Android DAR Writing App

[Minneapolis Security]

Anyone know of any good apps for creating a daily activity report on an Android based phone?

[Jstar571]

reports

Unfort no, I dont know if any reports APPS that are out, that would be useable in the security field. I was told, unsure if true...but it would be easier to get a app published in the DROID market then the Apple market.

I have thought about making one up, but never really had the time enough to sit down with a program writer.

[KeithSDavid]

I like to use Police Pad, you can create customized event titles, add photos and notes. The nice thing is that at the end of the day you can generate a report of all or selected events. The report is a PDF that can be easily e-mailed to clients, branch or whomever. Since you can select whick events go into a report, mobile officers can generate reports for specific alarm responses or patrol hits. That way the client only sees pertaining to their site(s), not every site the officer went to in a shift.

[ORC]

OfficerReports.com

Anyone know of any good apps for creating a daily activity report on an Android based phone?

We have GREAT Daily Activity Report Software that is web based, which means you can use it with Android or any mobile platform with a web browser. Check out our website at http://www.OfficerReports.com.

[zm88]

Not sure I'd want to use my personal phone for documenting events at the work site. Maybe Curtis, ST, jtwestern or one of the other LE members could answer this, but couldn't the phone be vouchered as evidence if something happened and you used your phone to document it? Or am I thinking too hard here

[ORC]

A lawyer can probably subpoena anything that he wants, if that's what you're getting at. :-) But in this case they would probably just serve our company, because the information that is submitted via our daily activity report app is resident on our servers and not your phone. Additionally, we market our services primarily to security guard companies that have smartphones or other mobile devices on site. I didn't foresee many officers wanting to use their own phones. Great question though.

[Squid]

something that writes "Patrol site, all secure" every hour 8 times in a row so you don't have to?


But seriously, I'm want my guys to have a smart phone or whatever and require them to take a bunch of pics as they patrol.

Anything less just seems "weak" given today's cheap tech.

Does "all secure" mean same two cars in lot, or lots of cars in and out just 'no problems'.

[ORC]

something that writes "Patrol site, all secure" every hour 8 times in a row so you don't have to?


But seriously, I'm want my guys to have a smart phone or whatever and require them to take a bunch of pics as they patrol.

Anything less just seems "weak" given today's cheap tech.

Does "all secure" mean same two cars in lot, or lots of cars in and out just 'no problems'.

If that's the case, it doesn't sound like you have a tech problem as much as a training problem. I say this as respectfully as possible, but if you have to to force your officers to do things right they might not be the right officers. Our tool helps good security officer and their companies shine.

[SecTrainer]

If that's the case, it doesn't sound like you have a tech problem as much as a training problem. I say this as respectfully as possible, but if you have to to force your officers to do things right they might not be the right officers. Our tool helps good security officer and their companies shine.

Hate to rain on your parade, ORC, but no way would I want my company's confidential internal reports sitting on ANY third-party server. In fact, this must be, hands down, the WORST idea I ever heard of. I recommend that NO ONE consider doing this for even one nanosecond.

Also, I don't hear Squid saying that he wants photo documentation because his people aren't trained well, or because they aren't doing their jobs. There are many reasons that the ease of taking and transmitting photographs - and even video clips - from a site, either to a server (YOUR OWN!) for documentation, to a supervisor for oversight and command purposes, or even to a client for informational reasons, makes absolutely perfectly good sense, given today's mobile technology.

[zm88]

Hate to rain on your parade, ORC, but no way would I want my company's confidential internal reports sitting on ANY third-party server. In fact, this must be, hands down, the WORST idea I ever heard of. I recommend that NO ONE consider doing this for even one nanosecond.

Also, I don't hear Squid saying that he wants photo documentation because his people aren't trained well, or because they aren't doing their jobs. There are many reasons that the ease of taking and transmitting photographs - and even video clips - from a site, either to a server (YOUR OWN!) for documentation, to a supervisor for oversight and command purposes, or even to a client for informational reasons, makes absolutely perfectly good sense, given today's mobile technology.

Our DARs are stored on the client server and logged electronically. Only time I ever get pic/video is when one of my guys has a question regarding a problem/hazard at the work site which they promptly text to my phone. The image then gets placed on my personal external hard drive and as well as attached to a report. I'm with ST about reprots being on 3rd parties servers, looks like i missed that part when I first read this thread.

[ORC]

Hey SecTrainer, no worries. You said that you wouldn't want your internal reports sitting on a 3rd party server, which means to me that you aren't using any cloud computing software including: Salesforce.com for CRM and sales, Valiant for scheduling and billing, PPM 2000 for incident case management, Dropbox for file storage and backup...the list goes on and let's not forget LinkedIn and Facebook. If that's the case my hat's off to your IT department!

In my humble opinion every organization should be looking to use the cloud to leverage their resources. I think that the main benefits of cloud computing can be summarized as:

1. Cost effective - Reduced hardware, software, and management costs
2. Simplicity - Add to employee productivity
3. Convenient - More efficient use of IT staff.

In regards to photo/video documentation, you are absolutely right it just makes sense. But I think Squid was saying that he wants his officers to take photos to show that they were actually working. If that is the case, the solution is probably more training and if that doesn't work then the officer probably doesn't need to be working for him. We all work to hard to have the bad seeds making our lives difficult. When I was managing officers retraining was always the first step in any corrective action. My remark was not meant to be disparaging...

[ORC]

Hate to rain on your parade, ORC, but no way would I want my company's confidential internal reports sitting on ANY third-party server. In fact, this must be, hands down, the WORST idea I ever heard of. I recommend that NO ONE consider doing this for even one nanosecond.

