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Agile Mobile Strategies on a Shoestring Budget
Lori Tirpak, Oakland University, Director of Enterprise Systems
Aaron Grant, Oakland University, Senior Applications Architect
The Oakland Environment
Software, Staff and Support
Gained Advantages and Strengths
The Presidential Mandate
Oakland’s First App
History
What we learned
Apereo uMobile
What’s Next?
Summary of Presentation
Survey
What mobile solutions do you have at your institution?
Oakland University
Located in Rochester, Michigan and has 20,000+ students.
We have been focused on mobile app and development efforts since 2010.
Environment
Portal/Mobile Team
2 Full Time Staff
4 Student Java Developers
Contract with Unicon for Supporting Open Source software
Key to Team Success
• Student Java Developers
• Unicon Support
Oakland Strengths
• Heavy Adopters of Open Source
• Flexible Development Staff
• Student Developer Program
• Good Knowledge Base in Java and Web
• Good Support from Unicon
• Leadership Backing for Mobile Development
Oakland Weakness
• Minimal iOS / Objective C Knowledge Base
• Minimal Mobile Skill Sets in General
• Small Full-time Staff
Survey
Why does your institution want a mobile solution?
President Mandate (2010 – 2011)
“I need an App in the Apple App Store ASAP!”
Go! Go! Go! Go!!!
Oakland’s First App (2011)
Strengths:
• Created mobile
app quickly for iOS
• One stop shop for
public information
• Minimal cost
initially
Too Good to Be True…
Weaknesses:
• No long term support of app in organization
• Licensing and terms of services ignored
• Never tested for Android
• Build once deploy anywhere, too good to be true, same issues occur that plague web development on various browsers
• HTML app, not truly native, so performance and richness of services suffer on devices
UTS to Save the App!
What We Learned!
• We need long term support from someone, we can’t do this alone in isolation
• Student reviews were coming in demanding richer, personalized content (i.e. class schedule, grades, access to Moodle, not to have to login multiple times)
• Android growing in popularity
• We need a mobile expert but can’t get the full time staff position
• It would be wise to align ourselves with an emerging solution
The Mobile Menu
After the first app, we needed to re-evaluate the options we had and what we really wanted to do:
• Mobile web • Larger reach to all devices
• Easiest to develop and deploy
• Design Choices • jQuery Mobile (multiple views for multiple devices)
• Responsive Design (one adaptive view for all devices)
Native Apps
• Native App • Runs quickly and has fluid interaction
• Costs more and demands more time from developers
• Need to schedule releases
• Working with Native SDKs
• Build Once, Deploy Anywhere App • HTML5/JS application with Native App Wrapper
• Examples: • Appcelerator - Titanium Studio
• PhoneGap
Survey
What mobile solutions would best fit your institution?
Re-evaluation
Banner Mobile Connection
o Requires application server for web service calls
o Technologies used Rho Mobile, Groovy, Ruby, Grails
o Open Source is used, but released by Ellucian
o Support not available at the time
o The Commons
Apereo uMobile
o Uses uPortal as its application server
o The original version of uMobile used Appcelerator
o Open Source
o Support available with Unicon
Apereo uMobile
What is uMobile?
uMobile is a new open source initiative from the
Apereo foundation (formerly Jasig) to bring campus
applications, content, and data to mobile devices.
The project provides a native app for iPhone and
Android devices, as well as browser-based content
for other smartphones.
http://www.jasig.org/umobile
Why Apereo uMobile
Why we selected to use Apereo uMobile?
• It was open source and the licensing was friendly
• The Apereo community is friendly and knowledgeable
• We could contribute our code to Apereo, no legacy to support!
