Spotlight Feature: Calculated Fields in Your Mobile Forms
Calculated Fields are one of our most popular mobile forms features.
These fields save you lots of time that would otherwise be spent on manually performing calculations. Calculated Fields also provide accurate results and help you avoid the simple errors that occur with pen & paper calculations. These self-calculating form fields can be used in any form that requires numeric totaling such as employee timesheets, job proposals, work orders, etc.
A calculated field is essentially a way to define formulas in a field. Whether it’s addition or multiplication, calculated fields automatically do the math for you. You can reference other fields in your form as values in the equation. For example, you can define a Total field as a calculated field that multiplies the Quantity field value by the value in the Rate field. So the Total field will self-calculate a value of: Quantity x Rate = Total.
Calculated Fields are easy to set up in your forms. For more information, please be sure to check out our ProTip on how to add calculations and totals to your form.
Use Case: The Expense Report
Expense reports help employees track, total, and submit expense reimbursements for business related activities such as for trips, meetings and supplies. The form also captures other important details such as purpose and description of items purchased, as well as receipts.
Expense reports may look simple, but they can quickly become complex when it comes to actually filling one out. Current paper processes require employees to attach itemized receipts as proof of purchase. This means there is a lot of paper that needs to be saved, itemized and submitted with a single expense form. When conducting several transactions a day, tracking all of the receipts can become burdensome. Collating and totaling each expense manually can be tedious and error-prone.
By using a mobile form with pre-set Calculated Fields, the employee doesn’t have to worry about doing the math. Simply type in the description of the expense with its associated expense cost, and the fields automatically calculate the totals. For greater detail, the form can include expense categories with their own sub-totals. As the employee continues to add entries throughout the duration of a trip, the form’s grand total will automatically be updated.
Implementing image fields into the form makes it easy for the employee to submit copies of receipts - simply snap photos of receipts with the mobile device’s camera and include them in the mobile form. This removes the burden of keeping track of all of the small pieces of paper and processing them for submission.
By tapping [Complete], the expense report is automatically sent to the appropriate supervisor for review, making the submission process fast, easy and direct.
