OmniForm Proves to be Wright Strategy

While Apple’s mid-level, interpreted scripting language, NewtonScript, is suitable for creating a wide range of data input applications, many corporate and in-house developers often look for even higher-level tools—note the popularity of fourth generation application builders. These environments have several major advantages including rapid prototyping capability and, generally, a shorter learning curve.

As the Newton positions itself as a leading vertical application platform, high-level tool developers are benefiting in-step. Leading the pack is southern California-based Wright Strategies which, through its OmniForm product, is working to capture its share of the Newton data collection market.

About OmniForm

OmniForm is a form design, processing, distribution, and data retrieval application. Designers create the form on a Macintosh or PC compatible computer by assembling a set of agents for objects such as text, phone numbers, numeric fields, bars codes, magnetic strips, multiple response, and others.

By selecting from a library of agents, and adding intelligence by means of a scripting language, designers can create smart forms that are able to skip or modify other agents, and test and validate the quality of the input data. OmniForm’s scripting language includes the range of control statements needed to base the form’s action on the user’s response. In addition, OmniForm includes the capability to add help information to any input agent.

When it comes time to collect data with the Newton, each agent is displayed in the order specified by the designer. Users can navigate through the form in either direction, and can view or browse the entire form at any stage of the data collection. Returning from the field, users can download data and upload new forms using the OmniForm Server. Data can then be moved to other applications for further analysis using a tab or comma delimited format.

In the next sections, we’ll very briefly outline three vertical customers and how they’ve employed OmniForms.

Tracking Tourism

Most data is time critical, implying a certain advantage if the collector can put it into digital form directly at the time of collection. The Angus Reid Group, a market research firm with offices throughout Canada, was conscious of this and other factors in selecting to use Apple’s Newton with OmniForm to conduct a series of intercept surveys at 40 border locations for the British Columbia Ministry of Tourism.

With a project that involves over 18,000 surveys and 200 interviewers, Angus Reid decided that not only would using and coordinating paper forms be inadequate, but that competing proprietary hardware and software solutions would not be as price competitive. Using the Newton, interviewers can now more quickly report travel and tourism patterns by downloading data daily, using a modem, to an OmniForm Server.

At Home with the Newton

Home inspection is an important data-intensive task that is also benefiting from Newton technology. Carmel, Indiana-based RAL Information Systems, creator of the Forms Express software, has reached an OEM agreement with Wright Strategies that enables them to bundle OmniForm with their software solution.

RAL Information Services’ first approach was to use the Newton Toolkit, however they quickly switched to OmniForm as the development and data delivery system for Forms Express. As a combination of OmniForm, the Newton, and FileMaker Pro, Forms Express is a comprehensive home inspection reporting system that includes data collection, inspection archiving, and report printing in a single solution.

The Wright Theme

In the land of theme parks, a Southern California park has adopted OmniForm to replace their paper-based OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) system for performing guest surveys. While OMR offered some degree of automation, the park found that printing the forms and, more importantly, replacing thousands of existing forms to be unnecessarily costly.

In addition, the park’s questionnaires consisted of many “skip patterns,” or conditional jumps that made data collection confusing, frustrating, and error-prone. Using OmniForm, park officials were able to reduce form design costs by 85%, eliminated form printing and inventory costs, and reduced the amount of interruption to the guest.

Wright Strategies
731 South Highway 101, Suite 12
Solana Beach, CA 92075
William Gnerre
(619) 794-2494
(619) 794-2497 (fax)
Applelink: WRIGHTSTRAT