As we mentioned in previous posts, one of our big goals in this new version of SellingPoint was to allow our customers to continue using their existing business processes in the digital world. In addition to custom CRM and workflow possibilities, we've added a whole new feature named SmartForms. The concept is simple: Allow companies to turn their existing paper forms into digital ones that can be integrated into the whole SellingPoint experience.

Forms such as expense reports and travel requests are common for a salesman to be required to fill out on a regular basis. How are these forms submitted back to the company and how do they get entered into the companies computers. With SellingPoint SmartForms its easy to take these existing company forms, turn them into digital versions, and then publish them our to salesmen through a SellingPoint Exchange account. This ensures that everyone always has the latest forms in ample supply.

One of the exciting features of this technology is its native support for Tablet PC and other pen based computers. This makes it very natural to fill out forms as the experience is almost exactly as filling out a normal paper form with a pen. Using handwriting recognition, SmartForms will turn the handwriting on the form into text, numbers, dates, or drawings depending on the kind of data that particular field on the form expects to see.

The benefit of SmartForms becomes very obvious when it comes to submitting the results back to the company. No longer does the company have to wait for forms to be mailed in or monitor faxes and try to decipher handwriting. No more is there a need for an employee to enter by hand the information on these forms. With SellingPoint SmartForms, as soon as a user submits a form, the results are delivered electronically to the company and the data is put where its needed. And since SmartForms supports the concept of workflow, the data can be routed to the appropriate databases and acted upon by the appropriate individuals. That makes it possible to have a form such as a travel request approved or rejected in real time.

In future posts we will go into more detail on how SmartForms are created and what can be done to get the most out of them.