3 Reasons Smart Mobile Forms are Better Than Fillable PDFs
Mobile forms are more flexible, professional, and accurate than traditional, fillable PDFs
When making the switch to digital, many businesses first turn to fillable PDFs for their data capture needs – before realizing the resulting electronic documents aren't much better than their original, paper forms. Although traditional, fillable PDF documents can be filled out on a tablet or smartphone, they still result in a static, isolated record of information.
At GoFormz we are pioneering a new breed of smart mobile forms that are not only rich with features, such as signatures, form logic, and collaboration tools, but are also closely tied to a robust backend system. These digital forms go further than traditional, fillable PDFs, providing not only a modern, professional final document but also structured access to all of the rich data captured within your form.
In short, you use our smart mobile forms to collect the data, and then use our cloud-based platform to access, manage and analyze that data. And the benefits don’t stop there – here are 3 reasons smart mobile forms are better than fillable PDFs:
1. Smart mobile forms are dynamic and ‘intelligent.’ While fillable PDFs effectively allow basic annotation of a form, smart mobile forms can automate calculations, integrate data sources to pre-fill fields accurately, and enable things like conditional if-then logic for your form fields. Where fillable PDFs are nice annotation tools, smart mobile forms are data collection workhorses that can dynamically adapt to your data capture needs.
2. Smart mobile form platforms store and track all documents. Fillable PDFs require users to store them on their own computers or in a cloud storage system. For many companies, different documents could be stored in a variety of platforms and locations, and are often difficult to find when needed. Smart mobile form systems streamline document storage and recall, aggregating documents completed across your company within one location, while leveraging powerful features, like instant form labeling (tagging) to simplify search later on. Utilizing Automated Workflows, you can even instantly route completed forms to connect business applications, like Box, Dropbox, Google Suite, Salesforce, Autodesk, Procore, and more!
3. Smart mobile form systems track the data, not just the documents. Fillable PDFs are simple, isolated records. Smart mobile forms, however, provide not only access to electronic documents, but also extract all of the critical data that was captured in every field of the form. Businesses that implement smart mobile form systems are better able to compete because they have easy access to important data captured in the field anywhere, anytime. Leveraging our variety of integrations and robust API, you can even instantly update corresponding records within connected applications with form data.
To learn more about how GoFormz can help your team, sign up for a free today or request a demo of our platform here! You can also explore our How Mobile Forms Work page to learn more about how your operation can leverage digital data capture.