Case Study

Field Service Drawing Application

A cross-platform tablet app enabling field technicians to create, annotate, and sync floor plan drawings with the enterprise CRM — fully offline-capable with automatic cloud synchronisation.

.NET MAUI 9C#SkiaSharp SQLiteDynamics 365Azure Functions Microsoft Entra IDDevExpress MAUI

ProblemCanvasToolsSyncWorkflowImpact

Before Paper-Based Field Documentation

Field technicians had no standardised digital tool for documenting equipment placement at customer sites — relying on paper plans, generic apps, and manual CRM updates.

📝

Paper Floor Plans

Easily lost, impossible to share, no version control or search capability.

📡

No Offline Support

Technicians work in basements, warehouses, and areas with zero connectivity.

🔍

No Visibility

Managers and back-office staff couldn't see what equipment was installed at each site.

🔄

No CRM Sync

Paper records couldn't sync with the company's Dynamics 365 CRM system.

Result: Lost documentation, no continuity between technician visits, zero real-time operational visibility.

Core Feature Interactive Drawing Canvas

A full-screen SkiaSharp canvas supporting multi-touch pan/zoom, shape drawing, photo backgrounds, and drag-and-drop equipment placement.

🪤 Bait Station A1

💡 Insect Light Trap

📍 Monitor Point B3

🪤 Bait Station A2

💡 Fly Unit C1

Kitchen 4.2m

Entry Point

Toolset Drawing & Asset Placement

Three tiers of tools: brush controls, shape/drawing tools, and domain-specific equipment asset placement with categorised icons.

✏️

Shape Drawing

Freehand, line, rectangle, circle, ellipse — variable width and colour, snap-to-grid support.

📍

Asset Placement

Scrollable bar of categorised equipment icons. Tap canvas to place, drag to reposition, tap to rename.

📷

Photo Import

Import or capture a photo of a physical floor plan as the canvas background. Rotate and scale.

📐

Text & Measurements

Place text labels for dimensions and notes. Resize, reposition, double-tap to edit.

↩️

Undo / Redo / Erase

Full undo/redo stack plus eraser tool for targeted shape deletion.

🔒

Unsaved Changes Guard

Dialog prompts save before navigating away — no accidental data loss.

Offline-First Sync Architecture

All data stored locally in SQLite. Bidirectional sync with Dynamics 365 via Azure Functions when connectivity is available.

💾

Canvas Captured

Drawing serialised to PNG + shapes to JSON + asset positions saved to SQLite

✓

📱

Saved Locally (Offline)

Immediate save regardless of connectivity. Red sync dot indicates pending upload.

✓

📡

Connectivity Detected

App detects network availability and queues sync operation.

✓

☁️

Synced to CRM

Data pushed to Dynamics 365 via Azure Functions middleware. Green sync dot confirms.

✓

Workflow End-to-End Journey

From login through work order selection, floor plan creation, drawing, asset placement, and cloud sync — a complete field service workflow.

🔑

Authenticate with Entra ID

Secure SSO login via Microsoft Entra ID (MSAL)

✓

📋

Select Work Order

Browse assigned work orders synced from Dynamics 365

✓

🗺️

Create or Open Floor Plan

New map with name, category, canvas size — or resume existing

✓

✏️

Draw & Annotate

Import photo, draw boundaries, place equipment, add measurements

✓

☁️

Save & Sync

Canvas captured, saved locally, synced to CRM when online

✓

Results Architecture & Impact

A purpose-built offline-first mobile drawing platform with bidirectional CRM integration and custom 2D rendering engine.

.NET MAUI 9

Cross-platform native app with MVVM architecture

SkiaSharp Canvas

Custom 2D engine: multi-touch, pan/zoom, shape rendering

SQLite

Offline-first local storage with sync queue

Dynamics 365

Bidirectional CRM sync for work orders and drawings

Azure Functions

API middleware between app and CRM platform

Entra ID (MSAL)

Enterprise SSO authentication

100%

Offline capability — works with zero connectivity

2-Way

Bidirectional sync with Dynamics 365 CRM

Custom

Purpose-built 2D drawing engine with SkiaSharp

Paper floor plans required

Offline-First, CRM-Synced Field Drawing

Custom 2D canvas with domain-specific tooling — replacing paper-based processes with digital precision.