 Exciting trends in green energy unveiled at Intersolar 2023 zobrazený najskôr Resco.

“Having more complete & up-to-the-minute information makes it easier for us to respond quickly to change,” points out one of the benefits Keith Murphy, Business Analyst at Maxol, a leading fuel stations operator in Ireland.

And for the frontline workers, the benefits of switching from paper reports or spreadsheets to their more flexible counterparts are even more tangible.

“Before, our field sales reps needed to be at home after their daily visits to document and follow up their visit reports on a laptop,” says Marcel Federlein, CRM Consultant at Hoffmann Group. That could mean tens of minutes or even hours of additional administrative work. “With the mobile reports, visit reporting time has been reduced by at least 30 to 60 minutes per day,” adds Marcel.

And so, it becomes critically important for both the employees in the office and the field how effectively they can create documents like time sheets, service reports, inspections, or invoices.

But with such possibilities, there comes a question. What are the key functionalities that make reports effective? And what should you focus on to achieve success similar to Hoffman Group’s or Maxol’s?

The 5 key functionalities of effective digital reports

Working with hundreds of customers across industries we understood the importance of reports and what is key to make them truly effective. One of the areas where quality reporting is crucial is in the data collection scenarios.

That’s why we made sure Resco Inspections+ offers a robust set of features that make generating, editing, and managing of reports easier and more efficient.

Here you can explore the 5 key features that make truly effective reporting possible.

#1: Creating reports without coding

IT resources are scarce across the job market. It’s a long-term challenge not just for standard industries like manufacturing or field service, but for integration software vendors too.

To mitigate the need for coding skills, Inspections+ utilize a set of no code/low code development tools to enable teams develop and customize their digital reports.

This allows businesses to save time and resources while still generating accurate and professional-looking reports.

“It gives us additional capabilities without big IT development. It makes possible that a skilled person can create reports or checklists without any IT support,” comments Peter Becher from Krones AG.

A showcase of Resco’s no code/low code Questionnaire Designer.

The critical tools in the process are Questionnaire and Report Designers. They combine the power of advanced features like smart questions, scoring, or data mapping with simplicity of drag-and-drop design process.

Recent demonstration of creating timesheets reports in Dynamics 365 with Resco development platform is a great showcase of that. It proves that complex functionality can be achieved without writing a single line of code, giving great power to even small IT teams.

And if the back-office staff possess such capabilities, they can make the next phase much easier for frontline workers.

#2: Reporting from mobile devices, automatically

Even nowadays, many field teams need to rewrite the data they collect. They rewrite it from the paper notes they take, spreadsheets they run, or custom mobile apps that aren’t integrated with the company’s database.

The complexity of it can be staggering.

“What was happening was that we would have a salesperson who goes out to the customer number one. They take pictures of the equipment and written notes.

They do five, six, seven, eight, nine of those. And at the end of the day, they come home, plug in their phone to their computer and paste the data into an Excel spreadsheet.

Then go back to their notes, type in the forklift details into the Excel spreadsheet, and email that to the wholesale manager. The manager would then take that, pull a couple of photos out, post that to the wholesale auction network, and try to sell,” explains Jason Johnson from Southern States Toyotalift.

And so, the ones who can integrate data collection and reporting into one process gain a massive advantage.

The no code development, native integration with D365 & Power Platform, and a single app for data collection and reporting in Inspections+ enable to solve it and deliver data in real time.

The frontline users can then automatically create reports of collected data with add-ons like e-signatures from their mobile device. Without rewriting. Administrative burden. Extra hours or work.

For Southern States Toyotalift, this efficiency meant optimization of the reporting to just 4 minutes per visit. And eventually a $350K/month increase in revenue.

#3: Relying on reports in offline scenarios

But still, being able to collect and report data from one place and device doesn’t guarantee complete success.

Even with today’s signal coverage, there comes a time in a day for frontline workers when they find themselves outside the reach of internet. If they cannot create reports in such conditions, the benefit of having digital solution comes close to zero.

It took about 15 minutes to switch from offline to online mode and back for Hoffman Group’s sales representatives with their legacy solution. And due to this reliability issues, they moved back to making post-work reports and phone calls.

To solve these critical scenarios, Inspections+ utilize full offline functionality allowing frontline users to collect and report data even in the most challenging conditions. The solution makes it possible to store all the data locally, and sync it once back online.

Features like DocuSign integration also enable digitally signing documents in offline mode without additional custom development.

And how reliable is this technology?

Imagine being in a remote area of Norway, deployed by a helicopter, surrounded by hills, valleys, and hanging on a communication tower and still being able to report data without delays. This is one of the most extreme use cases where reports in Inspections+ currently work, and technicians of Site Service Group can fully rely on them.

And what about the Hoffman Group’s sales representatives? They save 60 minutes every day and have eliminated 50% of calls after switching from legacy solution to Resco. All thanks to reliable offline mode, letting them fully leverage the power of digital reports.

#4: Generating reports in Dynamics 365 & Dataverse/Power Platform

Mobile reports are the bread and butter of field data collection, but their generation isn’t solely a task for frontline workers.

The ability to access and quickly create reports is important for field managers and back-office employees to review data and steer the information flow.

That’s why Inspections+ new feature, utilizing the Resco Power Automate connector, allows reports to be generated directly from Dynamics 365 and Dataverse. And makes it simple and fast.

The connector eliminates the need for any 3rd party solution and saves resources for further IT development.

An example of Power Automate prompt enabling to generate report and AI summary from Resco questionnaire

Furthermore, this opens a great space for innovation. Resco’s Product team recently demonstrated how Chat GPT, an AI language model, can further optimize report generation.

