Digitalise paper forms for different form fields - Best practice

Question

User1866597526 posted

Hey,

I have 5 MS Word forms which we are printing and giving to the users to fill hard copy. I want to digitalize it so the user can do it on tablet. i need suggestion of a best and easy practice i can do in ASP.net. Some challenges needs to be addressed

1. Word Form changes every now and then as it has terms and conditions on it. I want to make sure that when user fills the form its saved in the state it was on that day....................
2. these 5 forms have some common fields and many form specific fields. Now one way is that i create 5 tables in database and save each form in each. but this doesn't sound good practice because when a new form comes then i need to create more tables and if one form is discontinued then that table simply stays in DB. 

Can anyone suggest the best way to tackle such using the latest Asp.net techniques?

Answer 1

User665608656 posted

Hi MBhat,

According to your description, I need to confirm some requirements with you.

When a user enters, does he need to fill in all five forms? And the premise is the same identity?

If the information of these five tables corresponds to the user's ID, then I suggest that you do not need to use five tables to store it in the database.

You can create a table that contains all the fields of the five tables. If there will be a new form, just add the corresponding fields to the table in the database.

For this kind of design, I suggest that you first build the tables in the database, and then design your webform page.

Here is a common case of form filling associated with database in webform project. You can refer to this link:

Creating a Simple Registration Form in ASP.NET

Best Regards,

YongQing.

Answer 2

User1866597526 posted
Hi YongQing

Its not that the user have to fill all the forms. We have different activities and if a user wants to play the activity then the user have to fill form for that activity.

Some user detail fields are common but then there are activity specific fields. Adding all the fields in one table and using it in different forms is old method. I thought there might be a new technique to tackle this

Answer 3

User665608656 posted

Hi MBhat,

According to your description, I want to ask you if the fields that need to be filled in for these activities are the same, or not very different, or very different?

If they are the same or roughly the same, I suggest you follow these steps to design.

First, we only need to create three tables.

The first table named ActivityInfo is a table that records all activity types. Its primary key is the ID of the activity. The following fields can be some basic properties of these activities, such as the venue, duration, etc.

The second table named PersonInfo records the basic personal information of the person who filled in the form. The primary key is the ID of the person.

The third table named ActRegistRecord records the activities participated by which personnel. The primary key here is the serial number, which includes the different activities participated by different users and the basic information filled in.

Here is an example of these three tables:

Best Regards,

YongQing.

Answer 4

User1866597526 posted

Thanks for the reply. I think this would be good ides too. By the was also thinking to have fields in XML data type column.