Manual Data Collection slowing you down?
Time for a Digital Transformation

Ask an insurance agent, government worker, or even a court manager what their biggest challenge is to serving customers, constituents and citizens, and they could probably sum it up in one word: forms.
Providing affordable housing to a needy family, processing an insurance claim after a tragic accident, or walking uncertain civilians through the court process is fulfilling – until it’s not. Until the struggling parent can’t afford to snail mail or drive the paperwork to your office. Until the accident victim is propped up in a hospital bed stressing over a confusing questionnaire. Until the divorcee’s filing is sent back to them for the third time, delaying their ability to move forward.
Interactions between service providers and customers should never fall short of efficient, and online forms with electronic workflows can help you seal that promise to every customer. With streamlined data collection, you can ensure:
- Typed responses are legible for both the servicer and perfect, automated indexing
- Rules-based processing for accurate data collection the first time around
- Mitigated risk for error or send-backs
- Data confidentiality and security
FINDING A FIT FOR YOUR FORM
As with many things, there is not a one-size-fits-all form. An insurance agent may want a character-counted recollection of the accident, while the department of transportation only asks that constituents check a few boxes. You may even have various forms for various incidents, or one for the public and one for internal use.
With three types of forms at your fingertips, OnBase allows you to design a form to fit your every need. Regardless of which form designer you choose, OnBase guarantees the data collected will be securely stored, read by automation, perfectly indexed, and routed through the appropriate workflow to keep all processes moving forward.
Which form designer best fits your needs? Let’s find out.
HTML Forms
As you might have guessed from the name, HTML forms are electronic forms designed for display in a web browser. Customizable to look and serve almost every need, HTML forms, designed by a programmer or web designer using third-party tools, allow you to develop the page to read the way you want users to understand and complete the form. Depending on how the webpage-based form is designed, on-the-go users may be able to access it from a mobile device.
Once submitted, the niche data collected is routed through a digital workflow to the next step for processing.
Need an example? Imagine you are requesting a large-item pickup. On a traditional website, you would go online only to be overwhelmed with pages of information on different types of requests, even though you only want to request a large-item pick up.
But when you leverage your existing investment in HTML forms and map form fields to OnBase data fields, users easily navigate to a “large-item pick-up request” webpage, read only the information that pertains to them, and fill in the necessary information. Then, with a click of a button, the data is processed in an internal system and en route to the person who will make the pickup happen.
OnBase Unity Forms
With a drag-and-drop, point-and-click form designer, anyone at a business analyst’s level can generate a variety of forms without writing a single line of code, and in much less time than programming an HTML form.
Whether you’re trying to make it easier for staff to submit PTO requests, constituents to report crater-sized potholes or for customers to submit insurance claims, Unity forms makes it easy to attach supporting documentation such as photos, videos, doctor’s notes and more. Even better, support rules guide users by hiding certain fields or displaying new ones based on the information entered. For example, if someone signs on to file an insurance claim, the user can either enter in an existing claim number to update their information, or key a new number to generate a new case. Unity forms even supports scripting and advanced validations, which allows users to access information databases, such as confirming an address with the US Postal System.
Already acquainted with your system’s keywords, form designers need not worry about mapping because everything is already built in. Additional features you’ll love include tables, structured fields, required fields, calculation fields, drop-downs and signature boxes.
So whether a form is on a public-facing webpage, your organization’s intranet or a mobile device, OnBase provides a secure portal for everyone to access and submit the data needed to keep processes moving.
OnBase Image Forms
OnBase Image Forms uses your existing forms (particularly official forms) and turns them into live, compliant forms that can be filled out online, electronically submitted and immediately routed through an OnBase workflow. Doing so chops the time it would take to manually fill out and snail-mail forms for processing.
And for occasions when users must mail in a physical copy, they and the receiver can rest assured that the typed print will be legible for human eyes and for OnBase. Upon scanning it in, OnBase will be able to accurately read and capture the data and use it for rules-based processing.
Image Forms saves you the time of having to redesign forms from scratch by using an electronic copy, or scanned image, of your existing form. You simply drag and drop the same popular features of Unity Forms onto the desired form fields, including custom actions, signatures, tables and calculations. The fields can also be validated with commands like “numeric only,” or formatted for structured entry, such as a phone number, to ensure the accurate capture of required information. When ready, these forms can be published on public-facing websites or used for internal purposes.
One of the best features about Image Forms is that you can lock fields of electronic submissions that have an unalterable audit trail. Your organization and the submitter will have unwavering confidence in the integrity of the form data and its detailed record of every user that has touched or processed the data.
MOVING FORWARD WITH EFORMS
Going digital with data collection does more than bring you up-to-speed with the times. No more data entry errors, re-keyed data, or backlogged inboxes means your staff and organization are more efficient, transparent and held accountable for their responsibilities. This, of course, lends itself to more satisfied customers and constituents, which empowers everyone to do more together.
FORM-ER PAINS TURNED POSITIVE
- Typed data is legible for readers and scanners
- Perfect indexing
- Rules-based processing
- Workflow-ready
- Mitigated risk for human error
- Secure data storage
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
- Calendar-range date selection
- Single or multiple selection check boxes
- Sign with a mouse, finder on a tablet or a signature pad
- Custom actions required fields or checking for signatures
- Format field entries, such as SSN and phone numbers
- Validate information
- Search and prefill values with a database lookup
READY FOR A DEMO?
Got all the info you need and ready to talk to us about next steps?