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Welcome to the FormReturn Help Guide

If you would like assistance with FormReturn or you have any questions, click the Assistance button at the top right of FormReturn's software user interface.

 

 

Fill in the form, with your contact details and type your questions in the Requirements field. We will respond as soon as we get your message.

Sales Support
We offer support in the form of online meeting, email or telephone to answer any questions you may have about using FormReturn.

  • Email us: support@ebstrada.com.au
  • Phone: +61 7 3305 0049 (Australia) +1 (408) 457-0758 (USA)
  • Skype us at: formreturn
  • Online Meeting: Organize a net meeting with us by visiting our online demonstration page. http://www.formreturn.com/online_demonstration

Overview

The Basic Steps from Form Design to Data Capture

Components for Form Design to Data Capture

Form Design and Captured Data Features

Things to consider before designing a form template

Glossary

Navigation Tools

Toolbars

Template Samples for Download

Getting Started

Assistance

The Basic Steps of FormReturn

 1. Add Respondents Records to Source Data

Start by creating a data table in FormReturn and adding your respondent's records.

  • Click the Source Data icon at the top of the program window.
  • Click add new table to add a new table
  • Click add new field name to add field names (Eg firstname lastname)
  • Click the Records tab and click Add new record to manually add records.

2. Design a Basic Form Template.

A form template is made up of a segment added to a form.

The Segment

A Segment is like a layer on the form template, created separately because it has it's own barcodes defining where the mark areas appear. The segment is then added to the form template.

  • Create a Segment and add the checkboxes / mark areas, and any text. Then add the segment to the form template.
  • Click on the Checkbox Tool and then on the segment page to add a mark area. Double click on the mark area to open the Set Properties dialog and change the number of boxes, the mark aggregation rule etc.
  • Click on the Text tool and then on the segment page to add a text area and type the question number.
  • Select both areas at once and Click Duplicate in the Edit Menu of the Menu Bar.
  • Type in the number of horizontal and vertical duplicates to create as many questions and mark areas on the segment as you want.
  • Save the segment.

The Form

An (OMR bubble sheet) template using Template Variable Replacement (optional and similar to mail merge) for identifying who each form belongs to.

  • Click the New Form icon to create / design a form template, by adding a Segment, a Form ID barcode, a Text Area for the Template Variable Replacement <<type the field names from your data table>> and Text areas for any other text to be included on the form template.
  • Click the Segment tool  and Click on the form page to add an empty segment area, (to upload the segment into). Double click on the empty area. In the dialog that opens, click Add segment and select the segment file you just created, then click the OK button.
  • Click the Barcode tool  and Click on the page to add a form ID barcode to the top of the form. If more pages are being added, a barcode must be added to every form page in the template.
  • Add a text area   for typing the Template Variable replacement fieldnames for form identification. Type the field names like this <<firstname>> <<lastname>> or whatever field names will be in Source Data (This is similar to mail merge and you must use fieldnames that are exactly the same as the fieldnames added to your Source data table)

3. Recognition Test the Form Template

This is an important step.

  • Click the recognition preview tab and preview check the detection of all barcodes, the segment, fragments and marks.

4. Publish the Form Template and Print the Forms.

  • Click the Publish Form tab in the Form Editor.
  • Click to select the Table Name you created in Source Data.
  • In Publication Name, type a new name for the publication you are about to create.
  • Click the Check button and OK,
  • Click the [Form ID Reconciles - Append Only] Publication Type, to link each form page with the respondent it belongs to in the data table.
  • Click publish and PDF. The pdf will be saved where ever you choose.
  • Print from the PDF file and give to people to complete.

5. Scan the Forms when they have been completed by Respondents.

  • Set scanner's resolution to 150 DPI.
  • Save images as PNG (preferably) or TIFF format (CCITT group 4, RLE or packbits compression only).
  • If you have a TWAIN compatible scanner connected to FormReturn, click the Scan Forms button.(Images scanned with TWAIN will automatically upload into FormReturn)

6. Upload the Scanned Images into FormReturn

  • Click the processing queue button.
  • Click Upload image on the left hand side of the screen.
  • Browse for and choose the images from your computer to upload. (or Click Upload Folder and select a folder of images to upload ).

