Custom Mobile Application for iPad Enhances Information Access for Improved Investment Decisions
Project At a Glance
RDA developed a custom mobile application for our client leveraging SharePoint that enables decision makers to access a library of investment support documents from an iPad device. The solution literally puts all of the information that the board members need at their fingertips to make the best possible investment decisions for their firm, vastly improving the efficiency of information searches and accessibility to data. This enhances the flow and quality of discussions on the investment portfolio and funding of new opportunities.
About Our Client
RDA’s client is a leading venture capital firm with offices around the world. The firm focuses on healthcare and technology opportunities.
Background
Our client was looking for solutions to improve the ease with which investment and operations personnel can quickly and easily gain access to key information about companies in which the firm has invested and other investment and operational information that is critical to its success.
Our client had determined that the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 platform provided a good fit to form the basis of a solution to meet its short and long-term needs for document management and collaboration. The firm asked RDA to bring its expertise and experience with developing solutions on the SharePoint platform to bear and help provide our client with ideas to maximize the benefit from SharePoint’s implementation.
As RDA provided SharePoint strategy, governance, and implementation support to our client, a separate – more specific – need arose. The company’s partners meet weekly to review the current investment portfolio and review proposed new clients. During this meeting, partners present on specific investments and opportunities and then entertain questions. The purpose is to provide justification and gain support for investment proposals, as well as to obtain strategic guidance on existing investments. Participants have typically brought large amounts of hard copy documentation as informational resources for the meeting, including summary sheets and executive summaries for specific investments. Searching through piles of paper documents to answer questions was disruptive to the flow of the meeting and often answers were not immediately available.
To resolve the paper problem and improve the accuracy and availability of information, our client sought a technology solution that would make all of the board meeting documents available at their fingertips on an iPad. This was a high priority project critical to the smooth and efficient operation of the business.
Solution Detail
RDA developed a custom mobile application for our client leveraging SharePoint that enables decision makers to access a library of investment support documents from an iPad device. The documents, housed in a SharePoint library, are presented in pdf format and generated by another system. The solution literally puts all of the information that the board members need at their fingertips, vastly improving the efficiency of information searches and accessibility to data.
RDA incorporated technology from Mobile Entrée as part of the solution. Mobile Entrée enables users to connect to SharePoint sites and applications from smart phones, tablet devices and low bandwidth connections. Mobile Entrée’s solution sits on top of SharePoint and integrates with it. It acts as an API, presenting information from SharePoint in a way that is sensitive to the device it is on.
The solution combines a custom Mobile Entrée application along with a custom Mobile Entrée theme to provide branding and two-click, finger-friendly access to all portfolio company information. Specific content from the SharePoint library is presented to users in the form of dropdown lists to filter and select information by portfolio company or fund. Additional content, such as meeting agendas and reports, are also available from the mobile user interface.
Benefits
The partners now have vastly improved access to the information they need during meetings to make investment decisions. Accurate and up-to-date investment data is available in a way that takes advantage of the capabilities of the iPad. Because this data is easily found, it facilitates the flow and quality of the discussions on the investment portfolio and funding of new opportunities, which ultimately benefits the investors.
Technically Speaking
A custom Mobile Entrée application was implemented using the C# language that directly accessed SharePoint 2010 lists and libraries utilizing the SharePoint Object Model. Specific information is queried from SharePoint lists and libraries and used to populate dropdown lists on the mobile device for user selection and filtering. Upon making selections and choosing filters, custom code queries SharePoint libraries for specific content and presents it on the mobile device as a pdf document. Mobile application performance is streamlined using custom code to only query SharePoint for targeted data based on user input, providing 2-click access to data in under two seconds.
The user experience was enhanced with a custom Mobile Entrée theme. Overriding the standard Mobile Entrée style sheet, xml and javascript provide custom user interface functionality and customer branding on the mobile device.