Lookups; the key to mobile forms that makes them truly useful & powerful

Companies that convert paper forms to electronic forms are finding massive savings and efficiency gains. Less paperwork needs to be managed, data only needs to be entered once, mistakes are minimized and information is available faster to support better decisions.

But online forms can do so much more and provide massive benefits to mobile workers - thanks to the power of "lookups."

Lookups can intelligently pull and manipulate a variety of information from a variety of sources to help field workers do their jobs more effectively.

Here are some examples of what lookups can do. Let’s suppose a service technician is out in the field to inspect and repair an industrial boiler.

• When the technician enters a temperature reading for the vent gas, the form can look up to see if that reading is acceptable or possibly dangerous and warn the technician accordingly.
• While on site, if the technician needs to get in touch with the building operator, they can look up the contact information for the building supervisor and even initiate a call or text.
• If a replacement part is necessary, the form can look up to database (online or offline) to see if the part is in stock.
• If the technician is unsure how to complete a repair, they can look up technical manuals and videos that are stored right on their mobile device to assist them. Again this should be possible whether there is signal or not.
• If the system should be taken down for maintenance, the form can lookup to see if there are other repairs that should be performed at the same time.
• Before the technician starts the repair, they can see the service history of the equipment to alert them of what to look for. For example, a previous notice may indicate to be on the lookout for excessive corrosion around a safety valve.
• The form can look up temperature data from an online data source (API) before advising whether the boiler should be taken out of commission for regular maintenance.

To get a practical idea of what makes Alpha TransForm stand out - click here for a series of slides

Alpha TransForm is the only online data capture/forms product with an online/offline look up database. So if any of these scenarios are something you want in your data collection forms application, your search is over.