Tablet PCs for Dummies

Tablet format PCs (minus the Windows XP for Tablet PC operating system) have been around for several years now in the form of pen tablets and Web pads. They’ve been used for everything from inventorying products on a store shelf to tracking the delivery of overnight packages.

The latest incarnation of tablets, Tablet PC, adds the full functionality of a Windows-based computer, an excellent handwriting recognition feature, plus wireless technology to the equation, making it even more useful in vertical applications (that is, specific industries) such as healthcare and retail.

Some Tablet PC models, such as the ProT-10 from ProMark and PSI Electronics’ FOX are ruggedized — built to withstand some abuse in settings such as construction or property inspections. (The ProT-10, for example, has a shock-mounted hard drive and can operate in colder temperatures.)

These units sport various forms of alloy or rubber casings to protect them from falls of approximately three feet, as well as hard drives mounted in a way that they can withstand a certain amount of shock. They can also withstand colder and hotter temperatures than the non-ruggedized models.

 Remember  However, this toughness comes at a price: ruggedized models weigh in at around 4.5 pounds, noticeably heftier than their slimmer 3-pound cousins.

Another feature that makes Tablet PC a good tool in the field is that some models can accommodate optional screens that can be read in the glare of daylight. (Daylight-readable screens are, however, still in their infancy; they have a way to go before they consistently fulfill their promise.)

In addition, built-in or add-on smart card readers enable you to tap into large amounts of data such as store inventory or patient records. Smart cards can also provide extra security for your tablet.

Take a look at some ways businesses are taking advantage of all that Tablet PC has to offer.

Healthcare: Take a tablet and call me in the morning

It’s no secret that the world today has a serious shortage of healthcare workers — if you want to verify this state of affairs, just go to any emergency room and watch the hours tick by before somebody shows up to treat you.

The truth is that a lot of healthcare workers are probably not showing up in the emergency room because they’re buried in paperwork. They have to deal with benefits forms and patient charts, requests for lab results, communications from primary doctors to specialists, and on and on. Much of that paperwork is done by hand.

The contents of some of those handwritten forms then have to be input into a computer, taking more time and risking error. Delays in getting paperwork where it needs to go can cause delays in treatment and billing, which can be costly and even life-threatening.

How can Tablet PC help? Tablet PC provides a way for healthcare workers to take handwritten notes in any setting — in a patient’s room or a hospital corridor, for example. No special training on a computer is required because pretty much everybody knows how to write. Here’s a list of just a few applications:

• Note-taking: Doctors can dictate patient notes using the Speech feature, or use a stylus pen to annotate X-rays and fill in patient charts.

  Doctors can even make notes during an examination, drawing on a form with diagrams of human anatomy to indicate areas of discomfort or wound locations.

• Information gathering: Patients can enter information about themselves and their symptoms directly into a Tablet PC.

• Therapy and recovery: Tablet PC Speech has even been used in speech language therapy for stroke victims.

   Tip  All this input can be converted to text or stored in handwritten form that can be organized, and searched.

•  Remember   Maintaining privacy: Beyond overcoming mountains of paperwork, one of the big concerns about information in a healthcare setting is privacy. Healthcare facilities must stay in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which calls for stringent protection of patient records.

  Where previous tablet formats didn’t have strong security, Tablet PC with Windows XP, with privacy and security features such as Encrypted File System and public key infrastructure with virtual private network features and protocols, is in complete compliance.

• Medical research: In addition to routine patient care, Tablet PC has a place in medical research institutions. Clinical trials run by drug companies or research hospitals may involve executives, clinicians, and doctors.

  Clinicians can take notes while making patient rounds, or update records while in patient rooms, and the results can be stored in a central database where they can be easily shared by researchers by tapping into a wireless network.

  Demands in healthcare to document incidents such as errors in patient care (or the emergence of mental-health patient problems) also make Tablet PC a useful tool.

   Tip  With Tablet PC in hand, patient interviews can happen without the distraction of typing on a keyboard — and incidents can be reported immediately so all facility staff have access to the information right away. If any investigation or official action is required, it can be taken quickly without waiting for handwritten interview notes to be typed up.

Companies are developing healthcare-specific applications that enable workers to access lab results, use smart cards to switch out patient records as they make their rounds, and even examine patients’ vital signs. USB peripheral support in Tablet PC means that a PC card can be inserted to add the functionality of a digital camera to take pictures for patient identification and wound care documentation.

