Mobile Forms: The Easier Way to Do Business
Using paper forms can be a slow and painful process, both for the employee filling out the form and the administrator processing the paperwork. This inconvenience can translate into significant productivity losses for your business.
Take a systematic look at the problems of paperwork, and learn how you can reduce friction in your business operations by using a mobile forms app to gather and share information.
How Paperwork Impacts Your Business
Begin by considering the aspects that have made paper forms a useful tool for so many years.
- They’re a structured way to gather information, ensuring that staff members specify all the necessary points.
- Paperwork is inherently mobile, allowing clipboards to be carried to remote job sites and forms to be stored in delivery trucks and completed anywhere it’s convenient.
- Paper forms also provide the flexibility to add handwritten notes or drawings, or to get signatures.
However, paper forms can be an enormous source of frustration. They’re a very slow method for sharing information. They must be hand-delivered, and digital delivery would require the multi-step process of scanning, attaching the file to an email and printing out the file before it could then be entered into your business software.
After re-entering information into the computer, those processing the paperwork would face the unautomated task of distributing the information to necessary staff members or data systems. Then, there’s the problem of following up on illegible handwriting or incomplete information. There’s also the situation of damaged forms; after all, spilled coffee happens in even the best of circumstances.
On the flip side, employees filling out paper forms have a different set of problems. For example, construction crews could face site delays while they’re waiting for their materials purchase order to be processed. Survey teams may have to re-type information at the end of the day in order to submit it to HQ. Plus, there’s the annoyance of not having the exact form that you need.
Going Digital with Your Business Forms
There’s an easier way to do business than by using paperwork.
Today’s smartphones and tablets provide businesses with the hardware needed to streamline operations. By using a mobile app to digitize your form submission and data collection, your business can increase its productivity, reduce friction points and automate processes.
Device Magic is a leading mobile forms provider, offering apps for both iOS and Android devices. App users have access to business forms with just a few taps, and administrators can even create user groups to specify form access based on business role.
A key advantage to using Device Magic is that you have all the form customization options without needing to build an app from scratch. Using the drag and drop form builder, you can create any type of form or data collection tool. Additionally, the app can collect multiple data types, including text, photos, sketches, GPS location, signatures and more.
Using Device Magic for mobile forms lets businesses focus on the user interface with which information is being gathered, as well as what actions should be taken in response to submitted forms. Enterprise users even have the option to create a white label app that’s branded to their business.
Using a Business App for Forms
Employees filling out digital forms via a mobile app have a significant advantage over those using an inefficient analog technology.
With Device Magic’s mobile forms, users can input information while they’re on the go and from any location. This prevents forms from being a separate task, and it can initiate action loops more quickly. There’s even an offline access feature so mobile forms can be completed when out of range, and Device Magic will automatically submit the data when the signal is restored.
Business apps also make forms more accessible and organized. When From the Farmer switched to Device Magic, it saw a massive improvement in driver compliance because forms were easy to fill out and readily available via a smartphone. After the switch, 95 percent of drivers were completing the sign in/sign out process.
Operational Advantages to Mobile Forms Apps
From an operational perspective, businesses that switch to mobile forms can see a three to five times improvement in the speed that data is shared. This is a significant productivity gain, allowing your team to work smarter and accomplish more.
Administrators praise Device Magic’s workflows feature, which automates processes. For example, submitting a delivery confirmation form could automatically trigger a customized PDF receipt being sent to the customer. Businesses can even set up conditional workflows so different activity happens based upon the information entered into the form. For example, managers may only want to review field reports if the site inspection failed.
Additionally, the 26+ built-in integrations allow you to seamlessly update your other business software with information that was entered into the mobile forms app. In one case, new information about a customer could be integrated into his or her Salesforce records. Other businesses use completed project reports to trigger a Slack notification. In another case, businesses may want inspection photos to sync to Google Drive.
Getting Started with Device Magic
Using a mobile forms app is a key way that businesses can improve productivity. In fact, Device Magic users report that field reps save an average of 11 hours per week, and administrators save an average of 10 hours per week. See how you can get started transforming your business with mobile forms in 30 minutes, and digitize your forms today with a free 14-day trial.