Features Specifies

Scan

  • Forms are scanned using a scanner before being loaded into Fimple. Most printers have a scan function that can be used.
  • Try and keep pages reasonably straight as they are scanned – particularly when scanning the first batch – but they don’t need to be perfect.
  • PDFs and multi-page TIFF file types are supported with the only restriction being the first batch for a new form type must be scanned as a PDF.
  • Scans can be color, black-and-white or grey scale. Grey scale is best as it produces a smaller size scan file and so will process a bit faster but it doesn’t matter too much.
  • Can be high-resolution or low resolution. Works best around 200dpi
  • Multi-page forms supported.
  • Attachments are supported – just scan them in after the page to which they should be attached and will they be available when reviewing that page in Fimple.
  • Forms are grouped in batches (usually between 1 and 50 forms). Each batch has optional Batch Name and Batch Group Name and these fields you can use to identify your batches and the forms they contain right through their lifecycle.
  • Each batch can contain as many scan files as you like but it is usually easier to scan to a single multi-page pdf or tiff/tif file.

Information Types

  • Will read Text, date and numeric fields. Also Checkboxes and Radio-Buttons A radio button is a check box that is part of a group of check boxes where only one box is allowed to be checked e.g., Male, Female, Other.
  • Allows for searchable fields e.g. search for all social security numbers on a page or all instances of words starting with F and ending in d.
  • Signature fields. We can’t tell you if the signature in a box is actually the person’s signature – we can just tell you if there is ink in the box where the signature should be.
  • When setting up a form Fimple provides a wizard will help you specify the type of information in each field. This allows Fimple to know the rules your might want to apply.
  • Fields can be assigned as General and Fimple won’t check them but Fimple also allows you to be quite precise regards the type of data you expect in a field. You can for example specify a field as a Social-Security Number and Fimple will check that it is a valid SSN in terms of length and format. Note: you don’t have to do this – it is just an option.

Automated Validation

  • Fimple will analyse the data in each field that it reads and verify that it meets the criteria specified when the form was setup. If it doesn’t meet those criterial an Exception is raised. Exceptions are simply flags that users can use if they want to find fields that may not have been completed or read correctly. They can be ignored or leveraged as you choose. One way Exceptions can be leveraged is for an Account administrator to specify that a Form Batch must be clear of Exceptions before it is Approved. (If you automate the sending of data to another system (such as a database) then Approving the batch will cause the data to be sent. Note that you can also choose To send the data as soon as the batch is read i.e, no review or approval necessary.) To find Exceptions Fimple will look at the information that was gathered when the form was setup (form setup utilises a wizard to extract this information so setup is not complicated) and automatically check :
  • Will read Text, date and numeric fields. Also Checkboxes and Radio-Buttons A radio button is a check box that is part of a group of check boxes where only one box is allowed to be checked e.g., Male, Female, Other.
  • Allows for searchable fields e.g. search for all social security numbers on a page or all instances of words starting with F and ending in d.
  • Signature fields. We can’t tell you if the signature in a box is actually the person’s signature – we can just tell you if there is ink in the box where the signature should be.
  • When setting up a form Fimple provides a wizard will help you specify the type of information in each field. This allows Fimple to know the rules your might want to apply.
  • Fields can be assigned as General and Fimple won’t check them but Fimple also allows you to be quite precise regards the type of data you expect in a field. You can for example specify a field as a Social-Security Number and Fimple will check that it is a valid SSN in terms of length and format. Note: you don’t have to do this – it is just an option.

Online Review, Editing And Exception Handling

  • Batches are the most common way to review a group of forms but you can also create a group of forms using the Search screen and reviewing the results one-by-one (and editing as you like).
  • A quick way to find any issues with the forms in a batch is to select a batch (from the batch list screen). The forms will be listed along with a title for the form (usually the name of the subject of the form e.g. Patient’s Name) and any exceptions it might contain. Note that this does not necessarily find all errors e.g. it usually won’t find mis-spelt names.
  • Individual forms can be reviewed using our side-by-side screen. On the left side Fimple shows an image of the form as it was loaded and on the right side it shows the fields you have setup in your form.Review forms as read using our online viewer – with a side-by-side view of the form and the data as read.
  • Positioning the cursor inside a field on the right-side of the screen will highlight the area of the form where that value was read from in the image (on the left-side of the screen).
  • Edit data if required. Fimple will keep a log of all changes and allow comments to be kept.
  • Exceptions can be cleared at the field level either by editing the data so that it conforms with expected rules or by just Clearing the exception.
  • Approve batches for release – if you have defined an automated send (see Data Integration above) this will load the new records into your system and possibly (depending on how it is setup) trigger a load into your own database.

Data Integration

  • The easiest way is to use the search capability in Fimple to find any particular form you need, review it. You can search on any data that is read from the form and you will see an image of the form, together with any attachments, as well as the data as read.
  • Multiple options available for pulling your data out of Fimple into your own systems
  • Copy to clipboard and paste into Excel. This is the easiest option when starting and for ad-hoc form reading.
  • Download as JSON. Usually used for automated technical integration.
  • Metadata is included in the JSON extract so that you can take advantage of our standard projects for building your own database and table structures with no coding required.
  • Configure your forms to automatically send form data to your systems when a batch is approved. For companies with an in-house IT department we provide software that makes integration into your databases easy. For companies with no in-house IT we can configure the integration for you. (Given our experience in this area we can provide these integrations at a very reasonable fee.)

User Login

  • Email addresses are verified before a new user can use the system.
  • Users can authenticate using a password specifically for Fimple or they can use a Microsoft managed login.
  • Users who choose a Microsoft managed login (i.e. use their work / school or other Microsoft managed password) will have their password authenticated by Microsoft. We recommend corporate users take this option as they will often not have to sign-in to Fimple at all once they have signed-in to their workstation with their corporate account.
  • If you want to use Microsoft managed login for a work /school account you may need to get permission from your IT department but this is not usually required.
  • Individual users not using a Microsoft account can choose two factor authentication at their discretion. The option to use two factor authentication for Microsoft account users will normally be specified by their account policy – which is usually set by their IT department.

Multi-User Accounts

  • Once logged on to the system you need a Fimple account. You can use someone else’s account e.g. a corporate account or create your own. Creating your own account is easy but the account owners / business address is required.
  • The Account Owner (usually the person who pays for the Account) can add other users and grant user management roles to those users if required.
  • Multiple users can be added to your account. Account administrators can decide which users can create and edit forms and which can just read form data.
  • Your account can be partitiioned into Business Units. Users can be restricteds to creating new batches, viewing and editing forms based on business unit. Note: If you don’t want to use Business Units they won’t appear.
  • Accounts can specify that users must be two factor authenticated before they can access the account.
  • See monthly spend by Business Unit and individual user if required.

Manual Validation Service

  • Have one of our humans validate all data or just exceptions or just exceptions on some fields for you. When our humans validate the data they don’t know who you are or how your forms are used. We only show them the part of the form where the data field they are validating is written and we limit the number of fields they validate on each form so that they never get information about your users. Extra charges apply for this service – depending on how you want it configured – e.g. Multi-line text fields are charged differently from name fields.