External data backup devices can be used for field-based backups, as in a home healthcare setting, and portable color printers can be used for printing patient education materials.

Insurance: Tablet PC as a matter of policy

Insurance is an industry where information is king. Much of that information has to be gathered in unusual environments, such as on the scene after a building fire or in your neighborhood appraising your home for insurance coverage. Tablet PC’s support for surprise undocking can be a handy feature for such people on the run.

 Tip  Surprise undocking is a capability that allows a user to remove a Tablet PC from a docking station without having to shut the computer down or close applications.

Here are some other useful ways to use Tablet PC in the insurance field:

• Documentation: Integrated digital cameras in some Tablet PC models can be used to take pictures for insurance application and claims processes.

  For example, the photos of newly insured vehicles can be used to document existing damage, or photos can be used to show damage to vehicles involved in an accident claim.

  Instead of having to print out Polaroid photos and staple them to a claim, insurance agents or estimators can take photos with the Tablet PC digital camera, then use their Tablet PC to insert the photo in a form and even circle any damage in photos with their digital pen.

• Speedy claim estimates: Repair estimates can be requested on the spot using e-mail or by faxing a form from a fax application using a wireless connection. Agents can also use their wireless connection to tap into client records from remote locations.

   Tip  In addition to portability and wireless connectivity, ruggedized Tablet PCs can be used in all kinds of weather, making them stalwart companions for people who have to deal with the aftermath of severe weather conditions such as floods, snowstorms, or hurricanes. In addition to dealing better with extreme temperatures, ruggedized models can even deal with humidity levels of up to 95 percent.

Stethographics has developed an electronic stethoscope application called STG that can be used with a Tablet PC. This software utilizes the microphone on the Tablet PC to record various sounds from the heart, lungs, and abdomen. The sounds can be played back for other healthcare workers to analyze, and can even be used to identify and perform “wheeze and crackle” counts and analyses.

The software includes samples of normal and abnormal sounds for comparison, and can generate waveform charts of results Doctors and nurses can access information, view sample recordings, and analyze waveform visual- izations for common heart sounds with Stethographics.

Now breathe deeply. . . .

Real Estate: Location, location, location, and Tablet PC

Another industry where people are often out in the world rather than sitting at a desk is real estate. The day of a typical real estate agent involves meeting with sellers at their home or business to sign up listings, taking potential buyers to view buildings, attending property closings, and creating and distributing marketing literature to publicize a listing.

 Remember  Today the emphasis in real estate is on showing a client that you’ve got the high tech bells and whistles to get their business and close a sale. Using Tablet PC, real estate professionals can

• Get facts quickly: Agents can call up information about property tax, last sale price, and legal property descriptions from city records as they meet with a potential seller.

• Post and review listings: Agents can review listings of comparable properties on the market to help the seller determine the sales price, and even write up and post a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) listing for a property, all while sitting with the seller in his or her home.

• Note taking: Real estate agents in selling mode can use their Tablet PC to walk through a property and use Speech to dictate notes about features, or write up an offer for a property for a buyer on the spot and fax it to all parties without ever returning to the office.

   Tip  Using a Tablet PC with digital camera capability, an agent can take property photos for use in a sales flyer. Mobile printers can be used with a Tablet PC to print property flyers when an agent notices that an on-site literature display is running low.

• Create 3-D online tours: With increased use of streaming video and 3-D tours of homes available online, an agent can even use the Tablet PC to show a presentation of available homes to buyers, using a pen to highlight features of interest in various listings.

Corporate real estate professionals have unique information needs. Corpora-tions managing multiple facilities and moves between them can perform site inventories without having to duplicate data entry.

Dynamic floor plans can be created with drag-and-drop elements for planning moves. Revisions to floor plans can be made on site by architects and engineers using AutoCAD LT and its Tablet PC enabled features.

WebFront Communications of Canada has developed a product called Home Appraisals for the insurance industry. The WebFront application allows insurance professionals such as adjusters to take and convert hand- written notes, as well as fill out automated forms.

For example, the application helps insurance appraisers to be more effective on the job by enabling them to access data from the field, and then convert handwritten notes to text.

Users can receive a form from their home office with client contact information and property location, and then they can fill in the form using their pen with detailed home appraisal information. They can add handwritten sketches, annotate photos, and even capture signatures of clients.

