iGFU Main Menu

We were one of the earliest institutions to release a mobile app, iGFU, back when the iPhone was initially released. And we had high aspirations for doing much more with mobile development mostly because I had a talented developer who wrote the original version of the geocaching mobile app for Geocaching.com (see previous post). Well, shortly there after we started implementing PeopleSoft and there was no time to think about mobile apps any more. However, now that we are making great progress in utilizing our PeopleSoft portal we found that it was extremely easy to use that as a foundation for a new and improved iGFU mobile app.

iGFU is similar to all the other university mobile apps or portals, but I do have to say that ours offers exceptional content and value, even though I would be prejudiced. The reason I believe this is because I feel that it leverages the critical needs for a customized portal and we produced it essentially for free thanks to my developer squeezing it in to task list and the acquisition of icons from a recent graphic arts alum. The key is that we provide information that is useful to a mobile university user such as news, course catalog, food menus, campus events, mapping, etc. But the kicker is the access to our PeopleSoft ERP data as this student view shows.

MyGFU access from iGFU

Now for some details: this is just a web app written in PHP with the different functions called from PeopleSoft. The functions are setup pretty much as you would for the PeopleSoft Portal. Presentation manager creates the structure drawing from an oracle table holding the specified data. And then it is called and presented by the PHP code. Since it is all controlled under PeopleSoft we can easily toggle a function on/off and designate the security access roles. When lists are involved like for a professor to see their class roster, that is also an easy call. Because we auto-create our course identifier in Moodle we can also grab whatever we want out of our LMS for students and faculty. The most interesting function may be the survey tool that allows a professor to easily solicite response from class with results displayed live. This is all made available because we are working with an advanced ERP solution built upon today’s web principles.

Responseware for Class

I’m not trying to promote iGFU as the greatest mobile portal but I do think it is important to put development of a mobile portal into proper perspective. It should be a web app so that it runs on all devices and can be centrally managed. Keep it simple, what is not accessed from institutional data sources, should be easily maintained by content owners such as with a shared document. We use a simple spreadsheet layout to allow conferences to build their schedules out.

iGFU is a very young service and we are quickly becoming aware of the desires for enhancements and content placement. So now the real work begins in deciding just how we want to manage this service. Probably best to let everyone assume that modifications are difficult. Maybe that is the real advantage of an commercial version.