Digital White Papers

DOCUMENT FACTORIES: BUILDING DOCUMENT AUTOMATION TOOLS the perspective of the person who will be automating the forms. Individuals tasked to automate the documents might not have a technical background or experience with document automation and may not work on document automation full time. The easier the software is to use, the quicker that person can be productive. Ease of use on the development side will also dictate how long it will take to automate forms and, to a significant degree, the quality of the end product. •End-user experience. A welcoming, wellorganized and easy-to-understand interface for end users will help drive adoption and encourage continued use of the document automation tools. The interface should be sufficiently intuitive that training is not required for the end user. Flexibility in designing the questionnaire (e.g., organizing questions, providing annotations and linking to other resources) can also improve the end-user experience and support training, quality, efficiency and other benefits. •Service, support and documentation. Continuing service, support and documentation are critical since any formal training you receive will likely encompass only a small part of the overall functionality of the development software. Ensure your vendor can provide regular, ongoing assistance and guidance. Even "minor" issues can often involve a disproportionately large amount of time if there is no recourse to a professional and prompt support group. Document automation development software has become quite powerful, and the factors listed above — ease of development, end-user experience and support — are likely to be more significant differentiators than specific product functionality. However, it is still prudent to conduct some research in advance on key product features and the relative importance of those features based on what you are trying to accomplish. Try to speak with customers who have used the tools to get a sense of the practical significance of different features. Product features to evaluate include: •Basic functionality. Almost all development software enables the automation of variables (i.e., fill-in-the-blank-type functionality) and conditional text (i.e., the ability to choose among different options). •Shortcuts. Document automation vendors have attempted to devise simple ways to deal with certain common issues that might otherwise require complex solutions. Seemingly innocuous aspects of a document — such as lists, punctuation, numbering and the formatting of fonts, numbers, text, dates and times — can become very complicated if the developer is limited to basic functions. •Special features. Certain features (e.g., complex arithmetic calculations, the ability to import information from data sets, etc.) could have varying degrees of significance depending on the nature of the document automation projects you plan to undertake. It can be helpful to identify the documents you plan to automate and understand the specific requirements associated with your documents before evaluating product features. •Automation toolkit. When setting up a document template for automation, you will typically need to apply various codes to the forms. Vendors will have different tools to expedite the coding process. You should, therefore, look at how easy or difficult it is to set up a form with the relevant automation codes. This will dictate the extent of upfront training required, development time, ongoing support requirements, etc. •Capacity for conditional logic. Assess the degree of sophistication to which conditional logic can be subject. This relates to how

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