Recently, the Association for Intelligent Information Management and Business Forms Management Association announced that they have joined forces. BFMA is now a part of AIIM! Read the full press release here. As a longtime board member of BFMA and a new member of AIIM, I wanted to share why forms management matters to information management.
Within the information lifecycle, forms are a vital part of the lifecycle because forms collect and present information. Forms are the primary source to capture data, which is the first step in the lifecycle. Forms are not developed unless the delivery and archival channels are understood. Forms strategists must know these things (e.g., delivery, archive, etc.) so that the form can be created with the right tool.
When information management is managing electronic and physical information, where does the data in company databases come from?
Most of it originates on forms: websites (electronic interface for forms), apps (forms connected by codes), paper forms with manual data entry, paper forms with data retrieval through bar codes and scanning. Virtually all data collected by organizations regarding customers, transactions, billing, personnel management, and more originates with forms.
When information is communicated to customers, most of it is on forms such as bank statements, bills of lading, beneficiary designations, driver’s license and on and on – both paper and electronic. So if the source of IM data is forms AND a prime method of communicating that data is forms.
One function of forms management is forms design. It is through careful understanding of the data, the intended delivery and archive channel, and the application of good design and language principles that you can collect accurate, good, clean data in the right format. This can be on a paper form, a proprietary forms design system, a web page, an app – it doesn’t matter.
All forms are data collection, data presentation, and communication tools. We are all about the data and working to ensure that we are asking for information in the right way to get accurate information and to present information correctly so that it can be understood and acted upon properly.
Forms, whether paper or electronic, structure information requirements to operate core business processes. Forms management manages the forms and has many processes associated with them. There are 34 different processes within a forms management program.
Forms management is a key business partner to all departments within a company such as Legal services and/or Policy, Privacy and Security areas, Communications and Marketing, Information Technology, Procurement and Contracting, Inventory Management and warehousing, Manufacturing, Sales, and Records Management and Information Management (either of which may include document management). Forms management helps those areas achieve their goals of compliance, legality, security, information collection/presentation, etc.