APP: Bentley’s Field Supervisor app for the iPad announced

August 8th, 2013 by Susan Smith

In July, Bentley Systems announced their Field Supervisor, an app for the iPad that allows users to connect to multiple data sources. It extends the reach of information that is managed securely in ProjectWise and eB, and in other user repositories to field workers with online and offline access. Now construction professionals and field workers can make on-site decisions more easily with current project information.

“We’ve been doing a lot around information mobility, and how can we help infrastructure teams share and collaborate and interact with information across the phases of a project, between systems and people,” Huw Roberts, vice president, Core Marketing at Bentley said. “Fundamentally we want people to be able to interact with project information on a mobile and have that be part of their workflow, rather than a separate app or technology. Our app strategy is built around extending and building upon those secure project environments.”

“The other thing that goes hand in hand on the information mobility side is a recognition of the need for a lot of the people consuming the information to not have to use the same tools as the people who created the information. I-models have become very popular in our user community as well as with people using other software. For that AEC model-based information, how can we make that consumable by people who don’t have or need the details of the authoring tools?”

Field Supervisor recognizes when you want to remotely interact with your information, and that you can’t take all the project information with you and don’t want to sort through it. That information could be managed in ProjectWise or eB or other servers, or enterprises systems. There is no need to go to different sources based on what system is being used. Field Supervisor allows you to connect to multiple data sources, has an SDK that allows you to connect it to any data source that has web services. It is very flexible as to what information it can connect you to. You can build custom views while navigating.

It will connect information for a program like Bentley Navigator to analyze a 3D model and an app to add to the spreadsheet, or photo or to mark up a PDF, connecting back to the project source so you know what you pull out is synchronized with rest of the project team. This way you can work with information that is up to date. In order to make that happen, Field Supervisor relies on that back end technology of the web services, server technology, i-model technology, etc.