Focus Education, a Manchester based educational consultancy, had previously developed a desktop software solution for teachers to manage evidence captured, using Windows Mobile devices, of a child’s progress. This desktop application required the Windows Mobile devices to be synced via cable to a desktop PC and then to the desktop application whenever a teacher needed to upload the photo’s audio and comments they’d captured.
Problem
Developing software to manage the capturing of data is a difficult business and even more so when children are involved. Alongside making an application robust and intuitive security is of the utmost importance.
The main issue with this system was that it was inherently brittle and required the absolute correct settings for all involved hardware to be precisely configured and correct. It also excluded a huge section of the smart phone market and as Windows phones were more expensive required a large initial outlay for any school wishing to use the existing software.
This proved extremely difficult for ‘none technical’ school staff to ensure all hardware was configured as it should be, this further led to more and more support calls to Focus Education from users experiencing the same repeated difficulties.
It was felt by the Focus Education team that a better solution was possible and that by creating IOS, Android & Windows apps the product would be dramatically improved. Sapere were asked to provide a solution which removed all the existing difficulties and improved on the old application in every way.
Solution
The completed application removed the need for the old methodology of syncing mobile devices via cable and moved all evidence synchronisation to happen wirelessly using IOS, Android and Windows devices.
FingerTips is a bespoke CRM web app hosted in the cloud with mobile app connectivity capabilities. It is accompanied by a suite of iOS, Android & Windows applications that allows teachers to record, track and evaluate children’s progress using a mobile or tablet device.
The applications are used in 350+ schools in the UK.
The new solution replaced the desktop application with a full web based solution too. As this new solution was web based this meant that configuration of hardware was completely removed from a reliance on teachers and support staff and the new systems setup required minimal interaction.
Further, to improve storage capacity and improve redundancy the entire system was built and based upon cloud technology, including cloud storage and cloud databases.