Mobile Device Management: How to Deliver Business Data to iPads and iPhones

You get a request every day it seems from executives who want IT to give them the ability to download critical business data to their iPads or iPhones. These executives don’t care what it takes; they just want to see this important information quickly and easily, and they expect you to respond fast. Rather than stress out, let’s talk about a solution that gives employees the information they want, and the control IT needs. If your company is like most, the proliferation of both employee- and company-owned mobile devices, particularly iPads and iPhones, is driving demand for access to corporate data. But in most companies, there is little support for such access. There is great dissatisfaction with the level of support IT provides for consumer technologies in the workplace, a 2011 IDC survey1 of 2,820 information workers and 610 C-level executives, vice presidents, director-level IT personnel, and business-unit level executives from 10 countries found. This lack of access to business data is getting harder to justify. Executives, business managers, knowledge workers, and other employees already use iPads and iPhones to surf the Web, get email, and conduct other tasks directly related to their work. So they also want (and in many cases insist on) access to the sales, inventory, customer, and other data they need to perform their jobs, be more efficient, and make timely decisions.

Delivering what users want
The information users need is often stored in SQL databases, Excel spreadsheets, and a variety of other data sources. Access to raw data can be helpful, but employees often want their data in easy to read reports and charts. IT organizations are especially keen to and easy and quick ways to deliver business info to iPhones or iPads. To do this requires tools that are efficient for those quick “one-off” requests, yet robust enough for long-term solutions. Ideally, these tools should be easy, and usable by a wide range of IT staff, not just by the most experienced programmers. Overall, delivering business data to iPhones and iPads demands:

A quick development cycle: Users want results in days or weeks, not months

Easy import of data in a range of native formats (e.g., SQL databases, spreadsheets, etc.)

Painless serving of data to iPhones and iPads with forms optimized for these devices’ screens

Ability to deliver data in visual formats such as charts, as well as in reports, lists, and forms

Ability to combine data with ?les, such as PDFs, spreadsheets, photos, and videos

Choice of distributing information to users for of?ine viewing, or connecting directly to live systems for real-time information

Tools usable by a range of IT staff, not just experienced object-oriented programmers.

With these criteria in mind, how can companies provide workers with fast and easy access to data on their iPhones and iPads?

One Option:
Deliver business data with FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go FileMaker®, Inc., a subsidiary company of Apple®, creates database software that is the ideal tool for developing and securely hosting databases that reside at the heart of such solutions, and for delivering information to iOS devices. FileMaker Pro allows organizations to quickly build iOS solutions, including the rapid creation of easy-to-use charts, reports, lists, and forms. The software, which runs on Windows and Mac OS PCs, has shipped more than 16 million copies to organizations of all sizes, from large corporations to small businesses, and from schools and universities to government agencies.