Paper in the Clouds: AEM Forms Moves to the Cloud

There are some digital services that simply alleviate the weight of an elephant-sized business – just like how helium is lighter than air so it elevates the stuff it fills.

Company processes, workflows, marketing, sales, scalability, hosting and holding data: all aspects of a commerce setup add weight to the overall body.

Launched out of the explosive development in tech and cheapening use, the cloud formed to lift the burden of the physical world. You can’t look upwards without seeing the cloud, full of tools and resources to accelerate all things business – as well as social. 

The modern approach – or better, the default approach for our times – is to build digital-first systems to help with the entire lifecycle, from internal business processes to the customer experience.

However, there is one particular persistent part of “modernity” that intends to outlive its pre-digital existence and stay relevant: the paper form.

The paper form is used for almost any curiosity and inquiry that connects a customer to a company, and employees to a company. “Can you fill out this survey to show that you care about us?”; “We want to sell more relevant products to you so can you tick which of these fit your shopping preferences?”’; “Can you read and sign this so that we’re not responsible for any injury or – very unlikely – death?”

Neither customers nor workers look at the paper form with any warm affection. Paper documents need to be downloaded (where did I save it?), then printed (is there any ink left?), then filled in (stupid red pen; I had a black pen around here somewhere), and then scanned (how do you scan on this printer, again?), and finally uploaded and sent. Phew! Easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

In addition, what’s often overlooked about physical forms is the additional physical logistics of storing, protecting, and handling forms which make everything all that bit more complicated and time consuming. And what about if one paper form goes missing? Ah, the nightmare! 

And also, you know, save the trees; save the planet.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Pretty much most of us have our own digital signature in our professional life. And any Tom, Dick, and Harriet will tell you that it’s much easier to keep hold of a digital form, and easier to find, than a hard copy.

And so to keep pace of the digital transformation of everyday life, it would be common sense to believe that all remaining paper forms would dissolve ecologically into the soil – as “all the old is swept away; all that is solid dissolves into digital” to freshen up the dusty Marxist quote.

But how do you make digital forms smooth to use and build within in a seamless customer experience, and ultimately, make individuals not pull away from filling in important forms?

This is precisely the reason why the guys and girls over at Adobe elevated Adobe Experience Manager Forms to the cloud. So that now, AEM customers can unilaterally declare a full-frontal attack on physical paper forms.

AEM Forms provides a digital solution that supports the whole document lifecycle, instead of simply the form layout and completion, for example, while also enabling brands to create forms that fit smoothly into the brand’s feel and look.

Filling in the benefits of AEM Forms

• 379% return on investment on average over 3 years.
• 63% quicker delivery of new forms and docs due to streamlining the creation process.
• Faster processes of updating and validating forms.
• Cloud-based forms provide scalability so that during peak periods the form-completion process remains stable and smooth.
  
• Security enhancements make digital forms safer for completion and storage.
  
• One of the simpler advantages: digital forms are available all day, every day, meaning there is no waiting time to have them filled in and submitted.
  

Accerarate workflows and internal processes; build better relationships with customers. Eliminate the paper menace and digitize the process with Adobe Experience Manager Forms.

PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Adobe Experience Manager dev teams. Contact us to see how we can work together.