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cityofaustin / atd-data-tech

Austin Transportation Data & Technology Services
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Project: Data Tracker Digital Form Extension #5335

Open atdservicebot opened 3 years ago

atdservicebot commented 3 years ago

Requirements

Use cases

Timeline

Jorge and Billy are creating fillable PDFs for now but say this is an ongoing and increasingly urgent need.

Requested by Jorge G., AMD Request ID: DTS21-101670

SurbhiBakshi commented 3 years ago

@amenity - looks like this needs to be done next week.

amenity commented 3 years ago

@dianamartin @johnclary ā€” I will write Jorge to get more information on their timeline but wanted to make you aware of this request.

It doesn't seem like a reasonable feature to implement, w/ no notice, in a week. What do you think of suggesting a Google Form or Survey Monkey for this round, to try a non-PDF method, and then sticking this as a feature request we can shoot to deliver in time for the next round of inspections?

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

@amenity We can try to prototype something in Google Forms, I just have some reservations about the image capture that Billy is looking to do for the contractors.

amenity commented 3 years ago

Thanks, Diana. That's a great point. Is it that Knack's file upload option is better than the one in Google Forms, or that technicians are already used to using it? Unfortunately Microsoft Forms doesn't have a file upload option.

Called and emailed Jorge

I got your request to digitize the signal intersection punch lists. It's not likely we will be able to get you a solution this week, but I'm looking into it.

In the meantime, it would be great to better understand

  • Timeframe: What day this week do y'all begin? How many days will it take? How often a year do you do them?
  • What makes PDFs a bad solution for y'all? What are the pain points?

@dianamartin @johnclary

amenity commented 3 years ago

Just spoke to Jorge and Billy. This punch list will be part of regular daily operations, but they have many that they'll be needing to do in the coming weeks.

Billy already started out building a Google Form, but the end result of the Google Form was a spreadsheet, which isn't helpful for contractor dispatch. @dianamartin suggested that this be added as a Data Tracker module.

Updating the issue description above.

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

@amenity I tried protyping the rating part of the Signal Inspection punch list and doing that in Knack is no bueno. That would take a lot of effort and it might not look right.

I was talking to Mary V. about FormStack to get a better sense of how the forms worked and she mentioned a few key things that I thought would work for Billy's needs. You get a filled PDF of the form response and the form is able to accept attachments with I think are key for him. She also mentioned that some of the form users use mobile devices and it's worked well for them. So maybe an alternative? ex. of FormStack Inspection form

amenity commented 3 years ago

@dianamartin - thanks so much for the research!šŸ™

That FormStack form looks really nice! I didn't know you could get a PDF of form responses ā€” that's wonderful for this use case. Questions:

BTW, if you ever want to try out FormStack you can just start a fully-featured trial on their website ā€” that's what CTM asks everyone to do before requesting to check out one of their licenses.

I asked Billy and Jorge to email the fillable PDF they're using now. I think this would give them what they need without requiring a new platform:

amenity commented 3 years ago

Jorge said the problem with the fillable PDF is that they weren't able to get a read-only file when they were finished. If they tried to print-to-PDF, they got a weird Adobe icon.

I was wondering if they could just maybe take a screenshot instead?

Also, it doesn't sound like the photos are must-have functionality

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

@amenity I thought I showed them how I fixed the read-only issue. The images are must have I believe, they intend to include photos for the contractors.

I've been testing the images function in the fillable PDF and it's promising.

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

@amenity I can follow-up on you FormStack questions with Amber from CTM, I believe she works on this according to Stephanie M.

amenity commented 3 years ago

@dianamartin put together a Formstack demo. That would look like:Ā 

Emailed Billy and Jorge an update with that info.

dianamartin commented 3 years ago
dianamartin commented 3 years ago

Jorge messaged me yesterday 3/4 to let me know that he thinks I emailed him the wrong fillable PDF form, which I did..

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

Synced with Jorge, he's going to put the additional check boxes and we made a new template of the punch list without the images.

The proposed process they think they'll do is:

Option 1

Option 2

@amenity they still want to keep this request open because they'd still like to pursue adding to Data Tracker whenever possible. They will use the PDF process until this can be added to Data Tracker.

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

Jorge replied

Finished up check boxes. Tested it all with billy including adding images. Looks great he is happy with it. Thank you so much for your help.

johnclary commented 3 years ago

thanks @dianamartin!

amenity commented 3 years ago

Thanks, @dianamartin! Yes, Billy reached out to me as well to say he wants to keep the issue open:

We want to keep the Inspection form project alive even if it takes several weeks to complete. The idea of it being embedded in DT and what the possibilities could be in DT are more appetizing than a fillable PDF could ever be. Diana was able to help Jorge get a working form for us to use in the meantime. Thanks for all you do!!

Are you back to thinking this makes sense as Data Tracker functionality?

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

Long term potentially make sense to be in Data Tracker, I see their needs evolving and needing to be in Data Tracker. Short term Billy is happy to do PDFs for now, he doesn't imagine that as his final solution.

amenity commented 3 years ago

@dianamartin - please summarize what you did this time around in this issue and close it. I'll move this one to the backlog. Thanks!

amenity commented 3 years ago

Other fillable PDFs that Billy's team will be using and could potentially be implemented the same way:

Digital DOSA is similar ā€” but required document every time work is completed, so don't want to risk removing it from Data Tracker and that creating friction. Billy is going to have someone evaluate the data that is being collected that way

amenity commented 3 years ago

@amenity schedule a scoping meeting with

amenity commented 3 years ago

@amenity - add to AMD agenda: How are Billy's fillable PDFs working out?

amenity commented 3 years ago

PDF is covering everything that needs to be done. No digital process necessary.

dianamartin commented 3 years ago

@amenity should we put this in the "backlog" queue?

amenity commented 3 years ago

@dianamartin - yes! Thanks.

amenity commented 3 years ago

Actually, Icebox until we have a better use case.