Prohire Mobile | MMA Global

Prohire Mobile

July 20, 2011

Brief

Prohire, a vehicle rental software solutions provider, sought to increase the throughput of their team at a cost effective rate. They also needed to improve their software methodology and required Realmdigital to assist their existing UK team. Prohire requested the development of handheld applications for mobiles that will be used to inspect cars.

Solution

Prohire Mobile is a Windows Mobile application written using the .Net Compact Framework, targeting Windows Mobile 5.0 and greater. This mobile application had four core modules:

Damage Capture

This module captures damages which have occurred on vehicles. The damage items are associated with a particular vehicle and optionally a booking and client. All damage which has been previously recorded for a vehicle can be viewed and damage items can have attached notes and images. Once a damage item has been captured there is the option of getting the client to sign for the damage to accept responsibility.

Digital Rental Agreement

Digital Rental Agreements (Digital RA) is a module that allows clients to confirm acceptance of a rental agreement. The rental agreement is divided up into several steps which are displayed to the client. The client needs to then accept each step. Part of the process can also be that the client's photo needs to be captured. Acceptance can either be by clicking the Accept button or by signing their name on the device screen. Finally the entire agreement must be confirmed by the client's signature. If the client does not want to accept any of the steps then the entire process is aborted.

Rental Checks

Rental Checks are lists of items that need to be performed as part of a vehicle check. The checks can either be indicating a true / false value, or collecting information in the form of text or numbers (integer of decimal).

Task Lists

Tasks are items of work that need to be performed by the Prohire Mobile user. They are created and assigned in Prohire. Tasks are displayed as a list to the user and can launch the associated module with details of the required work already set (such as the vehicle id required for damage to be captured).

Strategy

Prohire is a British-based company that have been outsourcing development from Realmdigital for more than 6 years. We created processing systems between the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa so we could work together. Meetings took place every quarter in South Africa or the UK, thus creating a unified team. We made use of online collaboration tools, online source tools, analysis tools, and communicated via VOIP and conference calls. As a company, we leveraged everything we could on the Internet, and became an extension of their development team, so that they could produce more products.