Australian Bureau of Statistics taps Mobile Mentor for Census field officer app

Rolls out custom app to 33,000 Census 2016 field officers

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Most of the devices were owned by field officers, so we needed to be transparent about the information we would be using, so that they would feel comfortable enrolling the app on their personal devices.

Ved Gupta, Australian Bureau of Statistics

The (ABS) has deployed an app to allow Census 2016 field officers to fully use the power of their mobile devices.

The Census Collect app, developed by the ABS, was delivered to 33,000 field officers by Mobile Mentor, using device management software from MobileIron.

The ABS says the app significantly increased staff efficiency, improved management information available in the field and greatly reduced paper waste.

“Thanks to Mobile Mentor and the MobileIron device management software, the ABS’ new mobile application dramatically improved our access to management information on the collection activity and worker efficiency,” says Ved Gupta, assistant director of the Census 2016, technology services division.

“We needed a secure, simple, scalable way to deploy our app to a broad range of Android and iOS devices,” says Gupta, in a statement.

“Most of the devices were owned by field officers, so we needed to be transparent about the information we would be using, so that they would feel comfortable enrolling the app on their personal devices.”

The app helps field officers deliver Census materials and to follow-up those that had not completed the Census. The app included mapping functionality and also helped field officers plan and manage their workload.

“It’s great to see the government innovating with mobility solutions to meet this massive project and we are very proud to have been a part it,” says Randall Cameron, managing director, Mobile Mentor Australia.

“We’d like to think that our independence from any one Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) vendor, combined with our agnostic approach to devices, meant we were able to offer the ABS what we felt was the lowest risk option,” he states.