Issue/Symptom/Question

When techs are in a text field such as Work Performed or Recommended Repair notes in MFS, they are unable to hit 'Return Key' or insert new lines. 

Environment

Mobile Field Service (MFS) v20.2

iPad iOS v11.1.0

Resolution/Fix/Answer

The original release of Mobile Field Service  v20.2 or v20.3 prevented the use of Return Keys. There is now a fix for this issue with the latest AppStore Update.

1. Initiate AppStore app on iPad
2. Tap Updates tab on bottom right of screen
3. Tap Update next to Mobile Field Service v20.2 or v20.3
4. Verify that the issue is now fixed

As a user of Penta’s MFS application, we would like to inform you of an issue identified with the release of Smart Punctuation in Apple’s iOS 11 update.  The Smart Punctuation feature automatically converts straight quotes to typographic, curly ones, and double hyphens to an em-dash.  While this feature makes it easier to type more grammatically correct on the iPad keyboard, these curly quotes and em-dash characters are considered special characters and are converted from a single character within the MFS application to multiple characters in the Oracle database.  This conversion may lead to some entries becoming longer than the maximum length allowed in the Oracle database field which can cause tickets not to complete submission.

We advise all technicians utilizing the MFS application to make the following change on their device.

Go to Settings →  General → Keyboard → slide the Smart Punctuation option to the off position.

Cause 

This was caused because of the fix delivered in previous versions that prevents special characters from being used. Special characters caused Oracle database errors that would caused tickets to be stuck during generation and other transactions to fail.