I work for a youth org and we’re trying to improve our incident reporting system. Right now staff fill out paper forms for things like injuries or lost items. Parents and staff sign these forms which then go to admin for manual data entry.
We want to keep the handwritten aspect but make the rest digital. Is there a way to scan these forms and automatically put the info into a spreadsheet? Maybe using OCR software?
I was thinking staff could take pics of the forms and upload them somewhere. Then the system would read the handwriting and put each field into the right spreadsheet cell.
I’m not tech savvy so I’m not sure if this is doable. Has anyone done something like this before? What tools or process would you recommend? Thanks for any advice!
OCR technology can definitely help with digitizing handwritten incident reports, but it’s not without challenges. I’ve seen this implemented in a similar setting, and while it streamlined processes overall, there were some hurdles to overcome.
The key is choosing the right OCR software. ABBYY FineReader and Handwriting OCR are solid options that handle handwritten text well. You’ll want to standardize your form layout and train staff on clear writing practices to maximize accuracy.
One potential issue is signature fields - OCR often struggles with these. You might consider keeping digital signatures separate. Also, plan for a human review process, especially initially, to catch any OCR errors.
For uploading, a secure web portal where staff can submit photos directly from their phones works well. Just ensure you have robust data security measures in place.
While it may take some time to set up and fine-tune, OCR can significantly reduce manual data entry and improve efficiency in the long run.
yea OCR can def work for that. i used it at my last job for similar stuff. just make sure your forms are consistent and staff write clearly. might need to tweak things a bit at first but it’ll save tons of time once its set up. good luck!
As someone who’s implemented a similar system, I can say it’s definitely doable but comes with challenges. We used ABBYY FineReader for our handwritten forms and it worked pretty well overall. The key is having a standardized form layout and training staff to write clearly.
One thing to watch out for is signature fields - OCR often struggles with those. We ended up keeping digital signatures separate. Also, you’ll likely need someone to review the OCR output, at least initially. Even with good handwriting, there were occasional errors that needed human eyes.
For uploading, we set up a secure web portal where staff could snap pics with their phones and submit forms instantly. Way faster than waiting for paper forms to make their way to admin. Just make sure you have a solid data retention policy in place.
Overall it streamlined things a lot, but expect some growing pains during implementation. Good luck with your project!