Client

ROBAWS is a company based in Belgium that offers “Administration software for construction and project companies.”



Project

Beginning in 2019, ROBAWS hired me to help construct a cross platform mobile app called Wappy to power their administrative software suite.

The goal of this app was to allow project based companies such as those in construction to consolidate both delivery of work orders to employees, tracking of work done and materials used. This would allow companies to maximise their efficiency and productivity while simultaneously letting workers complete their job and log required information reliably and conveniently.

Workers were enabled to log what materials they used, how much time they spent at sites etc. More importantly they were given a streamlined interface to receive workorders from their employers that enclosed all of the contact info, locations, documents and associated data to complete their work.

Implementation

I started development working with direction from ROBAWS CEO Michaël Van Robaeys who is a seasoned software engineer himself.

There were many design considerations from both a UI and backend perspective.

With respect to the UI, first and foremost was the requirement of multiple languages given the wide geography of the app’s audience. This was supported by adding internationalisation (I18n) and localisation (l10n) using the Flutter framework. As of writing this there are a multitude of European languages that are now supported. Secondly, given the wide array of functions this app supports, a series of decisions to make the UI clean looking and easy to navigate were made. This included the TabView and flat design of tiles and buttons.

The backend needed to be robust and easily extensible as it required on-device storage of user generated content as well as the ability to sync and update with a remote server to fetch new content from employers and update existing info. A service pattern approach was implemented along with a local SQL database (SQLFlite) and gateway for API calls.

Many additional special features were implemented including start and stop timers, digital signatures, remote database tree navigation.

Result

The app has a presence on both the Apple Store and Google Play. Being a centerpiece of ROBAWS software package, it is used by numerous companies and thousands of employees. Development continues to this day in both maintenance and feature addition.

Website