Also, I don't hear Squid saying that he wants photo documentation because his people aren't trained well, or because they aren't doing their jobs. There are many reasons that the ease of taking and transmitting photographs - and even video clips - from a site, either to a server (YOUR OWN!) for documentation, to a supervisor for oversight and command purposes, or even to a client for informational reasons, makes absolutely perfectly good sense, given today's mobile technology.

One last point, if you're storing information on your own server...where are you back ing up to? Probably a 3rd party server somewhere else.

[SecTrainer]

One last point, if you're storing information on your own server...where are you back ing up to? Probably a 3rd party server somewhere else.

ORC,

This is a topic that could fill a book, but I'll take the easy question first: You can back up your server to a local NAS device, and that's what I would do. With the price of local storage dropping precipitously in recent years, it's absolutely unnecessary to back up anything, much less anything sensitive, to "the cloud". Even a small organization these days can afford multi-terabytes of its own storage capability.

Second, whether utilizing cloud technologies truly provides the organization with operational "leverage" is very subjective, if not to say questionable. As recently as last fall, a major survey showed that there are still significant numbers of firms that are reluctant to use cloud technologies because of ongoing security concerns (which seem to be MORE justified rather than less) and also because they are simply unconvinced of its value. Yes, adoption has increased - by this survey, from 55% in 2011 to 59% in 2012 - but many of those adopters are not faced with the same information sensitivity as those in our industry must deal with.

Third, we're not talking about LinkedIn, etc., so please don't obfuscate the discussion by such references. I have no objection to organizations utilizing social media and other third-party applications for purposes of marketing, etc. We're talking about one thing and one thing only - the manner in which sensitive internal documentation is created, transmitted, stored and retrieved. It's bad enough that anything that travels via the public "information highway" must pass through a largely unknowable maze of routers, gateways, etc. that we do not own and over which we have no control. But even that risk can be minimized (e.g., VPN, encryption, using your own servers, etc), and in fact it can even be avoided altogether, although not without some inconvenience.

One thing's for sure - I don't have to make the situation even worse by utilizing a cloud service/application, and I don't advise it.

[ORC]

SecTrainer,

1. My concern about backing up to anything local is in the case of an emergency/disaster if all your information is backed up in the same location, you could possibly lose everything. Statistics say that 60%-80% of businesses that experience that level of loss never reopen or eventually go out of business.

2. I think because people haven't adopted it yet doesn't mean that cloud computing won't eventually be a common place strategy in business. But only time will tell for this one.

3. I don't think that anyone would argue that there is a little more risk in using the public "information highway", but those risks can be mitigated with proper procedure (i.e., online banking or credit card processing). Again, Valiant and PPM2000 customers have been using those systems to house sensitive information for years and I have yet to hear issues on security.

To your point, volumes could be written on this subject and in the end only time will tell. Thanks for the exchange!

[SecTrainer]

SecTrainer,

1. My concern about backing up to anything local is in the case of an emergency/disaster if all your information is backed up in the same location, you could possibly lose everything. Statistics say that 60%-80% of businesses that experience that level of loss never reopen or eventually go out of business.

2. I think because people haven't adopted it yet doesn't mean that cloud computing won't eventually be a common place strategy in business. But only time will tell for this one.

3. I don't think that anyone would argue that there is a little more risk in using the public "information highway", but those risks can be mitigated with proper procedure (i.e., online banking or credit card processing). Again, Valiant and PPM2000 customers have been using those systems to house sensitive information for years and I have yet to hear issues on security.

To your point, volumes could be written on this subject and in the end only time will tell. Thanks for the exchange!

1. You don't have to store the backup on-site just because you've backed it up locally. There are several well-known schemes for safe storage of the backup data off-site.

2. I think cloud computing has already reached an adoption rate that it can be called a "common strategy". Again, that's not what we're discussing. I do think you'll find, though, that even many companies that make substantial use of "the cloud" don't use it for everything they do, and keep a lot of their data out of the cloud for security reasons. The disturbing thing is that as time has gone on, there has been less and less reason to have confidence in cloud security, when you would have expected just the opposite, since that is the well-established primary reason for reluctance to adopt these strategies.

2. I see this "won't reopen" statistic being misused frequently. The fact is, it isn't usually the loss of their data that causes so many small businesses not to reopen after a disaster. It's the loss of their inventory and other physical assets, and the loss of business they suffer while they're closed down for repairs to their own facilities and restoration of the community infrastructure. They're simply not financially able to withstand the forced closure of the business for more than a few days. Most small businesses are not insured against loss of business; although such insurance is available, it's expensive. Most will only be reimbursed for some percentage of their physical loss.

Another reason some don't open up is simple owner choice. Perhaps the business was operating marginally anyway (as many small businesses are), or maybe it simply isn't as successful as the owner had hoped, and so after a disaster the owner simply doesn't have sufficient financial incentive to start all over. Other things also happen - for instance, it might not be their own loss, but losses suffered by their customers that forces their closure. This happens to B2B businesses, for instance. Or, they may have to furlough key employees who then find other jobs, or key employees decide to move away. Or, the business owner himself decides (as some will in Oklahoma, for instance) to move out of the area entirely and take the business with them. This will count as a business closure in the statistics.

There are many reasons businesses don't reopen after a disaster. Data loss is important, and so I don't minimize the need for secure backup, but it's rarely the main reason for such a decision and I wouldn't use those statistics to support your position (as so many cloud proponents do), because it simply falls apart when you drill down into it.

ST