Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...
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Has anyone used one of the form builder type services where you can define a form for an onsite technician to complete while on site. We have a few field techs which visit some of our company farms to check on operations at these remote sites and right now we are still using the paper / clipboard approach for their site visit reports.
I had found the following which looked like they might be worth checking into but would be interested in checking out others if someone had a recommendation.
https://www.fastfieldforms.com
https://www.zerionsoftware.com/iformbuilderThanks.
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We tend to use Google or Zoho.
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I was looking into using Appgini to make PHP forms that you could publish on presumably any LAMP setup.
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Building your own is pretty easy, too. We built our own for some things.
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The question I would ask myself is if a simple form is really what you need.
In a lot of cases you have some kind of business process behind that form. And you'll get more value out of the whole thing if you can add that into the process as well.
So questions I would ask would be:
- What happens with the information in the form after it is filled out?
- What happens if the form is incomplete (is it even possible)?
- Is there a situation where the form would need to be filled out partially and then later adding the missing pieces?
- Could the information in the form make something else happen in the organization?
As I see it there are three options for a SaaS solution:
- simple forms
- low-code app builders
- business process managers
If you need to track the information in the form after it was initially filled out you are probably better of with something more than a simple form.
In the zoho ecosystem the applications to look at would be zoho forms, zoho creator (low-code apps) and zoho orchestly (bpm).
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@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
In the zoho ecosystem the applications to look at would be zoho forms, zoho creator (low-code apps) and zoho orchestly (bpm).
We just started using these ourselves. Quite impressed.
We've got some Zoho Forms that feed directly into Zoho Bigin, too, which is quite slick.
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
In the zoho ecosystem the applications to look at would be zoho forms, zoho creator (low-code apps) and zoho orchestly (bpm).
We just started using these ourselves. Quite impressed.
We've got some Zoho Forms that feed directly into Zoho Bigin, too, which is quite slick.
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
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@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
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@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
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@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
Well put. That what was I was trying to say.
But since it's impossible to know what you actually gain until you have implemented it, it has to be some kind of guesstimation followed by a leap of faith.
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@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
That's a terrible way to look at it. This is the "comparing to something known bad" fallacy. Instead of trying to figure out what's "best" you are simply attempting to eliminate what is "worst" and once you do so, skipping any further analysis. This is something we talk to businesses and IT people about all the time. It's called a false comparison.
Example: Find the worst computer system, worst email product, have no backups, etc. Now compare that to having to work on stone tablets and carrier pigeons. Ask your users, isn't this better than the alternative?
Of course, it's better than one ridiculous alternative that you should have not even considered. But is it the best thing for you? Not likely. When you want to determine what's best, you have to keep comparing, not intentionally avoid meaningful comparisons.
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@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
So let's say we gain $100 per month in productivity from spending $30. But we only use $10 worth of the $30. We could only spend $10 to get the same $100 gain.
By this logic, you would intentionally overspend by $20, but why? Why throw away money when you get all the benefits more cheaply simply by selecting only what you use/benefit from?
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
That's a terrible way to look at it. This is the "comparing to something known bad" fallacy. Instead of trying to figure out what's "best" you are simply attempting to eliminate what is "worst" and once you do so, skipping any further analysis. This is something we talk to businesses and IT people about all the time. It's called a false comparison.
Example: Find the worst computer system, worst email product, have no backups, etc. Now compare that to having to work on stone tablets and carrier pigeons. Ask your users, isn't this better than the alternative?
Of course, it's better than one ridiculous alternative that you should have not even considered. But is it the best thing for you? Not likely. When you want to determine what's best, you have to keep comparing, not intentionally avoid meaningful comparisons.
I hear what you are saying, but I'm also assuming you're getting some type of value out of the $30 stuff, and that it's not all for not... if the $4 ($1 + $3 you mentioned earlier) doesn't give you this forms thing... then you need to move to the $30 AND you get more than $30 in payback from those using it - it seems worth at least considering...
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@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
Well put. That what was I was trying to say.
But since it's impossible to know what you actually gain until you have implemented it, it has to be some kind of guesstimation followed by a leap of faith.
I get the "impossible to tell" point. But we've tested a lot of the apps and found that we can't use them. And we've tried pretty hard. Like Books, we can't find a cost effective CPA that will let us use that. And trust me, we tried. We found very few that were willing to use it, and they all charged an arm and a leg to do so. We really want to move to it, but until we are big enough to pressure a firm to do it, we are stuck.