7. The Captured Data

Once processed (this may take a while depending on the number of forms you uploaded),

  • Click the Captured Data icon to view captured data.
  • Click the publication name, then
  • Click the Forms tab, Click on one of the forms, then
  • click the Form Pages tab and click the page or pages you want to view. This will show a preview of the scanned image stored in Captured Data. For more Information see Managing Captured Data.

8. Export the Captured Data

To export the captured response data.

  • Click on the Publication tab and click on the publication to select it.
  • Click the Export Data button and OK in the dialog that opens. A CSV file will be saved to your computer.
  • Open the CSV file and click OK to open the data export in excel or which ever Office software you have installed on your computer.

Form Design and Captured Data Features

Automatically link  forms to the Template they belong to

Example: if you have a 2 page form, they both have different Form ID barcodes. The barcode will tell the program which page number it is and which form and form template they belong to. When the forms are scanned and uploaded back into FormReturn, it doesn't matter which order they are scanned in, or which template they belong to, they will reconcile with the form publication they belong to.

Things to Consider before Designing a Form Template

The Method of Form Identification.

There are a number of different identification methods which can be added to the template as a component for identifying who each form in a publication belongs to who. The most straight forward method in FormReturn for streamline  reconciliation of the captured response data from your forms, is the Form ID Method. This method of form identification, uses Template Variable Replacement (similar to mail merge) which prints respondent's names from your data table and reconciles the captured response data for each form back to that person. When you publish the form template, a form for each record from your respondent's data table, will be saved as a PDF file on your computer, which can easily be printed from.

The Method of Captured Data Reconciliation. (How Response data will reconcile with the data table)
There are a number of different methods of reconciling the captured response data from each form with your data table created in Source Data. These are called Publication Types and are used to either reconcile captured data with a record in your data table, or in the case of anonymous forms, with an empty data table.

The Exported Order of your Data Table Fieldnames  (How you want respondent's records from your data table ordered on the spreadsheet when Captured Data is exported)
When you are adding new field names to a Source Data table, choose the export order index of each fieldnames Eg: where firstname or lastname, will appear on the spreadsheet export. The fieldnames in the data table you choose for publication of your form template, will be exported along with the captured data, unless you choose not to.

The Exported Order of Captured Data Fieldnames and Score Fieldnames (question names and score columns)

When you are adding the checkbox mark areas to your form design, the order index for each one will be set for the Captured Data Fieldnames (Eg: Question1) and the Score fieldnames (Eg: Question1_Score) This takes effect when the captured response data is exported to a spreadsheet.

Getting Started

Form Design Elements

Form Recognition Testing

Adding Source Data Tables and records.

Publication Process

Data Capture Process

Managing Captured Data

Form Return reconciles the captured response data with the published form template information and the records from your data table. The captured data is stored in FormReturn and can then be exported to a spreadsheet.

Note: For capturing response data using Optical Mark Recognition, FormReturn Software is reasonably easy to use but Consideration needs to be taken when designing a scannable form.

Your scanner and the resolution settings you choose, will play an important part in getting a clear image that can be detected accurately by the software.

To request free web-based assistance with FormReturn (such as an online meeting) - Click here.

The Assistance button at the top right of FormReturn's user interface, can be clicked and the form filled in, if you would like assistance with the software, or you would like to be contacted by a reseller. Please type any questions you have in the Requirements field.

The FormReturn OMR software integrates a form designer with OMR capture of response data that gives anyone the ability to design their own customized OMR forms, printed using a regular printer, and automatically capture the handwritten responses from scanned images of the returned forms. (Document scanners)

FormReturn is OMR software (Optical Mark Recognition software) for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, and is packed with easy to use features for creating custom designed bubble sheets and processing and capturing data from the returned forms using a software based OMR reader.

FormReturn will read and analyze these scanned form images and convert the hand marked responses to electronic data (eg, a spreadsheet of captured response information).