Spruce ProLink

Spruce ProLink is an app for your customers and is available for both Android™ and Apple® devices. The app is custom-branded to match your company and/or branch location's identity. ProLink is a separately licensed product available as an add-on for use with your software and data. Your company purchases a license to use and integrate with the app; however, we retain all rights to the app design and code excluding any images or other intellectual property you provide or use that you or others own the rights to. The app is hybrid between a "native" app and web-based application. This means that some elements of the app run locally on the device (pad, phone, etc.) while others display content from web-based applications. To use the app, consumers must have a supported smart device with a data plan or access to Wi-Fi. The app does not have any off-line capability.

Features of the ProLink app are documented in the following topics.

Requirements

You must have a high-speed connection available to your system that is sufficient enough to support app connectivity (a minimum of 5 Mbps upload speed is required). Prior to any setup, we will run some testing on your connection speed to make sure it is suitable. Due to the way ProLink updates are applied, we suggest that companies using ProLink also enable automatic updates for your application (this is only done by request, so please contact Support for assistance).

To check your Internet speed, you can use the following web site (link):

www.speedtest.net

Users of the app (consumers) must use devices with the following minimum versions:

  • iOS (Apple): Version 7.0 and above.

  • Android platform: Version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and above.

Your system must be able to support the following to use ProLink libraries:

  • Windows .net Framework 4.8

  • ActiveReports 15

  • The latest version of Newtonsoft JSON, XML and form URL encoded data

Your Responsibilities

Your company is responsible for all end-user support for the app as well as all content displayed or offered by the app. Consumers who use the app should be provided a contact at your company should they need assistance or have any questions. Users of the app (your customers) should never be instructed to contact our support department or personnel directly. Should they contact us either on their own or at your direction, we will direct them back to your company. Your company should be prepared to provide the following types of support to end-users:

  • Marketing of the app to consumers.

  • Questions regarding finding and installing the app on app stores or accessing the app once installed on the user's device.

  • Assistance with logon (user) or password questions as well as any maintenance required for app use (adding Email accounts to contacts, etc.).

  • All questions regarding use of the app (navigating, submitting orders, quotes, etc.).

  • Post processing of all submissions made via the app including requests for orders and quotes is your company's responsibility.

  • Fielding all questions regarding any information (data) provided by the app including: account balances and information, documents, and product (item) information.

  • Documentation or other resources for app users.

  • Future changes that might affect connectivity should be reported to ECI Software Solutions, Inc. in advance of any changes so that we can coordinate any changes required to the app (network, ISP (Internet Service Provider), and server address changes).

If your company is unable to help the customer due to errors originating with the native app code or the web application, someone from your company should contact us for help. All end-user assistance regarding using the app or the end-users specific device are your company's responsibility.

Should your company's Internet connectivity, network, or database server becomes unavailable for any reason, the app will not function during that time. Factors beyond our control must be resolved by your company or your selected technology and service providers. Should the consumer (end-user) of the app not have access to the Internet (via either WiFi or their data plan), the app will not function.

Other issues with app connectivity that are not originating from local or identified issues and that affect all app users should be immediately be reported to support by your company.

Setup

There are a number of setup steps necessary before your company distributes the app to consumers. The following list provides details about your company's setup responsibilities:

Before we can begin creating your customized app, we need the following information and resources provided to us:

A contact name, phone number, and Email address for your company to be listed as the party responsible for app support.

The app name and title (optional). The app name is usually the full name of your company. The title is optional but should be a preferred shortened or abbreviated name if your company name is too long for some display sizes. Names are displayed below the launcher icon and in the title bar when running the app (the title overrides the name in the title bar if present). To fit the display size on phone devices, we may need to shorten your company's name, so if you have a preference, please provide a title that is 30-characters or less in length.

If you have a preferred title bar background and text color, please indicate your preference using HEX color values. You can visit http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp as one resource to provide ideas. All other theme elements can be adjusted from the application's parameters form.

