Electronic Forms Step 1: Find out where it hurts

Part one in a series that examines the process of electronically capturing in Web-based forms the information trapped in today’s paper-based processes.

I’ve spent the last few years helping customers empower their data through electronic forms with LincDoc, an eForms and document automation software product; but the concept is universal.Paper forms are a great place to begin when we look at capture, since according to the Gartner Group, 85 percent of business processes depend on forms. And with few exceptions, most organizations still handle forms in paper.

   

“Hey Dan, doesn’t quoting lofty analyst numbers seem a bit weak? We know how stats can be construed.”

To that, I reply simply: look around your office. (Cue Jeopardy theme, or click here)... 


Still think those numbers don’t hold up? 

So if you are serious about improving your capture program, it makes sense to tackle the cause of the problem, rather than treating the symptoms.

The first step on embarking on your eForms project is to figure out what forms your team, department and organization use most often. Pinpoint the forms that create the most agony. Like a migraine. It is these pieces of paper that when translated to an online or electronic capture mechanism will demonstrate the most ROI.

However, and this helps further illustrate the depth of pain paper forms cause, you may very well find that the forms at the root of agony for your team are not the same as those wreaking havoc on another department. Human Resources, operations, fulfillment, accounting, marketing and customer relations are all holding up different forms, right? Coffee ring-stained, half-completed and caked in white out. (Stop me anytime.)

When you embark on an electronic forms project, or really any capture process, the goal is to figure out where you can make the most impact. As Sun Tzu says, “You must know the battle ground. You must know the time of battle. You can then travel a thousand of miles and still win the battle.”

Make no mistake capture warriors, you are doing battle against paper forms, and it is your duty to control the battlefield.

As you prepare for battle against your forms, make sure you clearly understand the greatest threats, and plan to attack the weak points of the enemy, err … project. Planning and understanding your enemy is one of the most important steps in winning the war against paper, so start with the ones that you have determined cause the most pain and are easiest to solve.  Make a list of them, start mapping out their life cycles and underlying business processes, and talk within your organization to confirm your findings. Next week, we’ll talk about converting your paper forms to dynamic electronic forms.

So everyone, what do you think about paper forms? Tried this approach and failed? Can you quote Sun Tzu in your sleep? Should you quote Sun Tzu in your sleep? Let me know.

Now, get to the choppa!

Ode to Barcodes Part 2, The Video!

Here is the sequel to the last post, Ode to Barcodes. In this video example, I provide you an example of how to generate and use a PDF-417 barcode on your forms and documents. If you are interested in creating PDFs on the fly like this, leave a comment, or contact me using the link to the right. 

ODE TO BARCODES! Use them,

Barcodes. You know them. You love them. You find them everywhere from the side of your box of Kashi Go Lean to document slip sheets; but have you ever stopped to wonder what all those goofy lines and digital scribble mean? And, how do they work anyway?

And most importantly, how do barcodes apply to document capture?  Well, let's dive right in.

My favorite is the undisputed champion of them all: PDF 417. Oh yes, the Incredible Hulk of barcodes. But without the emo alter-ego.

The PDF 417 is two dimensions of awesomeness, and you've probably seen this on things like a boarding pass or Fed Ex Label. Why am I so in love with it? Simple: you can pack a TON of information into the PDF 417 barcode. A single PDF 417 symbol can theoretically hold up to 1,850 alphanumeric characters, 2,710 digits or 1,108 bytes. Why so much data? Because it's absolutely perfect for encoding all of the metadata in a document for example. Data like your name, e-mail address, city, state, and postal code can all be encoded into a single barcode.  

We use PDF 417 barcodes at LincWare quite a bit. When we generate electronic forms, typically the metadata from the form is automatically sent to a repository but sometimes paper or additional electronic copies must be created. Examples of this are documents that require stamped notarization like a court order or documents that are transmitted to other organizations. Imagine a police report with a PDF 417 barcode on it that contains all of the report data, or a new account form at a financial planner's office with your name, address and phone number.

We place all of that information discretely on the document, like in the top right corner, and encode it into a PDF 417 barcode. When you transmit documents with information already encoded in a barcode, it makes the process much easier for the receiving party to process and use.

When you scan or process a barcoded document, you then set up an auto-detect or draw the zone of where a barcode is likely to be. When you scan it, the data will be there as a separated value for you to use and process. Virtually all of the capture vendors in the community support it, but it's up to you to create documents with barcodes already on them.

You are a nice person right? You like helping others? Helped a bank executive from Africa cash a few checks via e-mail? Good, then slap some barcodes on your forms and documents. Or better yet, create eForms with dynamic barcodes on them. Oh, and don't make any more paper.

To actually show you this concept, I built a form that will take your name and e-mail address, and automatically encode them into a barcode on a document for you. Go make yourself a barcode! 

So AIIM Community members, do you also love barcodes? Do you have "Mom" embedded in barcode tattoo? If you are capturing and processing barcodes, I would love to hear your feedback.

Hi I'm Dan and I'm here to make you paperless

The beginning of my career in ECM and content capture involved helping organizations “go paperless.” You all know the phrase, right? Many of the other bloggers worked with me on projects as vendors, partners, and friends to help people navigate the paperless journey.

But no one really knew where we were headed.

Quite frankly, something about the “paperless effort” felt very, very wrong. Fast forward a number of years and the path to the paperless effort is still dark and hard to find. Too many processes remain dependent upon static PDFs that have to be printed, manually returned and their data re-entered, creating countless operational bottlenecks. How exactly did “going paperless” equate to scanning paper? Isn’t that like preparing for a flood by planning the cleanup? Instead of filling sandbags, let’s just gas up the backhoes.

I couldn’t help but wonder how we could plug the leak or in some way divert the raging torrent. Primarily, I felt we needed to find the source of what was causing the need for all this paper. Where did it come from? Where was it going? That quest led me into the world of electronic forms and document assembly, which involves capturing content and information free from paper.

With the realization that the content on paper could be accurately captured and put to use, the shackles came off. Finally, business processes could be greatly accelerated without relying on the byproducts of dead trees.

As a primer on eForms and document assembly, here is what I’ll be educating the community on in the future. Instead of printing documents, you focus on using your existing electronic documents, like Word documents and PDFs, and enable that process to be completed 100 percent digitally. The goal is to make content capture as easy as buying something on the app store—it just works. Instant gratification is yours.

On the backend, you can connect that information automatically to a variety of systems in a read/write fashion. Thus, not only can you reuse data, but you can automatically import it into repositories. Finally, once you have content captured, how do you put it to work? How does it filter through the seams of progress for which it was initially intended?

We all know that the instances of data impurities rise exponentially with the number of times it interacts with us error-prone, heavily YouTube-addled cubicle drones. So, let’s find a way to break our co-dependency on manual data input. We should just let our data fly into its own, pre-designated environments of market research, sales, operations, HR and any other department that starts its day with the information we collect on forms. After all, if our data doesn’t need us anymore to be routed, we can just spend more time watching stuff like Chocolate Rain.

For more information on how I do it, visit www.lincware.com , or contact me to set up a free (like air) trial.