Formworks is a new iPad app and cloud service that allows users to create forms and publish them to one or more iPads. The app was launched onto the App store in June this year and is still in the early stages of development. Before I go any further, I should point out that this is an iPad-only service, at least for now.
The target market for Formworks is really any client facing team who are regularly out in the field collecting data. You can see the potential clients: ‘on the move’ sales teams, hospital staff, market research teams and trade shows. The development team claim that it cuts data processing and order completion time in half.
Understanding Formworks
There are two different licenses for Formworks. The Standard licence comes in at £15.95 per month and the Pro licence costs £24.95 per month. The Pro License comes with additional capabilities such as the ability to create certain types of form fields, and it also features handwriting recognition. Neither license restricts the number of users who can manage and/or use forms.
The Formworks application has two different parts. The first involves the creation and management of form templates and data management within the cloud: this is all done on the Formworks website. The second part is the app which allows the iPad users to complete form templates and instantly send the data back to the office. I’ll begin by looking at the Formworks site and the cloud tools.
The Formworks site
The cloud management tool is simple and uncluttered. I hope the developers forgive me for saying it could be prettier, but it works well. Users can create and manage their form templates and perform admin tasks. The Form Templates area of the management tool allows users to design and publish the templates that are available in the app.
Creating and editing form templates is easily done using a simple and intuitive drag and drop form builder. Users can build form templates with multiple pages and include a variety of fields set with specific requirements, e.g. checkboxes, text and date fields, signature fields etc. The form templates are stored on Formworks server and can be edited, deleted and duplicated. Multiple versions of each active form can also be created.
Publishing forms on the iPad
Once the form templates have been built, an administrator can choose which version to publish to the organisation’s iPad(s). There are limits on the number of active form templates an organisation can have: the Standard license allows for 20 and the Pro license will give you 50.
Managing users, user groups and devices is also easily achieved through the cloud tool. There are three roles that can be given to people within an organisation: Administrators, Form Authors and Device Users. Administrators have access to the administration area of the site, whereas Device Users can only access the Formworks app on an iPad – they cannot edit forms. Groups are created to organise which Form Authors have access to which form templates.
There are no limits on the number of different people who can be given roles and there are no limits on the number of devices that can make use of the Formworks app and the organisation’s form templates. This is a nice touch which broadens the appeal of Formworks considerably.
The Formworks iPad app
Once form templates have been published in the cloud tool, they are available on the iPad app for an organisation’s device users to fill in. The app is straight forward and easy to navigate. New data capture can be triggered, incomplete data can be updated and complete data can be submitted back to the cloud.
The next couple of screenshots are taken directly from the iPad.
Once a form has been selected, the Device User taps each field and completes the data as required. This is usually done using the keyboard, but for organisations with the Pro license, the app also comes with an excellent handwriting recognition feature, allowing data to be written directly on to the iPad. The handwriting recognition works really well and is a fun tool, but without a smart pen, there’s obviously a limit to its accuracy. Nonetheless, I found the handwriting recognition worked really well as long as I was careful.
Completed forms are added to the Recently Submitted Forms list in the app. Data is automatically exported via email or posted to an FTP server in the form of an XML, CSV or PDF. How the data is exported is managed in the cloud tool, and the data from each type of form template can be directed to specific groups (for example, you may want data from an order form to go to an order processing team, whilst data from a complaints form may need to go to a complaints department). The different export types also make it easy for organisations to plug the data into any other systems or databases they use for managing sales or other information.
A useful tool
Formworks is a really good way to streamline a task which is fairly tedious when done manually. It frees up field staff from always having to carry a laptop, and there’s no delay between submitting form data and receiving usable results.
The clever integration of cloud and app is really nice: it opens all kinds of doors for two-way publishing and data capture on the iPad. Using a cloud tool to actually build the forms is a nice way to keep things simple, and the drag and drop editor is definitely the shining star of the application. Some parts of the admin area in the cloud tool are a little clunky compared to other cloud services we’ve reviewed, but there’s nothing wrong with the functionality.
Over time, it will be interesting to see Formworks evolve. It would be great if it integrated with other cloud services. Xero immediately springs to mind as a prime candidate for this, and I can see RightSignature integration being a massive hit with anyone who needs to collect signatures on screen. It would also be nice to see the app available on other platforms or perhaps a mini version for the iPhone. For now, Formworks and its app are both highly usable, and we’re looking forward to watching them evolve.