Then, rather than going back to an office and entering the data in a computer, they can transmit the form from the field to the office using an XML format for instant processing by a Microsoft BizTalk server.

With HP Real Estate Document Assistant 2, real estate professionals can browse, preview, and launch simple templates to generate great looking property flyers, fax cover sheets, and postcards. Using a portable color printer, you can print professional documents — even flyers — from a Tablet PC at a property site. Agents can edit and update the agent profiles that appear in flyers with new information or photos. The program can even be set up to be launched from a toolbar button in Microsoft Word.

Retail: Tablet PC goes shopping

Tablet PC fits right in when it’s time to go shopping. Consider the advantages. First, many stores don’t have sophisticated offices and equipment available to them because space is at a premium. A store manager may have to fill out forms and write notes while keeping an eye on customer traffic; Tablet PC saves that manager or someone else down the line from having to rekey such data into text format.

In addition, retail personnel may not be familiar with computers or keyboarding, so the pen and Speech input methods available with Tablet PC are ideal for this workforce.

Here are some other applications:

• Inventory and merchandising: Tablet PC can be used by store maintenance crews to take inventory, by field consultants doing a store walk, and by store managers for merchandising (developing in-store displays).

  Because many stores these days are part of a chain, improved information flow from stores to back-end systems is key to timely delivery of products to replenish diminishing supplies and stay on top of customer demand.

• Advertising, presentations, and information: Mall kiosks are an ideal location for Tablet PC, again because of limited space and wireless connectivity.

  Tablet PC can be used to show presentations of products at kiosks where space is at a premium and there’s no room to demonstrate or display every product for sale. In addition, retailers can access online catalogs to place custom orders. Using a printer and Tablet PC, stores can even print out coupons or gift certificates on the spot.

• Daily operations: Maintenance crews in a retail setting can fill out store asset survey forms listing information about shelving, lighting, and special equipment such as a drink machine in a convenience store. They can draw rough measurements with the Tablet PC pen to be used when installing new equipment.

  Maintenance personnel can even make notes about power availability, plumbing requirements, and so on, which can go directly to a central database to streamline the ordering of equipment and installation services.

• Customer service: In any sales setting, such as filling out an order for a special order item for a store customer, typing on a keyboard cuts down on the face-to-face interaction with the customer.

  Writing on a Tablet PC, sales clerks can stay more in touch with their customers. Store managers can walk around and interact with customers while doing merchandizing or customer surveys.

• Field sales: Field reps who visit several stores a month can call up employee records with photos to jot notes about interactions. Because personnel in retail can change frequently with seasonal hiring, this helps managers stay current with who’s who.

Construction: Building business with Tablet PC

Next to a hard hat, a Tablet PC may be the best item you can have around a construction site. Because construction workers and materials warehouse supervisors are often not trained on computers, the pen input is a natural fit for this industry’s workforce.

Construction sites typically have a small trailer for an office; with space at a premium, having this much high technology in a three-pound portable package is useful.

Bar codes are information lifelines for retail stores. These little sets of lines help you track inventory and buying habits, and automate checkout for customers. For the retail industry, a bar code scanner in the form of a PCMCIA card that can be dropped into a Tablet PC makes the tablet format very attractive. Workers can use the highly portable computer to scan product bar codes on the shelves and instantly send inventory information back to a distribution center to update quantities and automatically generate replenishment orders.

Autodesk Architectural Studio is a design and communication tool that allows architects to model, present, and collaborate on design projects. The program is used for design purposes by many architects and construction companies. With Architectural Studio, you can sketch out ideas, mark up drawings and floor plans, and instantly communicate changes to remote construction sites or clients. Autodesk On Site View has even been used to help emergency response teams (using Tablet PCs) to work with airport floor plans and schematics to deal with security problems on the scene.

A general contractor with a Tablet PC in hand can go from job to job checking off the progress of various crews, checking on shipments of materials and e-mailing clients with progress reports — even accompanying these reports with photos.

Construction site managers don’t escape the being desk bound. They often have to attend meetings with subcontractors, architects, materials suppliers, the home office, and clients. Now, he or she can take meeting notes on the Tablet PC, then distribute them to everyone concerned in minutes. When clients ask for a change in specs or materials, a signature on a change order can be captured on the spot using the Tablet PC stylus pen.

