A pioneer in theological research, The Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI), relies on technology to reach the world’s best research scholars across a number of disciplines. Recently, CTI adopted Adobe FormsCentral as a way to transform and simplify its admission process.
Shirah Metzigan, center manager for CTI, shared with us how Adobe FormsCentral has streamlined the application process saying, “Each application we receive is properly completed, eliminating delays in the review cycle. As a result, submissions are completed more thoroughly and errors have been dramatically reduced, which has greatly improved our review process.”
CTI also uses the advanced web analytics and reporting capabilities in FormsCentral to help manage the influx of applications. This has ensured that CTI can keep the admission process impartial and fair by restricting access to forms after the submission deadline has passed. By collecting this data online, it has eliminated the headache that is native to managing any lengthy paper application process.
To learn more about how the Center of Theological Inquiry uses Adobe FormsCentral, check out the full story here: http://adobe.ly/KmOasp
Randy Swineford, FormsCentral product manager, Adobe
From our first release of Adobe® FormsCentral to each subsequent enhancement, ease of use has been our mantra. We set out to provide you with the world’s best online service to create forms, distribute them, collect information, and analyze the results. Over the last year, customers have shared amazing successes with us, demonstrating how their businesses, schools, and organizations have simplified and streamlined what has traditionally been a time consuming and costly process. And that was just with web forms.
One of the most important things to consider when creating a form is your target audience. For example, reaching the maximum number of people and getting them to successfully complete the form can help you plan an event with greater precision—from getting a big enough venue down to the right number of meal preferences for the attendees. FormsCentral now gives form authors a choice to pick from a web form or fillable PDF document. If your prospective audience is more document focused, the PDF form is a great option. It can be emailed, shared through managed file transfer services or printed out and filled in with a pen.
And true to form, it’s incredibly easy to toggle between web and PDF forms. With a few clicks you can set page breaks and choose between an array of document sizes (8×11, A4, Legal, etc.) for your PDF. Or, if you change your mind, it is just as easy to take the PDF layout and reformat the flow to suit a web form to take advantage of PayPal integration, attachments, and skip logic.
Collect Information Online or Offline
Form authors now have more ways to collect information. One way is to distribute a fillable PDF form to respondents and have the data returned via a basic PDF, where the responses are embedded in the actual form. This method is particularly useful for situations when your audience may want to save the file locally to complete it at a later time.
The other method, which I am particularly fond of, is to post the results directly to the FormsCentral service. Just like with web forms, once a respondent hits the submit button on a PDF form, the data automatically goes to the Response table, where you can see the results in real time and invite others to collaborate and analyze the input.
With the expansion to PDF forms, we can help rapidly expand your ability to create and distribute forms and surveys for virtually any scenario—be it online or offline. Likewise, we’ve also added more web form templates to help you get started—from registration to hospitality to procurement and much more.
FormsCentral Basic and Plus users can begin using the new PDF form feature right away. You can find more details about these enhancements here. Try them out and tell us how they’re helping your business, school, or organization! Also, check out this video of Rebecca Staley, marketing specialist for Acrobat Solutions, who shows off the new PDF forms feature in FormsCentral.
Exchanging online forms and PDFs instead of printing out docs is great for the environment, not to mention convenient. But how eco-friendly are you really?
The Adobe Acrobat team has used FormsCentral to create an Earth Day quiz – and every question tests your ability to survive in a bio-dome! Don’t panic – if your eco-habits lead to harmony instead of mutiny, you’re heading in the right direction.
Did you know April 22 was declared ‘International Mother Earth Day’ by the United Nations in 2009? However, the day has been recognized long before the UN’s declaration. In fact, more than 175 countries celebrate Earth Day with festivities that bring awareness and appreciation to our natural environment. Now you can join in, and it’s all in good fun. Challenge yourself with this quiz and let us know how it goes. Take the quiz now. Good luck!
To help offer students a more active, vibrant campus life, the Dean of Students Office (DOSO) at Wayne State University is using Adobe FormsCentral to create, distribute, and collect information about campus activities and events. According to Denise Dejonghe, marketing coordinator at DOSO at the university, the Adobe solution aids the university as it looks to continually enhance the collegiate experience.
“Adobe FormsCentral is an intuitive solution that enables anyone in our office, including part‐time student employees, to rapidly create important forms and distribute them to students and campus organizations easily.” As a result, DOSO and more than 300 student organizations can efficiently promote involvement in social, spiritual/religious, service, university pride, leadership events, and other activities—using Adobe FormsCentral to help collect information for retreats, orders, applications, and registrations, as well as assessment. The university student government even uses Adobe FormsCentral in its election process every spring.
Before moving to the Adobe solution, staff members created online forms manually. With Adobe FormsCentral staff and authorized students can now quickly create a variety of easily accessible, interactive forms that dramatically reduce the time it takes to collect student surveys, event registrations, and other information. Adds Dejonghe, “Using Adobe FormsCentral we embedded approximately 25 standardized digital form templates directly into our website, enabling students and organization leaders to access and distribute them any time or day of the week.”
Forms completed with the Adobe solution are easily tracked and analyzed, and DOSO can use the Adobe FormsCentral results table to instantly sort and filter responses, track trends, and analyze and share information with colleagues and student leaders. To learn more about Wayne State and its use of Adobe FormsCentral, click here.
The Adobe FormsCentral team was thrilled with the birthday love it received last week, but that wasn’t the only reason we had to cheer. In a week where FormsCentral celebrated its one-year anniversary and saw many users participate in its Valentine’s Day survey, FormsCentral received the Editor’s Choice designation from PC Magazine with a four star rating for its “simple form design capabilities and especially for the data analysis it could enable for small businesses.”
As much as you can have fun building customized surveys – as we demonstrated with our Valentine’s Day and Holiday surveys – using FormsCentral also makes a lot of business sense. But don’t take our word for it. Take a look at what PC Mag had to say: “For businesses that rely on analysis of their current and potential client base, Adobe FormsCentral could prove to have real ROI.”
More important to making business sense, Adobe FormsCentral is so easy to use, even a caveman…ok we won’t go there, but you get the idea. Need proof? PC Mag said, “FormsCentral is a good way to create some neat forms for interacting with visitors and customers to your site—without having to beg your developer buddies for help (or hire one!).”
As great as last week was for the Adobe FormsCentral team, it’s just the beginning. We have a lot more exciting features in store for the coming year, so stay tuned!
Valentine schmalentine, as I say each year on February 14th. Well, this year I’m singing a new tune – to the tune of Happy Birthday, as it happens. Today is the anniversary of our darling FormsCentral, and oh, my! Has this baby grown up in the past year! To reminisce, we asked Todd and Randy from the FormsCentral team to wax poetic on their favorite moments of the service’s first full year. Here’s looking at you, FormsCentral!
