FAQ: What are mobile forms?
Any professional knows the perils of paperwork and document processing – it’s a task no one enjoys, but many have been obliged to endure.
As the digital age gained strength within the business world, modern operations sought out digital solutions to traditional paperwork and record-keeping, resulting in the adoption of mobile forms by technological early adopters. Now, mobile forms are a mission-critical component of many modern businesses – adding further importance to data quality and elevating customer expectations.
However, not all mobile form solutions were created equal. Follow along as we explore ‘mobile forms’ and help you identify the solution best suited for your operation.
What are ‘mobile forms’?
Mobile forms are digital versions of traditional paper forms, created as applications for smartphones, tablets and computers.
With digital forms, users can complete critical, daily documents, like Inspections, Audits, and Safety Checklists, from the field and digitally submit them to the back-office for instant review. This streamlined, automated solution to mobile forms increases business agility, allowing your team to capitalize on timely opportunities and immediately address obstacles to productivity. Many digital forms applications also work offline, so they can be completed from remote locations and are optimal in conditions that would be inconvenient (or even impossible) with paper forms.
Mobile forms also empower your team to collect new types of data that paper forms simply cannot handle. For example, using mobile forms, field teams can include project Images, GPS coordinates, Sketches and even Barcode data.
Why ditch paper?
According to Mashable, “the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper every year”, a staggering sum that leads to a collective “4 million tons of copy paper used in one year in the U.S. alone”. This jaw-dropping statistic holds incredible environmental and financial significance for businesses everywhere: ditch paper to benefit your bottomline… and your planet.
Ditching paper for mobile forms empowers businesses to better connect their personnel – improving communication, expediting data collection and increasing accountability… all at the speed of digital! While paper forms require handwritten data entry, manual delivery of completed documents, rekeying into digital systems and physical storage, mobile forms can be completed rapidly, submitted instantly, automatically routed to other business apps and stored in the Cloud. The ‘instantaneous’ nature of digital solutions reduces administrative demands and processing times, while simultaneously diminishing the need for physical resources (like paper, filing space, fuel, etc.), resulting in incredible savings.
“We gained efficiencies in the field by 15% because we can now deliver documents right away to our customers. Which led to our customer satisfaction increasing.”
More than just a form
Leveraging ‘mobile forms’ means so much more than simply filling out forms on a phone rather than paper. With mobile forms you can automate daily tasks (like form delivery, record-keeping, et.c) that would otherwise require additional time and budget wasted. For example, consider the two scenarios below:
Completing and delivering Timesheets, with paper forms
Jim, an on-site construction supervisor, needs to turn in his weekly timesheet, before he can leave for the weekend. Because his company uses paper forms, Jim needs to fill out his Timesheet by hand and deliver his completed Timesheet to the back-office… 30 minutes away. Once he reaches the office, Jim delivers his Timesheet to payroll, where he realizes two days worth of work data is missing! He estimates his approximate hours, and adjusts his total hours worked by hand.Completing and delivering Timesheets, with mobile forms
Karen, an HVACR inspector, needs to submit her Timesheet for the week, before she can leave for the weekend. Because her company uses mobile forms, Karen’s form has instantly populated her user information (e.g. name, email, phone, department). Karen adds her work information and her form automatically calculates her hourly and payroll totals. She adds her digital Signature and hits complete. Her Timesheet is automatically emailed to Payroll, as well as her supervisor, for review.
As displayed in the example above, mobile forms hold incredible potential for streamlining your daily workflows and saving your team time. Features like Automated Workflows, Automatic Calculations, Digital Signature Boxes and Drop Downs simplify the collection of critical data, and can even be made Required, ensuring important fields are completed before a form is submitted. Additionally, forms can also be dispatched pre-filled with information, further expediting document completion.
Why GoFormz?
GoFormz is the only mobile forms solution with the ability to create identical, digital versions of your existing forms. Using GoFormz, you can present your team with the same forms they have been using for years… only digital! This familiar user experience simplifies user adoption and eliminates the need for retraining.
GoFormz also provides users with a small-screen-optimized viewing mode, perfect for phone screens. Users can easily toggle between their regular Form View (which looks like the paper forms they know) and List View (an “app-like” index of fields) as they need.
Interested in learning more about what GoFormz can do for your operation? Click here or the button below to learn How Mobile Forms Work.