A Tablet PC can be used in materials receiving, project tracking, filling out safety violation or incident reports, and on-site inspections. The capability to convert handwriting to text and transmit it instantly helps to avoid delays between data gathering and data entry. Less delay means quicker billing of clients for materials — and less risk of ordering materials that aren’t needed.

 Tip  Microsoft Project, often used in the construction industry to track project progress, gains ink functionality along with other Office XP products when you install the Office XP Tablet PC Pack.

Legal: Making a case for Tablet PC

Say what you like about lawyers, there’s no denying that they’re hard working, note-taking people. In fact, attorneys make a ton of handwritten notes that become part of the recordkeeping for cases that may go on for years . . . and years. Transcribing or simply storing these notes becomes cumbersome.

Enter Tablet PC. Using the Ink or Speech features, lawyers can enter notes in electronic format that can be converted to text or simply kept in note form. But, these are notes that can be searched easily for names, dates — whatever. And Tablet PC enables you to search within a single note, or among all notes in a folder at one time.

Besides a need for notes, attorneys have the following needs:

• Protecting client confidentiality: The secure features of Windows XP plus secure wireless communication make transmitting notes or other data from a Tablet PC to another computer or person private.

• Increasing productivity without being annoying: Attorneys are also out of the office a great deal at court or in meetings.

  Wireless connections and the capability to collaborate remotely serve to increase their (highly billable) productivity. The judge may frown on counsel tip-tapping away on a laptop keyboard in court, but probably won’t mind you quietly writing on a Tablet PC.

• Giving presentations: Lawyers are big users of graphics to make their point in court, from showing the course of a hit and run driver in a traffic accident to showing charts and graphs of ballistics or DNA findings.

  With Tablet PC, lawyers cannot only run a presentation in a courtroom or at a deposition, for example with PowerPoint, but they can annotate their presentations with ink. They can also annotate a scanned version of an original document without permanently changing it.

Leszynski Group is developing a customized legal document management application called NoteTalk in conjunction with a large international law firm. Using NoteTalk, attorneys can find and work with critical client and case information, and even access documents on file with the court, from the office or the road.

The application enables users to synchronize voice notes with handwritten notes, so information (whether dictated or handwritten by lawyers) can be cataloged by case. The application will make it possible to gather and organize legal documents in a variety of formats.

And because there’s a persistent rumor that lawyers like to hear themselves talk, use of voice notes can now expand beyond the capabilities of Windows XP for Tablet PC’s Sticky Notes, providing customized extensions for Windows Media Player.

Manufacturing a need for Tablet PC

You may not immediately think of a noisy, dusty shop floor as the home of hi-tech, but consider a typical workday for a shop foreman and see if you can spot how Tablet PC could fit in:

Joe is a shop foreman at an automobile manufacturing plant located on a large corporate campus just outside Detroit. He spends all day going between meetings in the main building and the shop floor ten minutes away. When he jots down a note about a problem on the line, he has to hike back to his office to write up an e-mail about it and get a management decision about the best course of action. Safety auditors from the Union strolling the shop floor have the same problem as Joe — after taking notes, they have to get back to a desktop computer to write up their reports, wasting time and risking data entry error.

Manufacturing is a fast-paced business; delays on the line, materials that arrive late, and safety incidents can change a good day to a bad one in the blink of an eye. Speed of information transmission between the manufacturing facility and corporate headquarters — or even the office at the back of the building — is important. Here’s how Tablet PC helps:

• Fast communication: The clipboard of yesterday can be replaced with a Tablet PC to save the time it takes people in manufacturing to communicate data they gather on the floor to management in another location. Their handwritten notes can now be sent out in seconds, speeding up on-the-fly decisions about safety, inventory, productivity, broken equipment, and more.

   Tip  Workers can even read manuals as electronic documents stored on Tablet PCs. An extra bonus to this paperless scenario — that the manuals can be updated easily.

• Streamlined scheduling: Production scheduling can be streamlined with up-to-the-minute information about the line input by hand and instantly connected to inventory and work schedules through sophisticated ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems.

The sales force and Tablet PC

Up to now, this chapter has taken a look at vertical industries. Frankly, sales is more of a horizontal business use than a vertical one. That is, the sales function spreads across all sorts of vertical industries that have the need to sell their products or services. But this is such a logical use for Tablet PCs, I include it in this group, odd duck though it is.

