Collecting Data from People: Costly, Slow, and Unreliable

Proper collection and management of data require business processes that are as important to most organizations as they are challenging and frustrating for them to carry out.

Common Data Collection Methods and the Problems they Present

Printed Forms: Historically, organizations have been forced to print stacks of each of their paper forms in order to guarantee that every form they need is consistently availability to their data-providing users. To these organizations, “data collection” means asking a user to fill out and return any number of forms. Ultimately, paper forms cannot enforce data entry rules or ensure that all required fields have been filled in properly. In addition to these issues, hand scribbled data from printed forms must be interpreted by someone who will then manually enter the perceived data into a master spreadsheet, database or other data storage solution. Such tasks are tedious, costly and prone to human error.

• Cost – Distributing printed forms can be expensive. Besides paying for printing and postage, costs are incurred capturing and importing the data into master spreadsheets and/or database solutions.

• Speed – Collecting data using paper forms is a painstakingly slow process. A significant amount of time and effort is spent tracking the response status of each paper-form recipient.

  • Ensuring that each intended individual has indeed received the correct form(s).
  • Waiting for each recipient to enter their data and return the form.
  • Entering the data into a spreadsheet or database.

• Reliability – Managing users who receive blank paper forms and identifying those who have completed them is difficult. However, ensuring that the data within each submission is accurate and complete, is nearly impossible. This is especially true when data needs to be collected on a regular, recurring basis because manually entering data from paper forms into a spreadsheet or other system can be unreliable and error prone.

Email and Electronic Forms (E-forms, Spreadsheets): Thanks to its ease of use, email has become a viable alternative to using paper-based forms for data collection. In essence, electronic forms or spreadsheets are distributed, via email attachments, to data-providing users. While this approach is significantly better than paper-based data collection methods, there are still numerous pitfalls.

• Cost – Collecting data by means of electronic forms is costly because transferring data from e-form to database still requires a certain amount of manual data entry. Formopia drives down costs by automating processes that eliminate the need for you to enter your users’ response data manually.

• Speed and Security – While distributing forms electronically through email doesn't necessarily take up much time, ensuring that each recipient provides their data in a timely and accurate manner does indeed require a significant amount of time. In addition, sending and receiving email attached forms, in some cases, could leave data vulnerable to falling into the wrong hands.

• Reliability – As noted, tracking the submission progress of each recipient requires considerable energy and follow-through. Problems are further exacerbated, for example, when email is lost in spam filters or when people are too overwhelmed to answer email promptly. Even when users do provide data, it still must be collated and entered into a master spreadsheet or database of some sort. The task of manually entering data is, at best, tedious and time-consuming, or at worst, complex and susceptible to human error. Data reliability is poor because there is no easy way to guarantee the validity of the information provided or ensure that data has been entered in all required fields. Yet in the end, you might still need to contact certain individuals in order to clarify data.

Custom Software Solutions: When the volume and recurrence of collected data becomes so massive that current data management practices are ineffective, some organizations have resorted to developing their own software solutions solely to collect, compile and manage data.

• Cost – Developing custom software for any purpose takes a substantial amount of time and effort. The overall costs are often prohibitive when you take into account the “time and effort” required by software developers, IT engineers, business analysts, subject matter experts, managers and regular employees.

• Speed – It can take several months, if not years, to develop custom software applications. Software development requires understanding the problem, defining requirements, programming the actual code, testing, debugging, documenting and deploying the software. Meanwhile, users must continue to use age old solutions such as paper forms and email attached e-forms.

• Maintenance – Lastly, custom software needs to be continuously maintained (or enhanced) as the needs of the user or company change. Even simple modifications to an internal time sheet form, for example, can necessitate a short, yet significant, software development cycle that involves a number of engineers and incurs considerable costs.

Formopia is the solution to address all these problems effectively and easily!

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