What is a SmartForm?
Heard about SmartForms, but confused by the jargon? Never heard of SmartForms, but interested in the latest developments in electronic forms?
This blog provides the need-to-know facts about SmartForms. For a full overview, please watch SmartForms – the next generation of electronic forms.
| Running time: | 13 minutes |
|---|---|
| Content: | What is a SmartForm? |
| Demo of three SmartForms in action | |
| Why SmartForms? | |
| Who is using Smartforms? |
SmartForms
A SmartForm is an electronic form used by your customers, staff and partners to apply for products and services.
Key capabilities include:
- perform complex calculations
- dynamically display content as it is required
- perform sophisticated validation of the data
- lookup data from remote systems
- securely submit the data to your organisation’s systems
Geneaology of the Electronic Form
Not all electronic forms are equal. They differ in how smart they can be in making it easy for users and ensuring that you capture high quality data.
Electronic forms can be categorised into:
- Print form downloaded from your web-site, printed, completed by hand and posted/faxed to your organisation
- Fillable form downloaded from your web-site, filled-out on screen before being printed and posted/faxed to your organisation
- SmartForm downloaded from your web-site, filled-out on screen and submitted electronically
Print Form
The only electronic aspect to this is in its distribution. You face the same challenges as paper of interpreting hand-writing, handling forms that have been incorrectly filled-out and manually entering the data into your systems. According to the Australian outsourcing company review of 2006, 40% of forms contain missing information. Each of these failures result in higher costs and lost sales opportunities
Fillable Form
Fillable forms perform basic validation on the data as it is entered and will print an easy to read form. You will typically need to re-key this data into your back end systems. Optical character recognition (OCR) is feasible with fillable forms if you have the necessary infrastructure.
SmartForm
The most significant development in electronic forms since their inception. For the first time, it is now possible to guide novice users through the completion of complex forms in a highly engaging experience.