Air Force's Use Of E-Forms Takes Off

The United States Air Force is doing away with forms. With help from consultant and integrator Enterprise Information Management (EIM) (Arlington, VA), the 700,000 users in that branch of the military will be using IMTs (information management tools) instead. What is the difference? "The Air Force Departmental Publishing Office [AFDPO] wanted to shift its focus from managing forms to managing content and transactions," explains Bruce Lyman, COO for EIM. Though the AFDPO was already using electronic forms and had a variety of smaller forms processing applications in place, the number of diverse platforms made the system difficult to manage and lacked workflow capabilities. When instructed in 2001 to modernize more than 17,000 electronic forms, the AFDPO realized it would need a universal platform for managing the entire life cycle of a form. Its requirements included ease of use and a low software-to-services ratio.

Open Standards Ease Integration, Cut Costs
EIM had an existing relationship with the AFDPO and assisted with the vendor selection process that eventually resulted in an RFP (request for proposal). The AFDPO chose to standardize on an e-forms solution from PureEdge Solutions, Inc. (Victoria, British Columbia), which is integrated with IBM's (Armonk, NY) Content Manager. The PureEdge application resides on an IBM WebSphere application server and is available via browser to authorized users around the world. Users access the forms through existing portals, which are secured using Access Manager from IBM Tivoli Software. Access Manager is a specialized authentication and authorization application designed to protect the security of Web-based resources.

The e-forms are interactive, assisting users who complete them. For example, if there is a section that would normally ask you to skip questions if your answer meets certain criteria, the application doesn't even display the unnecessary questions. When a user completes the online form, both the fields and the document itself are automatically tagged with XML (extensible markup language) metadata. Using a standard XML format (the specifications for which are published on the PureEdge Web site) makes the data more accessible for integration with back end applications. Lyman says that using a nonproprietary format was a priority on the AFDPO's list of criteria.

PureEdge also has out-of-the-box support for digital signatures, eliminating the need to print, sign, and re-scan documents. When a form is completed, it is routed to the appropriate users for approval or other action. Content Manager allows administrators to track the forms throughout the process and generate activity reports. It also maintains the forms as secure records.

Because PureEdge is designed to integrate with Content Manager, integration costs were contained. In the interest of time and cost, IBM and PureEdge professional services teams assisted with the development. "We try to work hard at giving the best value," says Lyman. "If it's more efficient and cost-effective to go with the vendor as it was in this case, that's what we'll do."

The AFDPO has a prescribed procedure for training on new systems such as this one and will handle the process of educating users. Lyman doesn't believe it will be a difficult process. EIM has created a self-paced, computer-based training module for similar projects. Lyman estimates that completing the demonstration generally takes about 15 minutes and says it rarely requires follow-up.

With more than 17,000 forms to automate, it will be some time before the AFDPO has entirely eliminated the existing systems. Creation of online forms began in spring of 2003, and the first fully automated forms are expected to be available to users early this fall. The AFDPO anticipates the life cycle process for the creation and completion of automating processes managed by forms will be cut from 18 months to 1 or 2 months, depending on the complexity.

The GPEA (the Government Paperwork Elimination Act) encourages use of electronic documents and e-signatures and is creating more opportunities like this one. "We're working with other federal agencies that are experiencing the same challenges and have similar requirements," comments Lyman. "But it's not limited to government. The same issues exist in every large organization we've ever been into. Unfortunately, changing software is easier than changing mindsets."