• We could leverage knowledge of Appcelerator and JavaScript
• We could easily integrate with existing components CAS and uPortal (our SSO and portal solutions)
• Support vendor diversity in our environment
• Consistent usability between mobile web and mobile app presence
Prepare for uMobile
• Upgrade to our portal to uPortal 4.0
o Mobile UIs baked in!
o Mobile API support
o Upgrade our Portlets’ UIs for Mobile (Class Schedule, Grades, etc to be mobile friendly)
o There is a uMobile application server, if you currently don’t have uPortal and don’t want a portal server
uMobile iOS Strengths
• Easy to deploy and configure
• Uses existing uPortal content, so no need to develop separate content specifically for the mobile app
• Open Source community supported, new updates were coming in that we didn’t need to patch
• Students could log in to check e-mail, grades, class information, and use SSO links to other OU services
• Extendable framework allowing for dynamic mobile content
• Students were already use to the portal and could easily find everything since uMobile had the same look and feel.
uMobile iOS Release (2012)
Prior to this release only 700 downloads occurred over a 5 month period of the old app.
This new release quickly grabbed the attention of our students and only months later we had over 4000 downloads.
Android Titanium App (2012)
+ =
Android Native App (2012)
OU student developers created a native Android solution.
What Did We Learn?
• We learned that build once deploy anywhere is a good idea. Although it is hard to implement perfectly. • Test often and as early as you can on all mobile devices you want to deploy to.
Find potential roadblocks early in the process (This will save you time and headaches!)
• Students want a different experience in the app than what they get with mobile web. They want an app that responds quickly.
• This sector of IT is moving FAST and we have to learn to adapt quickly and not be afraid to abandon apps.
What Did We Learn About Ourselves?
• Student developers are a huge asset when properly trained and guided. Mentoring and coaching are key!
• Working with Apereo and a supportive vendor such as Unicon accelerated the process dramatically.
• Appcelerator increased the cost of support contracts in 2014 (Do we have the budget???)
What’s Next at OU?
The support cost increase for Appcelerator were too high and we had to re-evaluate again…
Oakland University is evaluating the next solution for replacing our “aging” mobile apps.
• PhoneGap
• Native iOS and Android
• The code will be contributed back to Apereo for anyone to use.
Apereo Responsive Design in uPortal 4.1
Apereo is rewriting the UI to be completely responsive with Twitter Bootstrap 3.
Native Apps vs Phonegap Apps
Our Research Findings about Native Apps: • Native Apps are Faster, more flexible, and have more
functionality • Easier to stay up to date with new device and OS releases • Easier to debug • Easier to find help online (Stack Overflow, support forums) • Apple’s Objective C has been a learning curve, but our
developers found it easier to use than we anticipated.
What we learned about PhoneGap
• Better Suited for a Smaller Staff with Limited Resources
• Limited Plugins Choices • Official vs. Third Party (Long Term Support Issue??)
• Plugins written in OS Native Languages
• Renders Slower Due to Abstraction and Large Payloads
• When writing an HTML5 app evaluate the JS framework that is best equipped for your solution (Backbone, Angular, etc.)
• http://readwrite.com/2014/02/06/angular-backbone-ember-best-javascript-framework-for-you#awesm=~oxpvZx1L8Lwg7F
• Debugging is a PAIN
OU Mobile Traffic Is Growing!
From 2013 to 2014: • Android 127% Growth
• iOS (iPhone/iPad) 78% Growth
• Desktop -5% Growth
Mobile is Growing Rapidly
OU Mobile Market 2014 Share
From OU’s Google Analytics: • iOS 64%
• Android 35%
• Windows .5%
• Blackberry .2%
• Over 11,500 iOS and 3,700 for Android downloads at OU
• Due to these stats we are only targeting iPhones, iPads, and Android devices.
US Smartphone Sales 2013
• Android 79% up 15%
• iOS 14% down 4%
• Microsoft 3% up 1%
• Blackberry 3% down 2%
Based on new smartphone sales in 2013 (Source: Garner)
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2573415
Get Involved!
Apereo uMobile
http://www.jasig.org/umobile
Join the mailings: http://www.jasig.org/umobile/mailing-lists
Annual Conference coming up June 1st – 4th, 2014 in Miami:http://www.apereo.org/content/now-open-call-proposals-open-apereo-2014-apereosakaijasig
Educause Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR)
Mobile Strategy and Application Development(ECAR-MSAD)
http://www.educause.edu/ecar/ecar-working-groups
Questions or Comments?
Lori Tirpak
Aaron Grant
