How Do Digital Forms Surpass Paper Forms in the Support of Health and Safety?

Intro

When ensuring a job site is safe, it is important that field techs have the tools they need to make a thorough evaluation. Be it a camera or an audio recorder with batteries, a sharpened pencil, or a pen, things can get forgotten when heading out to a job site. Not only that, but some conditions make filling out forms with paper a hassle. Whether it is rain, wind, or snow, paper forms just can’t stand up to the elements.

Mobile forms can’t get smudged, they can’t degrade from getting wet, and they can’t get lost. Not having a pencil is not a problem, and the only tool a field tech needs to worry about is the phone that they already carry. Plus, with how easy forms are to fill out on a phone or tablet, field techs are encouraged to focus on the inspection at hand, rather than the form they are using to inspect.

Rich Data (photos/signatures/sketch)

If a field tech needs to take a photo on their site, needs to make a sketch, or needs to take signatures, they need tools in the field to be able to perform that action. With mobile forms, any tool a field worker may need to document the work site is available at their fingertips. Enable users to take photos on their smart phone, sketch on top of that photo, and then attach it directly to the form they are filling out, no developing or staples required. If they need to collect signatures, it can be done on their phone – no pen required.

Dispatching

Sending techs into the field with the information they need to get the job done can be difficult, especially if they are trying to follow a long list of specified regulations for their inspection. Rather than sending them into the field with clunky handbooks and customer lists, dispatch information directly to a form on their mobile device. All the information they need can be at their fingertips. This is especially helpful when bringing on new techs, as you can include all the information that they might require.

Dispatching also serves another function: streamlining the workflow of your inspectors. Instead of bringing your field techs into the office first thing in the morning to pick up forms for each client or site they will be visiting, dispatch all their required forms straight from the office to their device. This allows them to get on the job faster. Once they hit submit, their form can be dispatched to management for approval. No stamp, envelope, or gas required.

Storage

File cabinets are often known as a place submitted forms go to be forgotten, only to be pulled out when an audit occurs – if they can be found, legible and intact. With mobile forms, submitted forms are automatically organized and easily accessible using the storage method of your choice, and can be set up to create custom spreadsheets. This enables the back office to review the information they need to, rather than having to sift through all acquired paperwork.

When audits do happen, it is important to have a paper trail – even if it is not actually printed on paper. GPS stamps, time records, and more can be tracked using the technology already implicit in a user’s mobile device, giving the auditor a clear picture of what happened where and when. Provide a clear assurance that photos, data and everything else collected on the site were in fact collected on that site.

Conclusion

Mobile forms provide field techs and back office staff alike with a richer, more accessible way to collect data. With the ability to collect images and sound, dispatch to users in the field, and store forms securely in the cloud, mobile forms enable teams to support health and safety in the field.

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