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Table of Contents

• What is Form Automation Software?
• The benefits of Form Automation Software
• Typical features of Form Automation Software
• The cost of Form Automation Software
• Considerations when purchasing Form Automation Software
• Relevant Form Automation Software trends

What is Form Automation Software?

Forms Automation Software automates the process of creating, managing, and processing documents electronically. It serves different business functions in different sectors. For instance, healthcare companies use this type of software to collect patient/visitor information, HR organizations use it to collect employee feedback and other inputs, retailers use it to create invoices, and customer service teams use it to generate support tickets.

The benefits of Form Automation Software

Forms are one of the key tools used by businesses to collect, store, and organize data in a format that can be interpreted, analyzed, and used for various operations. The following are some benefits of using forms automation solutions:

• Easy file sharing: Forms automation software digitizes the entire data collection process, allowing businesses to share forms electronically with several users at once. It results in substantial cost savings as expenses related to printing, postage, and physical storage are largely reduced.
• Rules-based data entry: Businesses can set advanced rules for form fields—for example, the “name” field can’t be blank or age has to be a numeric input—which must be followed for successful form submission. Rules-based data entry also lets businesses create intuitive forms that can trigger different actions based on respondents' replies, and it creates a set of data that is more consistent.
• Faster processing: Data captured using electronic forms can be processed and retrieved faster than that recorded via manual paper-based methods. Faster data processing improves the workflow efficiency of teams and speeds up the data analysis process.

Typical features of Form Automation Software

• Forms creation and design: Create electronic forms using a form editor and customizable templates.
• File storage: Store forms in a centralized, searchable repository.
• Process/workflow automation: Define steps to automate form submission, from link sharing to data gathering.
• Access controls/permissions: Set up rules and permissions to assign create, edit, and approve access rights to different users.

The cost of Form Automation Software

There isn’t a definite pricing model for forms automation software. A few solutions are offered on per-user, per-month pricing, while the majority have a monthly subscription fee as per the number of submissions. We’ve normalized the monthly cost for a minimum of 1,000 submissions and divided pricing into three tiers based on the starting price.

Price ranges* (monthly cost for 1,000 submissions/responses):

• $0 - $5
• $5 - $27
• $27+

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offering found on vendor websites on December 04, 2019. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of the pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

The above list summarizes pricing for the base plans of most products. An enterprise or premium product that is priced higher may include some additional features, such as conditional logic, approval workflows, and custom reporting and scheduling.

Considerations when purchasing Form Automation Software

• Deployment types: Forms automation software can be deployed on the cloud or on premise depending on the type of data you collect. The cloud option has a low upfront investment and offers ease of scalability, but your business data is hosted on a third-party server. This might become a cause of concern if you’re using forms to collect sensitive information, such as medical and account details. In such cases, on-premise deployment may be preferable, as your data is stored on in-house servers.
• Level of automation versus number of forms: Some forms automation solutions let users design and share an unlimited number of forms every month but offer limited custom fields and automation, while others have a restriction on the number of forms but provide more customization and automation capabilities. Thus, it’s essential to evaluate your requirements in terms of the number of forms and level of automation you need. Share these requirements with potential vendors and thereafter choose a solution that can support all your needs at the most reasonable price.

Relevant Form Automation Software trends

• Graphic-rich forms to enhance the user experience: Contemporary forms automation solutions are introducing rich graphical elements, such as interactive content, animations, and visual charts. These elements help businesses design graphic-rich forms instead of text-heavy forms to enhance the user experience and reduce the rate of abandonment.
• Forms to become mobile-ready: With businesses and processes going mobile, many vendors have started offering mobile apps with their forms automation software. They have also started offering capabilities to create mobile forms and share them on smartphones via text messages and apps.