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Forms have come a long way since the “stone age” of business. What used to be filled out on paper is now filled out on the same devices that we use to manage our lives. This isn’t a new revelation. Big companies have been using handheld devices to fill forms out for years. The problem is just that – only big companies could afford, not only the software, but the actual hardware as well. While big companies were no stranger to purchasing products to expedite certain processes that workers would encounter on the day to day, small companies could never afford the luxury, and were often tied to wherever  their computers were. For people that worked out on the field, or even in a place where a computer wasn’t the most convenient thing to have around, it was a longshot. Creating the software would be expensive as it was, but purchasing hardware for all the employees to actually use the software? Unheard of.

So where did mobile forms come from?

As we cross the digital divide into the technological age, more and more companies are beginning to realize the accessibility of apps in their market. What was the big change?

Smartphones.

Phones were relatively simple not even 10 years ago. You could make calls and text, but having one that would browse the web, provide a GPS and play games for hours wasn’t possible. Until we all began adapting to life with smartphones, the possibility for having a mobile app for the business, even a small business, was never really realized. Now that they’ve coexisted with us for a while and basically everyone has one, it’s a different game.

Many companies use forms for various reasons. Some may use it to expedite a process, some could use it as a check-in procedure for fresh clients that walk through their door. Either way, the idea remains the same. Forms are an accurate, easy way to capture information and archive it in a safe, indexed place where you can go back to find it in a snap. Rather than having filing cabinets bursting with documents, you can simply sign onto the Snappii website, and see every single form a mobile app created through our process.

Forms can be built in a myriad of ways, from uploading a PDF, to rebuilding it from scratch on the editor. There’s a bunch of ways you can save time with shortcuts, but these are Snappii’s top 3 in terms of cutting corners – in a good way.

Drop-downs

Drop-downs are great for making a list of options when you know there’s no much room for change. Snappii users tend to have a lot of drop-downs in their apps solely because of the amount of time it saves to click-swipe-click something rather than fingering each individual letter for something.

For example, say you have a taxi app, and you need to figure out which driver to dispatch to a certain location. Rather than typing a name in manually to see if a driver is avalable, you can make a drop-down of all your drivers and simply click on the one that you need. Any amount can be added to the options of the drop-down list, and most are configured in such a way that if you want to add more options while inside the app, you can do so. Just scroll down to the bottom of the list, and a “New Option” button will be presented to you to do just that.

Once you add an option once, there’s no need to add it again. Our apps are smart enough to know when that when you add an option to the list, it probably means you’ll need it there for next time.

Invisible…but required.

Many of the construction personnel that approach us with an app also ask for a way to quickly scan a document to see if a worker was indeed where they were supposed to be. While the trust system works for some companies, hiring contractors that you’ve never used before can sometimes leave you reluctant to trust.

Snappii remedies this by giving the option to implement a feature to track where employees submitted their reports, without giving the employee any indication that the report will do so. A bit sneaky, but when hiring people outside of the scope of your own company, you can never be too sure.

Text-to-voice in a Snapp.

Finally, probably one of the most requested features that we handle on a day-to-day basis is the text-to-voice option. It’s exactly as it sounds. The user gets to a certain point in the form, and instead of having to manually type what they see, they can just as easily press a button and speak into the phone.

For employees that maybe aren’t so savvy with the phone, this will make their lives exponentially easier. It will also ensure that the app does what it was originally intended to do – make things faster and more efficient.

To try out Snappii, head on over to the top of this web-page and click on the “create account” button. Once your account is created, you’ll have a 14-day-trial to try out anything and everything that Snappii offers, from the app editor to the template apps on the Play Store and iTunes.

If you’re interested in having us built an app for you, do not hesitate to call us or reach out to us via support@snappii.com.

I think most people who are heavy into the technology world would be surprised to see how far behind some players in the industry are when it comes to technology. I spoke to a user today who worked for a company who still used paper and pencil to record where hazardous chemicals were moving throughout various warehouses. I didn’t receive much detail about the company, except that this is the way they’ve been doing it for 50 years.

I’ve grown up around technology, so I never really knew a life without it. To think that some people are so scared of it that they would continue to resort to primitive methods in order to do their daily business seems crazy. Especially with how accessible apps are nowadays. These guys could have gone to the Snappii Lab and had an app in 10 minutes that would have done everything they needed to do.

How would one go about doing that? It’s simple. All you need is a scanned copy of the form that you use on an everyday basis. Make sure it’s as symetrical as possible – it’ll make things easier later down the line.

The Snappii App

Before anything, let’s take a moment to download the Snappii app. The Snappii app is going to be our prototype mechanism. When we’re done customizing our form, we’ll use the Snappii app to access our accounts and pull up whatever we’ve been working on. The Snappii App is available on both Android and iOS, and takes a few seconds to download.

Trust me, it’s going to make this whole process much easier.

If you haven’t signed up with Snappii, go ahead and do that now. There’s a sign-up button on the top of the web-page that you can use.

Once you have the Snappii App and an account, it’s on to the next step.

The Snappii Lab

To access the Snappii Lab, check out the area just below the account options on the top.

The Snappii Lab is the environment/platform that we use in order to build every app that you see on the market. We leave it open to the public so that users can mess around with their apps themselves. In special cases, our developers will custom build pieces of an app for clients.

Anyways, once your into the editor, you can go ahead and pick a template if you want. I’m going to skip templates just for time-sake, but if you want to check them out, here’s the link. Templates are basically apps that can be customized to fit your needs. They’re a good starting point if you want to add more features to your apps besides the ability to do forms.

Next you’ll pick a color. You can always change it later so don’t worry to much about it if you can’t decide.

Then you’ll enter this screen. Previously called Express Mode, this is the basic version of the tool Snappii uses. Guru mode, which you can flip to at the top (but you really shouldn’t) is the “hard-mode” of the platform. You can do more stuff, but the learning curve is a lot steeper.

The button you’re looking for is the one at the bottom. It says something like “+New Form”. Looks a little like this:

Click that, and then you’ll be taken to the Express Form Editor. This is where all the magic happens, and will probably be the screen you end up looking at the most in your 10 minutes.

The next step from here is to just upload your PDF by clicking “Load PDF” at the top. If you did it right, this guy should come up:

Once your PDF is in the mock-phone, you’ll have to grab the fields from the left-hand side of the screen and drag-and-drop them onto where they belong on the form. Most fields will use a text or number input, but once you get used to the different mechanics, you can get creative and use things like drop-downs and radio’s. For more info on our Form Editor, click here.

When you’re done, it’s time to “Save and Run”. Pull up the Snappii app on your phone that we downloaded earlier. Log-in using the same credentials you used on our website. You’ll see a screen with a list of empty spaces (because you only have one app!). Click on your app at the top of that list, and you’re done.

Hope this little tutorial helped you out. Remember that you have 14 days to trial Snappii’s software before you have to make any sort of commitment.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact support@snappii.com or use the Live Chat service on the side. We’re usually around.