For the past seven years my professional focus has gradually shifted from the integration of CAD and GIS to web based application development tools and enterprise application integration. Workflow automation is critical to any integration project. The best application in the world loses value quickly if the end users do not see immediate benefits.

Capturx Forms for Excel has the potential to address one of the key problems in workflow automation – assisting in moving field collected data transparently to the backend or enterprise database.

Installation

Insert the CD – follow the setup instructions, register the software using they key provided by email and presto I was done…. at least I thought I was until I did the normal Start-Programs-Adapx-Capturx Forms for Microsoft Excel. Where was the program? A user’s manual (sweet), a video file (nice) and some licensing information.

After a few seconds of consternation I realized I only had to start Excel. Sure enough there was the Capturx tab I was expecting.

Getting Started – Creating My First Form

Given my perceived complexity of Capturx Forms for Excel, I actually read the user’s manual. The good news was this was not really required. The interface is absolutely intuitive – open up Excel and start laying out your form.

I added some descriptive text, merged some cells to create larger cells for pen input, used the borders tool to identify the data input fields when printed and pressed the print preview button – OOPS my form ran across a few pages.

Here’s the trick:

1. Set the column width for all columns to a smaller size – I used 0.25”.
2. Do the same for the row height. You basically now have a grid pattern that is 0.25” square.
3. Switch Excel to Page Layout View
4. Layout your form in Page Layout View – to ensure that the entire form stays on a single page.

Once the basic layout was established, the remainder of the Capturx Forms interface was absolutely intuitive. You simply select one of the cells which will be used for data input and apply a format to it.

The Capturx Tab in Excel supports two types of formatting. The standard format shown here permits you to apply a standard Excel type to the cell.

Any cell in “general” format is ignored by Capturx.

Adding a standard format enables the cell as a Capturx cell and the text recognition software will translate the hand written input.

The specialized formatting shown here provides a framework for the text recognition software and improves the overall accuracy of the translation as the software is looking for specific input.

For example State Code automatically applies a state list to the input. Country filters the input based on a list of countries. Email looks for the @ symbol etc.

It was a simple matter to run through each of the fields applying the appropriate formatting parameters.

Pressing the highlight option allowed me to immediately see the fields that were Capturx enabled and the formatting that had been applied.

Printing the form was also a breeze with the Print With Capturx button.

Overall, the interface is completely intuitive.

The Proof is in the Pudding – Would Capturx Really Recognize My Writing?

We had friends from out of state visiting for dinner Sunday afternoon so I printed a number of forms, and enjoyed watching a group of completely non-technical users begin to fill in my survey form.

No instructions were required and all were amazed (myself included) when we plugged the pen into the computer and the forms were automatically uploaded into separate forms.

How did it work? Amazingly well! With the proviso that we had a small sample size of 8 we achieved the following statistics:

• Dates – 100%
• Email addresses – 87% (one email had an extra space – A OL.com instead of AOL.com)
• Street Numbers – 100%
• Free form Text – all needed some editing but overall translation was pretty good.
• State – 100%
• Country – well given that I had labeled this as County and not Country it was amazing how the software interpreted the nearest country from the county that had been entered.

An interesting observation was that Capturx worked much better with hand written script compared to printing.

I don’t think Adapx would ever promise this level accuracy and the users were likely more careful than the average person in the field – but the level of accuracy surprise me.

The Bottom Line on Capturx Forms for Excel

Getting accurate data from the field into the office in a cost effective manner with minimal field staff resistance remains an unsolved problem – Capturx Forms for Excel goes a long way to solving this problem:

1. It is natural – writing on printed forms is a familiar environment
2. It is transparent – attaching the pen to the source computer loads the data automatically
3. Review interface is quick – some interpretation is required but 80% to 90% of the data will already be there and the handwritten data is easily accessible when manual input is required.

If your forms have standard lookup lists, check boxes etc than you can expect close to 100% translation. With free form text you will need manual interpretation.

The Capturx Forms for Excel documentation includes an Appendix which provides an overview of creating customized data input formats. This appears to be one of those gems which will result in even greater data conversion precision – something I will have to look at in more detail.

Suggestion – Perhaps adding a shortcut to Excel on the Capturx Forms for Microsoft Excel tab would eliminate the initial confusion for a new user. As a minimum this step should be added to future Quick Start Instructions or as the last user prompt after installation.

Next Steps – Database Integration

Adapx’s role stops once the data has been returned to Excel.

Darrin and I have been developing and deploying web based solutions that can be configured instead of programmed for selected clients over the past 4 years. The core technology- RADE – supports simultaneous connections to multiple data sources and permits uses to configure reports, queries, charts and web based mapping interfaces. Administrators assign users to user groups and can configure and deploy reporting and mapping applications in a secure environment.

We had developed the requirements and specifications for round tripping data from a database to Excel where users could edit the data in a familiar environment and then post it back to the database.

Capturx Forms for Excel allows us to take this one step further – really full circle – where we can push structured data like a work order from the database, to a form where it can be printed, filled in by field staff, returned to Excel and then posted to the database. We have named this concept FullCircle and are experimenting with the process to allow:

1. Mapping database tables, fields and constraints to Capturx forms

2. Loading Capturx forms into the database where they can be managed and retrieved as an enterprise asset

3. Uploading and populating the source database tables with field captured data

I am looking forward to putting the FullCircle concept through its paces this week with some Oracle based application data.