How it Works

How does the process of having no digital forms through to having a functioning system work for you ?  Well it partly depends on what kind of form you need and also exactly where you want to "host" (ie keep) your forms system and data.


Let's start with the form(s) themselves. We classify forms as Simple, Standard or Complex. Please look at the Example Forms  page for detail on what each term means. We can show you sample forms to meet a large variety of situations or you might start with either an existing paper form or a pencil & paper sketch of what you want the form to look like. Once we have jointly agreed a design for the form then our programmers will then turn it into a working form for you to test.

A Complex form will need additional work in either agreeing additional forms (to be used for holding lookup data) or discussing what information could be "looked up" form say your accounting system or a customer database.

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Hosting Options.
This means choosing between ECOForms hosting your forms system, putting ECOForms on your own company network  or a third option where we  put a managed server (or a virtual machine) on your network but we manage that server and the data stored on it for you. The latter two options (essentially variations on a theme) are best suited to larger clients who, perhaps, have in house IT expertise or prefer all their data and working systems be on their own premises rather than remotely "in the cloud". It's your choice.

Common Features (regardless of hosting method)
Whatever your choice of hosting method your ECOForms system will have.........

  1. A way of managing users - adding or deleting people who can use the system, and determining exactly what they can do or see.
  2. A way of changing form status - for instance it may be that a specific form cannot be fully filled in at one go so it can be "put on hold" until the process can be completed then taken Off Hold. This is useful for segregating incomplete forms from the mass of old data.
  3. Produce PDF copies of data on forms and, optionally, send them by email to interested parties (eg: customer copies )
  4. A means of searching through stacks of forms looking for those which meet certain criteria. Example looking for instances of a particular kind of fault ocuring on a certain brand of item between two dates. Specifying how to look is by an easy to use method known a Query By Example where you fill in a look alike empty form with examples of what you're searching for with an option to export the resulting information to either CSV file (for spreadsheets) or a JSON file for some databases.
  5. The ability for permitted users to examine the history of data entered into a form so that you can easily work out who entered what and exactly when they did it. This is invaluable where there are errors in forms which are part of a track & trace system or one which is used for quality assurance audits.