Replacing paper-based systems

One of the challenges in developing a system to replace paper-based processes (or part of a process) is that it is often a requirement that the structure of the original paper documents is retained. For example, data is captured digitally but must be transferred to the company's order form/invoice/etc. to complete or advance the process. In some cases, paper forms can be very complex, consisting of nested tables, multiple columns, diagram templates etc. Paper forms used by large organisations can have been in use for many years, having been designed long before digitization of information was an option, let alone a priority!

To address this challenge, Celsus Labs set out to develop a framework that could dynamically generate and populate digital forms that would mirror exactly their hard-copy equivalents. The goal was to enable an end-user to capture data on a mobile device and produce a digital document automatically, in a fraction of the time it would take to fill out a paper equivalent, and with additional benefits such as automatic data validation/processing and diagram generation. The end user could then complete the process by sending the digital document from their mobile device to a printer or fax machine, resulting in a paper form that was virtually indistinguishable in structure and content from a manually completed form (except with precise diagrams and readable fonts instead of sloppy diagrams and handwriting!).

To achieve the goal, we decided to implement functionality from the API for OpenOffice, the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets etc. We developed, in several iterations, a Java framework that can be used to specify mappings between pieces of data in a system to objects contained within custom OpenOffice documents. For instance, Celsus OnSite captures measurements and product design specifications, which can be mapped to OpenOffice elements so that various order forms, product specification forms etc. can be automatically produced based on the data captured by the user.

The end result of the development work was a flexible and powerful framework that could facilitate the separation of content and presentation, so that end users can concentrate on efficient data capture, while the OnSite system takes care of filling in all the forms!