“The goal was to help workers and managers create report summaries without having to spend time getting through them manually or converting unreadable data into a much more presentable form,” explains Malvína Melkovičová, Product Consultant at Resco.

#5: Advanced analysis tools and integration with Power BI

Without additional analysis, the initial reports may have been of limited use.

Let’s say a field service organization generates a report on the number of service orders completed by their technicians over the past month. While this information is useful, it doesn’t provide much insight into the efficiency of the organization or the performance of individual technicians.

With tools available in Inspections+ like Results Viewer and Dashboards, organizations gain a deeper understanding of their operations. The solution makes it easy to set up charts, views, or notification to get a real time insight into organizations’ key performance indicators.

“Once the automated online sync kicks in on the user’s phone, the inspections are all visible via customized dashboards back in head office. Simple, reliable, quick and easy,” outlines the possibilities Keith from Maxol.

The native integration with Dynamics 365 and Dataverse also enables teams to analyze data through powerful Power BI platform.

Armed with this information, the organization make data-driven decisions to improve their operations.

Missing any of the key reporting features in your field operations?

The importance of reports for both the office and frontline workers cannot be overstated. They possess a way to say goodbye to manual data entry and administrative burden while enabling advanced data analytics and better business decisions.

Inspections+ is a solution which includes all the key functionalities enabling effective reports. Including the ability to create them without coding, generate reports on mobile devices, full offline functionality, integration with D365 and Power Platform, or advanced analysis.

“It was exactly what we were looking for and more,” concludes Keith from Maxol.

If these capabilities could help your business and field team too, schedule a free demo or contact our sales to explore Inspections+ in more detail.

Príspevok Reports done right: The 5 key features for frontline teams & businesses zobrazený najskôr Resco.

Resco’s DNA is empowering our partners to find effective solutions to a wide range of custom business requirements, no matter the complexity or uniqueness. And as we continue to witness Microsoft’s strong investment in Power Platform, it was a natural next step to natively integrate Resco into Dataverse, the advanced data management platform evolved from Common Data Service. Through this integration we want to support our partners across a broader spectrum of use cases and also help them build their own IP on the Power Platform with our full support. This is a step further in enabling rapid and cost-effective business apps development with a strong mobile experience, explains Resco’s CEO Andrew Lorraine.

Let’s take a closer look at the Resco & Dataverse integration and how you can make the best out of it.

New opportunities emerge with Resco on Dataverse & Power Platform

Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse combine a robust suite of low-code/no-code development, data management, automation tools, and analytics. From small startups to large enterprises, companies use Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI solutions to manage and optimize their operations. All of this, including the solutions for Dynamics 365, is now natively available to our partners integrating Resco. This combination provides much broader flexibility and options for partners in deciding what technology and in which situations they are going to use.

This flexibility allows businesses to tailor their technology solutions to their specific needs, avoiding the need for a one-size-fits-all approach. For example, some customers might require Dynamics 365 Sales or Service to power their operations, while for others a Dataverse-based solution is the more suitable and cost-effective solution. The integration of Resco with Power Platform allows our partners to choose the technology for the clients based on their unique requirements while still guaranteeing an excellent experience for mobile teams, elaborates Andrew.

Leveraging this full force of Microsoft and Resco Mobile App Development Toolkit allows frontline teams to use business solutions conveniently on mobile devices, in challenging conditions, and across a broad range of markets & use cases.

Our mobile-first approach, offline capabilities, synchronization engine, and market-leading data collection and reporting tools ensure that users of Dataverse & Power Platform can access critical data and perform tasks on-the-go. We know from the experience of our customers already using Resco for Dynamics 365 that this significantly improves their operational efficiency and productivity in the field, outlines Resco’s Head of Product Eduard Kesely.

There are already solutions that have leveraged the combined power of Microsoft Dataverse and Resco. One of the first partners with running projects is Evidi, a technology innovator and provider of digital transformation solutions from Norway.

Smartly combining Resco’s customization options and offline capabilities with both Microsoft’s technology stack and our own IP, we can help companies optimize their field service and inspections processes and deliver better results for their customers, said CEO of Evidi, Jørn Seglem, in the recent announcement of strategic partnership.

How to get started with Resco & Dataverse

Simply put, the available integration means that Resco’s technology operates on Dataverse and Power Platform the same way it has been on Dynamics 365 solutions such as Field Service or Sales. You can use all the various tools and modules, including Woodford, Mobile CRM, and our leading inspections, guides, and reports functionality with Microsoft technology. Some of the main scenarios where combination of Resco mobility with Power Platform and Dataverse bring most value are:

• Data capture and reporting: Integrating Resco with Dataverse enables collecting and reporting data in mobile scenarios and combining multiple data sources into a single database and tools like Power BI or Resco’s Power Automate Reports tool.
• Offline access: Reliable offline functionality allows businesses and their teams to work with Power Platform’s solutions in the most demanding field conditions, syncing updates through Dataverse once reconnected.
• Advanced customization: With Resco on Dataverse it’s possible to meet unique business requirements for mobile experiences even with a small development team or limited budget through no code/low code customization tools like Woodford and our Questionnaire or Report Designers.
• Fast deployment: The Resco + Dataverse native integration is highly flexible and can be integrated with existing systems in days. With the pre-made components which address data collection, contacts overview, or reporting, business can scale quickly and agilely.

Discover the Mobile App Development Toolkit

If you are interested in exploring more about the integration and pricing/licensing options, we encourage you to contact your account manager at Resco or Resco Sales directly.

Príspevok Rapid innovation for mobile workers: Announcing Resco integration with MS Power Platform & Dataverse zobrazený najskôr Resco.