What to Look for in a Mobile Form Builder

Finding the right form builder for your business is an important decision. Today’s form builders are offered as cloud-based solutions, where you can login to the platform online and start building forms to be deployed on a mobile app or web browser.

There are limitless ways companies can use forms for their business. 

Most often forms are used to collect information from different groups of employees in the field or on a job site. Common examples include things like work orders, inspections, timesheets, estimates, reports, invoices, and more. Forms can be used anytime you need to collect and share information between your field teams, office staff, management, customers, partners, and other key stakeholders for your business.

Top 3 Considerations When Selecting a Form Builder

So what should you look for when selecting a mobile form builder? The answer to that question will entirely depend on your business needs. This article will cover some of the top considerations when selecting a mobile form builder, so you can make an informed decision. 

#1. How Easy is the Form Builder to Use?

Ease-of-use is an important factor for growing businesses. You don’t want to invest in software and have a difficult experience making it successful or finding out later that the user experience makes it difficult to gain adoption.

So what makes a form builder easy to use?

No Code or Low Code. 

A no code or low code form builder essentially means that you do not need to dedicate development resources to deploy the forms. The form builder will use drag and drop functionality and you can develop forms and apps without any advanced technical knowledge required.

This feature is incredibly important for how businesses work today. Tools for the workforce should be designed with simplicity in mind, so that anyone can pick them up and start using them right away. While it may be helpful to involve IT in the process, you shouldn’t have to rely heavily on development resources in order to use a form builder. 

Simplicity in the Field.

While the no code form builder makes it easy for office staff and managers to build the forms, it also needs to be as simple as possible for field teams. When implementing a new technology, a common fear is that teams in the field will fail to adopt the technology. That’s why the mobile form technology needs to be simple, so it makes the job easier for anyone that needs to complete the forms.

Consider features like integrating the form builder into your CRM or databases, so that customer records or project information is automatically pulled in real time to the forms. This auto populates form fields with information that is already known like customer information, parts, cost codes, and anything else that your teams may need to reference to complete the form.

Your mobile form builder should be easier and faster for employees, saving them time from manual processes and workflows. Consider how your form builder solution prioritizes time savings and efficiencies for crews in the field, as this can lead to greater adoption of the tools.

Customization.

When thinking about ease of use, another important consideration is customization. Some form builders can be difficult to customize, or they are built for very specific use cases that make it limited in the scope of what you can do with the platform. A highly customizable form builder will ensure that you can easily customize the forms to fit a wide range of potential use cases that your business will need, both now and in the future. 

Best in class form builders will offer this level of customization, while maintaining the simplicity and ease of use that your business needs to fit into your existing workflows.

#2. How does the form builder promote a data culture within my organization?

Lack of data insights is one of the main reasons companies choose to eliminate paper forms and move to digital form builders. With paper forms, information is not available in real-time and data is collected in ways that are inconsistent and difficult to report on.

It’s important that your business finds a form builder that promotes best practices for data collection and reporting. These insights can lead to better outcomes, including opportunities to lower costs, increase revenue, and improve the customer experience.

So how can a form builder help your company improve its data processes?

Standardized forms.

When thinking about how your business collects data, the form builder should empower you to collect consistent and accurate data from the field in real-time. Things like required fields can help to ensure information is not left missing and things like drop down lists can help to ensure the right format is submitted for data. 

Analytics and Reporting.

With best practices in place for data capture, your business will have clean data that is available in real-time. Your form builder should also give you the ability to run and share reports automatically with anyone that needs to view the information. You should also have the option to run more advanced analytics to spot trends and patterns in the data that’s being collected. Taking this data-driven mindset can have a profound impact on your operations.

Data Integrations

As discussed earlier in the article, data integrations can be an important part of the form builder solution. Not just to enrich form submissions, but also to ensure that data is synced automatically between your different cloud-based platforms. It’s likely that the form field data collected can be useful for payroll and accounting purposes, or you need the information to sync with other databases that your team uses internally. 

 All of this is possible with a best-in-class form builder that sets your business up to collect, report on, and distribute data to help your organization become more data-driven.

#3. Time-to-value

When implementing any new technology for business, it’s always important to understand the time-to-value for your organization. When selecting a mobile form builder, you should seek to gain an understanding of the types of results companies similar to yours have seen with the form builder. 

Other factors that impact your value and adoption of the platform are things like customer success resources that can be made available to your organization, as well as support channels and training that is available to help your staff learn and answer questions. Best-in-class mobile form builders will have proven success stories and clearly defined processes for onboarding and implementation to guide your business to achieve its goals. 

With digital transformation projects like implementing a mobile form builder, it’s important to remember the change management component and the resources in place to help your team with successful adoption of the technology. This will ensure that you see a return on investment in a matter of months that justifies the business expense by lowering costs, increasing revenue, and creating a competitive advantage. It’s important to find both the technology and the people to support your move toward digitization.

About GoCanvas

GoCanvas’s passion is building mobile products that enable businesses to digitize information and be more responsive to their customers. The cloud-based, customizable app works on smartphones and tablets, empowering SMB customers to digitally collect data and realize its value in improving workflow, communications, and operational processes.

GoCanvas is trusted by thousands of businesses throughout 70 countries, automating millions of workplace activities, making it one of the fastest-growing mobile platforms in the world.