Can anyone tell me if form tools allows you to...

[nlampedecchio]

Hi everyone,

I have come across form tools as I am attempting to create a way to manage form information electronically.

I have challenging and pressing set of needs and they are as follows:

-Paper form to electronic conversion (should be easy)
-Electronic data managent (should be easy)
-Simplification of forms (getting more difficult)
-The ability to display form data either in it's simplified state or in it's original state (becoming increasingly more challenging)
-The ability to auto populate electronic forms (shouldn't be too tough)
-The ability to expand or contract bulky forms based on the information that is entered into the form (is this possible?)

These are just a few of the needs I have, but if form tools can do what I Have listed here and it's under the general public license, our company will be fans for life.

Can anyone here on these forums provide any insight as to whether or not form tools is capable of doing the items mentioned above?

Thank everyone so much in advance.

Sincerely,

Nick Lampedecchio
Industrial Electronic Systems, Inc

[michatmaster7]

Hi Nick -

Welcome to FormTools!

If you choose to use FormTools to add forms manually, it can do almost everything you've mentioned, with the following exceptions (to the best of my knowledge):

-Paper form to electronic conversion (should be easy)
-Simplification of forms (getting more difficult)
-The ability to expand or contract bulky forms based on the information that is entered into the form (is this possible?)

Converting a paper product into an electronic version is going to require manually creating the form one way or another. To my understanding, there is no magic scanner that just creates a digital form from a piece of paper. Sorry

What do you mean "simplification of forms"?

The ability to expand or contract forms based on the information entered: Do you mean the form's submission results or the form before it is submitted? Either way, it can be accomplished, but that would require some custom web coding, something I don't think FormTools does.

All of that said, you may want to look through the documentation pages listed regarding Ben's new Form Builder module. I am not familiar with it yet, but it may be able to do a little more without requiring too much knowledge of website programming.

Would you be using FormTools in a website environment (wanting to display forms and results in a website), or just use the admin area to display results, etc?

Perhaps if you give us a little better idea of what the forms will be doing and the types of information it will be collecting, someone here can be a little more specific than I am, since I'm not the expert here.

---

PS - Here is the main link to the Form Builder Module I mentioned. It's a new feature and a premium tool (paid and licensed per domain): http://modules.formtools.org/form_builder/

---

I just saw your post over in the Say Hello area:

I work in the construction industry and we have several large forms that we constantly have to fill out for different projects. We would like a way to electronically manage the form data, allow us to auto enter it on various forms, allow us to hide certain parts of the form based on necessity, etc

I am hoping form tools will allow me to upload/create forms, manage the data input on these forms electronically, show a simplified version of the form, but still show the data either in it's simplified form, or in it's original form. Does that make sense?

I think FormTools can be a powerful resource for you, but it sounds like it would be best suited on a WebSite where the people filling out the forms can click a link to visit a form, then fill it out, etc. Do you have a website already? Someone who manages or codes it for you? (An HTML or PHP programmer?)

[nlampedecchio]

Hello Michatmaster7! Thanks for your reply. We have internal servers we can use as a server for this purposes, generally our forms are filled out internally so really we would just need to provide our users with some sort of local IP, and credentials to access it. I'll go ahead and get this started and see what we can do with it. I'll be coming back here to ask questions as necessary but i'll at least try to get it started.

Thanks again!

-Nick

[michatmaster7]

Anytime. That's really the best thing you can do. I mean, the best learning for me has been hands on with random technologies I've needed, FormTools included. I think once you get through the installation and setup and start playing with it and reading the documentation, you'll get a better idea of whether it will work for you. We'll try to answer your questions as you have them.