DATA RECONCILIATION BETWEEN A COMPUTER AND A MOBILE DATA COLLECTION TERMINAL

A method for communication between a host computer and at least one mobile computer terminal which provides an efficient way of running a computer network where the at least one mobile computer terminal operates at a remote site, has selectable operating characteristics, and is connected to the host computer through a wireless communications network, and wherein the host computer executes an application program in which data is entered from the at least one mobile computer terminal and processed by the application program, the method comprising the steps of: configuring the operating characteristics of the mobile computer terminal to correspond to data field characteristics required by the application program running on the host computer; utilizing the at least one mobile computer terminal to automatically acquire data at the remote site in response to a data acquisition program running on the at least one mobile computer terminal; transforming the acquired data into a data structure in the mobile computer terminal in accordance with said data field characteristics required by the application program running on the host computer; and transferring said data structure to the host computer over the wireless communications network. The method also provides for a way to ensure that the application program running on the host computer handles data received from the at least one mobile computer terminals when one of the mobile computer terminals goes out of range of the wireless network, comprising the steps of: establishing communications and association between a first of the at least one mobile computer terminals and a first access point on a local network; determining in said first of the at least one mobile computer terminals, that communications between said first of the at least one mobile computer terminals and all other access points have been impeded and switching to batch mode to continue data collection.