Six of your staff members have iPhones, four have Android devices, three have Windows phones and two are on BlackBerries. Everyone is armed with a smartphone that has the capacity to support the mobility initiatives in your company, yet there are still potential limitations to your true mobile access that can impact your team’s productivity.
Earlier today, I was participating in an online demo and our representative asked if we all had iPhones. A few people spoke up and said, “No, I’m on an Android” and “I’ve got a Windows phone.” Our representative hesitated before saying, “Well, we don’t quite have our app yet for those devices, but if you have an iPhone, we have this great app that will allow you to take our product with you.” Sure, this is great news for iPhone users, but what about everyone else?
With new devices emerging in the mobile marketplace, companies offering mobile solutions must be just that — mobile solutions. Far too many companies have mobile offerings that only cause user problems. This is one of the reasons our stratustime mobile interface is actually a mobile website and not an app. When you compare mobile websites to apps in the cloud-based business world, mobile websites are significantly more accessible and compatible than their app cousins.
In regards to accessibility, a mobile website allows a user to type a standard website address right into his or her mobile browser of choice and access the mobile site immediately. All a user needs is an Internet connection. Nothing has to be downloaded nor installed. Users don’t have to worry about the amount of physical space available on his or her device, and managers needn’t be concerned that their employees have the most updated software on their devices.
Meanwhile, while mobile websites work on all Internet-ready devices, apps are specifically developed for a given device (whether that be iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, BlackBerry, or the next new thing), making a mobile website much more compatible than an app.
If you’re looking for mobile-ready solutions for your time and attendance software, it’s important to ask providers if their mobile solutions are true solutions, or if you’re only in for mobile problems.
If you’re interested in learning more about mobile solutions for cloud-based time and attendance, you can download our employee guide to stratustime mobile, or schedule an online demonstration to see our mobile capabilities.
We also invite you to register for our upcoming webinar on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 1pm Eastern — Supporting Workforce Mobility Initiatives with Time and Attendance.
