Digital Forms for Construction Company

Ty44ler · September 22nd, 2009, 02:33 PM

I work for a construction company and am in need of turning paper forms into digital forms for our maintenance guys to fill out while on the job and turn them in to us through their laptops with aircards. The trick is that they need to fill out different forms according to what they fill out on the first form... For example, if one type of refrigerant is installed they check it on the first form then once complete, it should take them to another form to fill out about that type of refrigerant installation....

At first, I was thinking of writing a java program with a bunch of if then statements, but I am not extremely comfortable yet with Java and was wondering if there were any other solutions? Any suggestions?

Ty44ler · September 25th, 2009, 11:30 AM

Bump for justice.

**RobRich** · September 25th, 2009, 11:39 AM

How about a simplified "web app?" HTML and some JavaScript or whatever scripting language you prefer. Seems easier than tossing together an one-off GUI application just for forms.

Ty44ler · September 25th, 2009, 12:29 PM

hmmm... yeah that's what I was kinda figuring it would have to be... I wish I was a little more knowledgeable about javascript.

Do you have any place in mind about forms like this I could look for starters?

**RobRich** · September 25th, 2009, 01:47 PM

Assuming you want a quick solution without much in the way of programming, I know there are form building applications available for HTML, JavaScript, etc. However, I have not used them, so I will let someone else recommend a specific solution.

Otherwise, I suspect there are many tutorials for building interactive forms using HTML and JavaScript. Drop a Google search.

Rootstonian · September 25th, 2009, 02:47 PM

Hard to provide any direction not knowing the scope of the project: is it 5 items that could spawn 10 forms or 50 items spawning 100 forms?

Irregardless, you have to have some way (read: programming) to get the data from a static web page (or wherever) and do something with it. I don't do web programming, but I do have to do something similar for programs with reading in data for programs to use.

Ty44ler · September 25th, 2009, 02:59 PM

Thanks for the replies!

Quote:

Hard to provide any direction not knowing the scope of the project: is it 5 items that could spawn 10 forms or 50 items spawning 100 forms?

I'm thinking it is going to be about 5-10 forms that could spawn about 15 forms or so from that tops.

Quote:

Irregardless, you have to have some way (read: programming) to get the data from a static web page (or wherever) and do something with it. I don't do web programming, but I do have to do something similar for programs with reading in data for programs to use.

DoubleK · September 26th, 2009, 01:41 AM

Designing your own pdf documents is quite easy. I figured it out. The trick will be in finding a suite that will do as you want without paying Adobe's exorbitant fees.

I have used pdfill but really am annoyed as it is buggy:

PDFill PDF Editor with FREE PDF Writer and FREE PDF Tools - www.PDFill.com

Have not tried the latest version.

**RobRich** · September 26th, 2009, 02:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ty44ler

That is another question I had, if I were to use the web for collecting data, what are the options for extracting the data? I wouldn't want to store it online anywhere simply due to the fact that it may contain sensitive material and don't even want to take the chance.

HTTPS with authentication to deliver the form pages to the user. User fills data. Data could be stored (think database) and/or forwarded (think encrypted email).

Still, security is a concern with pretty much anything you pass over the net. You could do a VPN for users, then host the web app on the intranet (instead of Internet) if need be.

Rootstonian · September 28th, 2009, 09:52 AM

If it doesn't need to be web-based, a Windows program would do the trick. However, if you're not a programmer, that's going to be dang near impossible.

I'm a programmer and coding Windows programs is a PITA. On this project you would be basically designing/coding dialog boxes (e.g. your forms) and then writing code as required.

Sounds like a ton of fun to me, project-wise. And even if I was a solid Windows programmer, I would slate this as a 1 to 2 month project.