Going through the apps that they have, we've not found any users that would benefit from more than about $15-$20 of software, and most max out at $4-$11.
We keep looking at it, but keep finding that we can't get any additional value from the extra spend. Maybe if we spent it and had all that software and started playing with it more we'd find more value. Certainly possible. But for us, the cost of moving from the Zoho level we are on (which is maxed out on value that we can predictably gain) to the Zoho One level is enough money to hire one or more additional full time workers who we know would provide us a lot of value, whereas Zoho One would be purely all that salary lost based on "to play with and see if we were wrong about additional value."
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
So let's say we gain $100 per month in productivity from spending $30. But we only use $10 worth of the $30. We could only spend $10 to get the same $100 gain.
By this logic, you would intentionally overspend by $20, but why? Why throw away money when you get all the benefits more cheaply simply by selecting only what you use/benefit from?
I was making an assumption you couldn't just spend $10, but that you HAD to spend $30 to get that $100.... OF course if you can get the $100 for $10, do that. I don't know the Zoho plans at all... so I was working from my just stated POV.
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@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
Well put. That what was I was trying to say.
But since it's impossible to know what you actually gain until you have implemented it, it has to be some kind of guesstimation followed by a leap of faith.
I get the "impossible to tell" point. But we've tested a lot of the apps and found that we can't use them. And we've tried pretty hard. Like Books, we can't find a cost effective CPA that will let us use that. And trust me, we tried. We found very few that were willing to use it, and they all charged an arm and a leg to do so. We really want to move to it, but until we are big enough to pressure a firm to do it, we are stuck.
This seems to be a common theme - that's why there's so much crappy QuickBooks out there.
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@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
ut I'm also assuming you're getting some type of value out of the $30 stuff, and that it's not all for not
That's fine, but it's a big assumption considering we've already looked and determined that there isn't anything we'd use. So if we paid for more, nothing would be expected to change. As it is, it's a struggle to get people to use what all we already have (just because there is so much.)
It's more than just potential benefit, it's potential problems. It's a LOT of software that they'd suddenly all have access to and it brings almost as much risk of costing us extra in productivity as people get lost using so many pieces of software or trying to use things that we don't need. Suddenly people using multiple CRMs, using multiple meeting softwares, using CRM vs Project Management tools, it gets messy and suddenly we'd have the problem that people need to learn loads of different applications. All great apps if they fit your need, but we could lose a lot of productivity from app sprawl, too.
You are basing the idea of "but wouldn't yo umake more" on "they evaluated it and determined it's not even close" being completely wrong. Which is a big assumption.
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@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Dashrender said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@scottalanmiller said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
@Pete-S said in Formbuilder services for tablet / phone ...:
Yes, they got a lot of interesting stuff. We recently went with the zoho one subscription so we now have access to all zoho apps. There is a lot of stuff you can do but it takes time to wade through everything.
We keep looking at that but for the way that we work it just doesn't pan out financially. We have lots of people who only need the $1 plan, and lots of others that only need the $3, and almost no one needs $30 of combined products. So we can't justify it. If we were a smaller team with deeper "per person" needs, then it'd be amazing.
We had a slightly different approach. We have not been looking at what we need and how much it will cost. We have been looking at what we can leverage from the Zoho apps and how much time it will save us in the end. And how much better we can utilize the resources we have.
While better teamwork is always good, our primary goal is actually automation. That's how I think we can get the most out of zoho one.
Same here, there's just a lot of pieces that we can't figure out how we'd use and when we add up what we would want to use, it never seems to come out to $30.
Maybe that's not the way to look at it - but instead look at it - do you save $30/user/month because of the features that subscription brings you?
And saves is likely the wrong term - how about, do you gain $30 or more in productivity from those users because of the tools?
Well put. That what was I was trying to say.
But since it's impossible to know what you actually gain until you have implemented it, it has to be some kind of guesstimation followed by a leap of faith.
I get the "impossible to tell" point. But we've tested a lot of the apps and found that we can't use them. And we've tried pretty hard. Like Books, we can't find a cost effective CPA that will let us use that. And trust me, we tried. We found very few that were willing to use it, and they all charged an arm and a leg to do so. We really want to move to it, but until we are big enough to pressure a firm to do it, we are stuck.
This seems to be a common theme - that's why there's so much crappy QuickBooks out there.
Yes, and we plan to push hard to get Zoho into the big accouting firm we use. We start really heavy team integration with them next week and we hope to get Zoho on the docket. In which case, we'll move for sure.
