Configuring ARCHIBUS Mobile Apps - ARCHIBUS Administrator

As an ARCHIBUS Administrator, you may need to get your staff up and running with the ARCHIBUS Mobile Client and the ARCHIBUS mobile business apps.

Enabling Mobile Users

To enable a single user:

Use ARCHIBUS Smart Client or Web Central to navigate to the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Edit Users task.
Filter to find the user's account.
Set the Mobile Enabled? field for that user to "Yes."

To enable multiple users:

Use ARCHIBUS Smart Client to navigate to the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Edit Users task.
User the Filter button to restrict the list of users to those you wish to enable. For instance, you might restrict Role name to just OPS CRAFTSPERSONS.
Select the header of the Mobile Enabled? column.
Use Replace Column to set the Mobile Enabled? status of all users in this restriction to "Yes."

Controlling Access to Mobile Apps

ARCHIBUS applications appear on the mobile user's menu based on their permissions.

Security Groups and Roles

To enable a mobile app for a set of users, you must assign the appropriate Security Group to a role using the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Assign Security Groups to Roles task. You must then be sure that the users are assigned to this role. For information, see "Getting Started with Roles, Users, and Processes" in System Management Help.

It is imperative that the security groups for a mobile user's role match the security groups that are required by the apps that the user will be accessing; users will encounter errors if this is not the case.

ARCHIBUS Security Group	Mobile App
OPS-MOB	Maintenance
ASSET-MOB	Asset & Equipment Survey
RISK-IR-MOB	Incidents Reporting
OPS-CA-MOB	Assessment
WORKSVC-MOB	Workplace Services Portal
SPAC-OCCUP-MOB	Space & Occupancy Survey
SPAC-MOB	Space Book, but no Survey features
SPAC-SURVEY	Space Book with Survey features, but these users post their survey results for review by choosing the app's Complete Survey button; they do not have access to the Close Survey button. A manager then reviews the survey data in Web Central and updates the inventory tables with the survey results.
SPAC-SURVEY-POST	Space Book with Survey features, plus the ability to automatically update the inventory tables with survey results. These users can choose the app's Close Survey button, which automatically updates the inventory tables with survey results.

Note: On first registration, use the isUserMemberOfGroup() function for each of the above apps, build a list of apps, and store it in the AbSystemAdministration-MobileBusinessApplications application preference in the local database. Have the \webapps\archibus\schema\ab-products\common\mobile\mobile_menu.htm\.js use this list to decide which apps to display on the main menu. (This is a configuration convenience not a security provision, so the fact that the group names are in the .js code is not a problem.)

Note: If any of the mobile fields have a review security group assigned to them, then the mobile user needs to belong to that review security group. For example, mobile users need to belong to SPAC-REV security group in order to see the building data.

ARCHIBUS Users Table and Employees Table

You must also be sure that the mobile users exist in the ARCHIBUS Users table and in the Employees table, and that both the ARCHIBUS Users table and the Employees table record the same email address for this user. For the Maintenance mobile app, the user must exist in the Craftspersons table ARCHIBUS Users table.The email addresses in these two tables must match.

Restricting Data

As a best practice, you may wish to consider limiting the data that mobile users access on their mobile device by carefully organizing your roles and setting up VPA (Virtual Private ARCHIBUS) restrictions. Limiting data in this manner not only helps you adhere to business practices at your site, but also improves performance on the mobile device. For information, search for "VPA" in ARCHIBUS System Management Help.

Enabling Mobile Services

You must explicitly enable mobile services. For information, see ARCHIBUS Configuration Options in System Management Help.

Disabling Lost or Stolen Devices

If you are using personal-certificate security, disable that certificate on your authentication server.

If you are using ARCHIBUS authentication:

Use the ARCHIBUS Smart Client or Web Central to navigate to the System Administration / ARCHIBUS Administrators - Users and Security / Edit Users view.
Filter to find the user's account.
Clear the Mobile Device ID field value for that user.

Distributing Updates to the ARCHIBUS Mobile Apps

Either you or your business partner can update the ARCHIBUS mobile apps -- either by installing a new ARCHIBUS release or by making changes to the app itself.

To do so:

Notify your mobile users to sync their devices by the end of the business day to avoid the risk of losing any changes.
In the evening, run the standard ARCHIBUS installation program (or copy specific changes to the \webapps\archibus\schema\ab-products\common\mobile folder).
When the mobile users next launch the mobile app, the Web browser that is built into the ARCHIBUS Mobile Client will detect the new files and download them.

When the mobile user runs the Sync actions, the action compares the schema of the server-side (Web Central) and the client-side (Mobile Client) in terms of number of fields, field size, and field data type. If a particular table differs, the Mobile Client application will prompt, "This action requires a new format for your data. Doing so will erase any changes you did not previously synchronize. Can this action proceed?"

Other Configuration Tasks

ARCHIBUS System Management Help covers additional configuration tasks, such as controlling the fields displayed on an audit form and having a mobile app call a workflow rule. For information, see the Mobile Apps Administrator section of the Contents of System Management Help.