Knowledge-driven mobile forms

Wouldn't it be great if our mobile data collection would be rule-driven to deliver exactly what is needed at the right time? Think of a case where a building inspector would receive dynamic forms on his device that are specific to the context he's in and to the forms already filled in on-site. This would greatly increase efficiency.

What did we do to make this possible? We combined MoreApp and Be Informed. MoreApp provides us with mobile forms and data collection, Be Informed will provide the rules and an application from which to monitor and process the results. Consider the following setup:

We created an API project in Be Informed that can connect to MoreApp. This API provides most of the functionality made available through the REST API in MoreApp. It uses OAuth authentication and REST calls to communicate. These REST calls provide or deliver JSON data that can easily be converted to XML which is used within Be Informed.

With the use of this API project we created two implementations in which the API is used.

The first implementation is done by creating a form in MoreApp and retrieving what forms and users are available to the configured customer. Within the Be Informed application it is then possible to execute an event that can select a form and select to which user the form should be shown and whether instructions are needed to notify or help the user to fill in the form. The user friendly form builder from MoreApp is used to create the forms that allow for full flexibility in what data is exchanged between Be Informed and MoreApp. This data is stored in Be Informed after the user fills in the form and can be processed or viewed at any time.

The second implementation is done by creating forms based on input needed by a Be Informed knowledge model, this knowledge model is configured to be used as a service (KAAS) so it can be accessed from anywhere. The Be Informed application uses the data requested by the knowledge service to generate forms to be filled out in MoreApp. When the user fills out the form it will feed the knowledge service with the newly received data. This process will repeat itself until the knowledge service leads to a result. This flow looks like this:

Every step in this process is stored in Be Informed and the entire process can be reviewed at any time.

The way the projects are set up in combination with the flexible API from MoreApp makes the possibilities limitless. Creating forms at the right time on any device is a great tool that can help with many business cases.

This blogpost was written by Geert Liet, developer of and expert at the Integration expert service at Avisi.