Sales people share many of the characteristics you’ve read about in other sections of this chapter. They are on the road a lot, and have limited space to use a computer (such as in a car or a company waiting area). They have a need to retrieve information from the home office, such as pricing charts, product inventory, or online catalogs, as well as to transmit data back, such as a rush sales order that can’t wait until they make it back to the office.

Tablet PC meets all those needs, enabling salespeople to access their company network or a Web site to get product data. They can fill out order forms with their stylus pens, and e-mail an order instantly to headquarters. They can even capture customer signatures for orders on the Tablet PC. When an order is placed, they can track the order online as they travel.

 Tip  Speaking of traveling, a perfect use for Tablet PC is to download maps and directions off the Internet, and make travel arrangements. ESRI has released a Tablet PC compatible version of their GIS mapping software that helps sales people find customer locations. Salespeople can also jot appointments and travel plans into their online planner with their Tablet PC pen.

One use of Tablet PC that will appeal to busy salespeople is that it enables them to download and read magazines on the comfortable and legible screen. With the need to stay competitive and keep up with industry trends, combined with travel downtime sitting on a plane or train, reading electronic magazines is a natural fit. Receive your e-magazines before the paper ones hit the newsstand, and read them anytime — online or off.

You can even use products such as Microsoft Snippet to clip parts of articles and send them to customers, or e-mail entire articles.

Here are some other ideas for using Tablet PC in the sales field:

• Presentations: The convertible model Tablet PCs are great for giving one-on-one customer presentations; you can just spin the screen around and still have the keyboard in front of you to run a presentation.

  Navigating a presentation with voice commands means that even a user with no external keyboard can move around a presentation while the customer views it.

• Maintaining contact with customers: Customer relationship management is another aspect of sales that Tablet PC can be helpful with.

  Products such as Franklin Covey Tablet Planner for Tablet PC help keep contact information in one place, and the personal touch of handwritten e-mails can make customers take notice of these unique sales communications.

   Tip  Use handwriting to prioritize, work with action codes, add notes, and sort your to-do list using the Franklin Covey planning system.

Education: Learning with your Tablet

Quick — think of a setting where lots of people who don’t even have an office to sit in need to get information from other people and document that information so they can study it later on. Can’t think of an answer? Okay, add a keg of beer. (Aha. I knew you’d see the light. . . .)

College may be the perfect environment for Tablet PC, in part because of a technology-savvy user group. When e-textbooks become more prevalent, the little Tablet PC can replace a stack of heavy books students have to carry from class to class.

Tablet PC can be used in a classroom setting where thirty people clacking away on keyboards would be distracting (to say the least). And if students are equipped with Tablet PCs, then schools can save the cost of a computer lab, which often offers limited hours and less-than-state-of-the-art computers.

 Remember  In some colleges, students are required to have a computer and even a laptop, so Tablet PC offers a similarly priced replacement. Students collaborating on team projects can stay in communication across campus or from their homes on school breaks.

Here are some other academic uses for Tablet PC:

• Lesson planning and presentations: Professors can use the Tablet PC to store course notes and bring them to class.

  They can make their own notes on course content when interesting questions or topics come up in discussion without having to balance a keyboard model laptop.

• Grading: Professors can also use Tablet PC in their grading process. They can mark up student papers with ink and e-mail the graded paper back, even adding a voice Sticky Note to an electronically submitted assignment.

  They can post grades to student records using a school’s wireless network. In addition, planning tools help to keep track of assignments and due dates, as well as enabling a teacher to take class attendance by checking off an on-screen form with a pen.

• Distance learning: Distance learning gives people in geographically diverse settings access to online course material for remote learning. By using online meeting software (such as NetMeeting) with Tablet PC’s pen functionality, remote students can participate in live discussions — and even use Ink to add notes and annotations to a virtual whiteboard in real time.

  Such a personal interaction makes distance learning a much more user-friendly experience.

MIT recently worked with Microsoft on an experiment called iCampus. During a week-long conference on robotics, students worked together on a design project using Tablet PCs. In an effort to examine how technology can integrate with the educational environment, students found that ink and wireless capabilities improved the way they worked together and cut down on the need for face-to-face meeting time to complete the project. Now MIT is looking at ways to create project-based courses that can use the Tablet PC for both collaboration and personal computing.