Local governments can quickly become swamped in forms, not just the number submitted, but the variety of forms too, which might include marriage licenses, business licenses, construction permits, and so many others.

With forms being one of the most common ways to gather information, be it from staff or clients, the ability to quickly design and modify forms is crucial, and the best way to do that is by designing online forms.

Online forms can be quickly deployed and have so many advantages over paper forms, which usually require people to apply in person, and even wait in long line-ups at inconvenient hours, perhaps requiring them to take time off work, which just isn’t very citizen friendly.

Paper-based forms are also slower to process than online forms. But, you might be thinking, going online sounds even more complicated. Won’t I need a programmer?

Fear not! Formsflow.ai is a user-friendly, forms-and-workflow software solution that makes it easy for you to create and update online forms. You don’t even have to be a programmer. In fact, you can be just a regular “business user” in the office who has the skills and motivation to quickly learn how to design forms.

If you like to impress people with your Excel skills, using formsflow.ai to design your own forms should be a breeze. The approach is called “low code,” meaning you can easily use formsflow.ai’s drag-and-drop interface to place various boxes, buttons, and other elements into your new form.

And once an applicant has submitted the form online, formsflow.ai can keep track of the form’s workflow by alerting one or more designated employees that another application is ready for them to look at. You can tell formsflow.ai in advance who should be working on the form at each stage of the process.

This is thanks to formsflow.ai’s ability to use Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). It too, is open source, and again, you can use drag and drop to get what you want, in this case, a mapping out of your workflow and how forms fit into those stages.

And not only can formsflow.ai automatically assign duties during the workflow, it can use Business Process Automation (BPA) to quickly perform tasks based on certain conditions, relieving your staff of various tedious tasks. At its most advanced, you can even add bots by relying on robotic process automation (RPA).

And if form design and BPA weren’t enough, there are also data analytics—the ability to get the content of your forms and the progress of your workflow analyzed, with the results displayed on attractive dashboards.

As an open-source digital transformation consultant working out of AOT Technologies’ Portland office, I’m spreading the word about formsflow.ai to both the public and private sectors. It’s a software solution we’re proud to be contributing to the open-source community.

And because formsflow.ai is open source, it’s free to try, free to install, and free to use. Of course, if you need some help from us we’re happy to offer our professional services, but that’s totally up to you. There’s no obligation and no salesman will call—unless you want them to!

I love talking about formsflow.ai and all its wonderful features, particularly for governments at all levels, so I’m looking forward to attending AOC’s annual conference this November. I see the get-together as an opportunity to learn more about your needs and how formsflow.ai might fit into a solution that works right for you.

But why wait till November! Feel free to contact me at matthew.anderson@formsflow.ai, or visit us at www.formsflow.ai! We’ll be happy to provide you with more details. 

So get in touch now, or look for the formsflow.ai booth this November.

It’s about time you made forms work for you, not against you!

Contributed by: Matthew Anderson | AOT Technologies, Open-source Digital Transformation Consultant

*Sponsored content provided by AOC Business Partner.