For better or worse, the go-to format for forms is PDF. It’s not the easiest file type to work with, especially if you need to somehow convert those forms into HTML for web input and data gathering. Regardless, many web developers are faced with that exact problem all the time, and they have to do what they can to make it work.
Challenge and Solution
For better or worse, the go-to format for forms is PDF. It’s not the easiest file type to work with, especially if you need to somehow convert those forms into HTML for web input and data gathering. Regardless, many web developers are faced with that exact problem all the time, and they have to do what they can to make it work
Ted Strickland, a senior developer at Headway Workforce Solutions, is one such developer. His scenario involved turning 38 unique, state-specific tax forms into fillable, savable, and scrapable web pages. Outside contractors were considered for the task, but they would have required 60 days at best to complete the job. This wouldn’t cut it, so Strickland dove in himself and succeeded with the help of Syncfusion’s PDF Viewer component.
To start, Strickland was able to deploy the PDF Viewer to the company’s servers and present it in a webpage without any modifications. That’s immediate functionality, right out of the box. Next, Strickland built a simple Web API to handle data filling on the front end and data scraping on the back end. From there, all form data was saved in an XML column in SQL Server, and common form data was saved to data tables for tax processing purposes. In only three work days, Strickland had built all 38 forms. That’s a form every 45 minutes
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, every other solution Strickland pursued prior to Syncfusion charged outrageous per-server and deployment fees. On top of that, many other solutions were less than transparent about how they provided data extraction capabilities, a major concern for data that must be kept private and protected
With Syncfusion, the problems posed by other solution providers were non-issues. Strickland was able to focus on making software that worked instead of worrying about the financial and other burdens that ship with other solutions. In the first year alone, Strickland estimates that the company saved about $100,000 USD. Looking ahead, Strickland plans to move all the forms the company works with to this methodology due to its effectiveness and substantial cost saving
Benefits
- No per-server or deployment fees.
- Saved $100,000 in the first year.
- Extensive data capture capabilities.
