A mobile app for scaling timber in the forest that we designed as a team and I built: it works without signal, takes voice input for individual pieces and is on both the App Store and Google Play.
S.01
Sysel is a mobile app for scaling timber right in the forest. You measure piece by piece or enter the counts from a notebook, the measurements become a job, and an invoice can be issued from the job straight from the phone. The app runs on iOS and Android, and there is a web version too.
We designed the app as a team and I built it, from working without signal to voice input. Sysel shares the REST API of IS WoodSoft, so jobs and invoices end up in the same system.
S.02
In the forest the signal is weak or missing, so the app saves everything in the phone and you can measure without a connection. Once it is connected, it first sends to the server what changed in the phone and then downloads the changes from the server. If the same record changed somewhere else in the meantime, the app notices and resolves it on its own.
The person measuring has a caliper or a tape in hand, so there are no free hands for typing. They can dictate the pieces instead, and the app reads the reply aloud. The phone itself understands Czech if the language pack is installed, otherwise the speech is processed over the network. The app picks which of the two to use.
The volume is calculated according to the Czech standard ČSN 48 0009, that is from tables for groups of tree species, and lengths that are not in the table are interpolated. For debarked timber you enter the diameter under bark and the bark is no longer deducted. The app remembers whether it is a diameter under bark on the job and on every measurement.
S.03
S.04
The app always writes to a local SQLite database, and sync reconciles it with the REST API it shares with IS WoodSoft once there is signal again. Voice input runs on the device's own speech recognition.
I describe how I build systems like this on the How I work page.