At present I'm currently looking at options that are available to assist me with my workload.

I spend a large amount of time out in the field collecting data and then writing reports.

The majority of my time is travelling but then there is no time (or should I say paid time) to complete my reports so I end up behind all the time.

I have a huge amount of work to in 2012 and I'm looking at ways to reduce the amount of admin I do resulting in more family time.

Is it possible that I can have a template report that I would use a form on an electronic tablet device to collect the data.

I would like to be able to attend site using my iPad with a template form to collect the required information but once it has been completed I press submit and then the information collected is populated into the template report.

I don't know if this is possible but I'm sure with technology today it must be.



Best Regards



NWR

Hi Networkrail,

If your iPad can run MS Word, you could use a Word template that's configured as a form with formfields. When creating a new file based on such a template, the only edits that are allowed are to the formfields (or to deliberately unprotected Sections of the document). As you complete each formfield, you tab out of it and are taken to the next formfield. If the same data need to appear in multiple places, a simple cross-referencing arrangement is pretty much all that is needed. Formfields have three basic formats: text (for inputting text, numbers or dates); dropdown (for selecting from one of a pre-defined list of items); and checkbox (to indicate yes/no).

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]