Please provide the following high-quality images using the PNG format in one ZIP (archive) file and email to mobile1@sprucecomputer.net:

Image File

Dimensions (in Pixels)

Description

Launcher Icon

1024 x 1024 (actual display size will be approximately 72 x 72)

This image is used to create an icon will be used to launch the app from either an iOS (Apple®) or Android™ platform device. Icons are small images associated with programs or apps on a desktop or touch display. Icons should be simple in design. Overly complex images or images with small print will not scale well.

Featured Image

1024 x 500

This image should highlight your company's brand and will be the featured image in app store submissions. This should be a high quality image.

Promo Image (Optional)

180 x 120

This promotional graphic image is required for the Google Play store submission.

*Images may be resized based on specific requirements for the particular device and/or app store submissions; however, these sizes provide an acceptable starting point.

Establishing Internet Connectivity (see below) to your server.
 
Your company must provide an access method from the Internet to your company's network and the required server. This would be done by opening a specifically dedicated port on your router that directs incoming traffic to the data server. Communication is encrypted and connections are established in one direction from the web-based application to the server. We will provide the address of the incoming connection so that you can limit connections to that IP (address) for additional security on your router.

Choices involving parameters related to optional features, settings, and menu colors.

Creating and linking the optional images for branch logo and promotional banners as well as any future maintenance.

Enabling Groups and Sections for use with the app as well as any future maintenance.

Enabling inventory items for use with the app as well as any future maintenance.

Enabling Customers (Accounts) for use with the app as well as any future maintenance.

Our Responsibilities

The following listing outlines ECI responsibilities regarding creation and support of the app:

  • Our personnel will create a distinct web application specifically for your app providing the interface between your server and the app. No application data (with the exception of item images) is maintained by the web application or any external database. The web application only acts as an intermediary for data access and display.

  • Our personnel will create two (2) native apps that integrate with the web-based application. One app is produced for Apple (iOS) devices and another for Android platform devices. The apps are created based on the information and images we receive from you.

  • Once your company indicates that it is ready (all setup steps must be completed), our personnel will post the completed apps to the appropriate app stores. Once the apps have been created and posted on the app stores (also done by our personnel), any further changes or customization to the app would then be billable.

  • Our personnel will provided support for the app when contacted by your company for issues related to native or web application errors or connectivity issues that originate on the web application server side. Your company is responsible for ALL end-user (consumer) support of the app. We cannot troubleshoot issues limited to specific devices or providers that are not affecting the majority of users.

  • Our company receives certain information, such as error reporting, when app users encounter a problem. When issues are caused by the native or web application, we will resolve those issues in a timely fashion.

Updates

Updates to the web application may automatically be installed after your company installs certain application updates. This does not necessarily happen with every application update. In some cases, as determined by the nature of the update, we may update the web application without a corresponding base software update.

When a software change requires updates to the web application, there is a window of time between these updates where possible issues in usability could occur. To keep this window small, we suggest using the automated update feature with the application so that updates are installed off hours close to the time when the web application checks for updates.

We reserve the right to make changes to the app appearance and functionality at any time.

Payment Processing

To accept payments via the ProLink app, a customer must have a "card on file" associated with their account. This is only possible if you use TSYS Cayan, Verifone Point, or VeriFone PAYware Connect, Clover, or Linkly, for card processing. For legacy VeriFone PAYware Connect only, you must also be using a version of the VeriFone SIM that supports tokenization (card contracts). In both Verifone cases (Verifone Point and legacy), you create card contracts via the PAYware Connect on-line portal (merchant console) and assigned those card contracts to ProLink enabled accounts. For TSYS Cayan, card tokens can be saved with an account when the card is presented and used in-person for a Point of Sale transaction using a TSYS Cayan Genius device.

Assuming that these conditions have been met, accounts that are billed by job will use either a consolidated card contract or job specific card contract depending upon whether a specific job has been selected in the app. When a specific job is selected, only the card contract for that job will be used.

For more information about payment processing, please click here.