offline application development for mobile devices

Question

I am looking to develop an application whereby field staff can complete forms in an offline capacity (when onsite I`m assuming no internet connection) on an Apple or Android device and post the results to a web service when they are online.

I have been lead to understand that this is achievable using sharepoint or infopath. I would personally prefer to use Cordova / HTML / Javascript forms.

My question is: Is what I have been told correct? Is it possible to achieve this goal using sharepoint and/or infopath?

• JeffO: HTML5 and javascript can be used to store to a local database on a mobile device, so I'm guessing many other technologies could as well.
• Caleb: Googling for something like html5 offline forms will turn up a lot of useful information.

Answer 1

Yes Its possible to achieve this in a Cordova app.

I had similar requirements and did in a project.

localStorage features of HTML5 can be used to store data in offline mode and once a device has detected internet connection then it can automatically send via a service call.

So features you need would be:

• localStorage - for offline storage
• Cordova Network plugin will be used to detect network status
• In case GPS (location lat/lng) is required then geolocation API will be used