Technical FAQs

Forms are a critical part of business processes, no matter what type of organization you’re running. Whether you’re dealing with employees requesting PTO or prospect requesting more information, forms enable you to collect the data you need quickly organize the information in an efficient way.

There’s a process for everything, and many organizations are figuring out that forms require a very systematic approach. If you don’t have a system in place, data can easily be lost or misplaced. What is the real issue here? Paper isn’t cutting it and neither is email.

The Trouble with Paper Forms

The problem arises when there’s too much data to structure. Manual processes take forever. Just think about all the printing, scanning, and faxing you have to do with paper forms. It’s inefficient and the cost adds up. Not to mention the time it takes to manually process that data.

In addition, emailing forms back and forth for manual or digital entry can get complicated as well. Whether the recipient is printing the form or needs to have a PDF editor installed on their device, the fact of the matter is that it’s just not efficient enough for business. Consistency is key to a streamlined workflow, and the rapid growth of unstructured and inconsistent data collection is creating process challenges.

The Problem at Scale

As companies grow, business processes naturally become more complex. Quickly scaling can be difficult without the help of a process automation tool. Without one, you need a larger headcount, and even then, mistakes will inevitably happen. Teams spend too much time and valuable resources on cumbersome, repetitive processes that are often stalled, derailed, or completely forgotten.

Manual forms and digital forms just don’t make sense when there isn’t a streamlined workflow process around collecting the data. Just think about all the forms you currently use that either contain missing or illegible information. If you’re thinking we are about to suggest a bulky document management system, think again. While we see the value of adding expensive solutions to manage content, it’s not for everyone and it’s especially not suitable for small businesses.

A Solution with Style

With Docubee, forms don’t have to be a hassle. The fast form creator helps you create reusable digital forms in minutes by automatically finding and placing fields on documents. Just imagine… eliminating manual processes and streamlining your document-based workflows. It’s not a dream. It’s reality.

With the click of a button, you can turn your static document templates into online fillable forms. Now you have a simple and powerful way to collect data from your employees and clients without all the back and forth. We help growing businesses transform tedious email and paper-based functions into efficient digital processes. Take automation to the next level with Docubee. Ready to explore more of our cloud-based, mobile-ready features? Learn more about Docubee and our features now.

There’s no easy way around it. We live in a digital world where paper is less and less efficient to manage. Email started the first round of digital transformation, but now our inboxes get flooded with messages making it almost impossible to get the job done on time. Not to mention, the potential security risks if documents are lost or stolen in cyberspace.

So what’s the solution? A simple process automation platform that enables your team to evolve your business process. Now you can stop using outdated methods of the 90s, like passing paper forms from desk-to-desk or using your inbox as your task list, and start operating efficiently. Discover how Docubee can simply automate your forms and processes so you can get back to work.

Fast Form Creator

Forms are a critical piece of most business processes no matter what industry you’re operating in. The fast form creator helps you create reusable digital forms in minutes by automatically finding and placing fields on documents so you don’t waste time manually updating static forms. Why print, scan, and fax paper forms when you can easily create digital assets? With Docubee, you can eliminate manual processes and streamline your document-based workflows.

Dynamic Web Forms

Creation isn’t the only challenge when it comes to forms. Companies need a faster, more accurate way for their customers and employees to complete forms in a mobile world. So why use static PDFs and paper forms that make collecting data tedious and time consuming? Even email, spreadsheets, and chat fall short when it comes to collecting and syncing data to your other systems.
With Docubee’s dynamic web forms, organizations can collect data faster and more accurately with mobile-responsive web forms. Designed to support today’s on-the-go teams, Docubee gives you the freedom to complete tasks from the field, the office, or wherever you need to get the job done.

Process Builder

Having a standard process in place helps every project move from start to finish more efficiently. Many organizations have processes that are undocumented and difficult to duplicate. Wouldn’t it be easier to lay the foundation to allow your business to grow before it gets out of control? With Docubee’s process builder, you can easily map, replicate, and update your business processes with an intuitive, no-code workflow tool.

Give your organization the ability to scale and have more visibility into existing processes. With no custom-coding required, you can create new processes quickly and update them on the fly as your business evolves. Don’t put your company at risk of non-compliance. Standardized processes are the key to taking the guesswork out of completing mission-critical tasks and alleviating your company’s growing pains.

Digital Signatures

Your John Hancock is not what it used to be. Ink and paper are tried and true, but in today’s digital age, there’s a more secure and efficient way to approve official documents. With Docubee’s digital signatures, you can ensure documents get signed and returned quickly from any device. With wet signatures, there’s no audit trail. Not to mention the hassle of printing, scanning, and emailing. With a growing mobile and remote workforce, you can avoid documents getting stalled in the signing process. Don’t wait for the signer to get back to their desk to physically see the hard copy waiting to be signed. Docubee provides legally-binding digital signatures for secure, trackable transactions.

Auto-Merge

Requiring the same data, say your name and address, to be entered over and over again into several forms is just a waste of time. Why make it more difficult than it has to be? Docubee can help you auto-merge your data directly into your form and document templates. Enter it once and your data flows seamlessly across all your forms and your other systems. Eliminate human error and get the right information into the right hands faster. Discover a more efficient way to populate your data with Docubee.

Everyone needs efficient, structured business processes that digitize cumbersome email and paper-based workflows. Add value to your business, boost process efficiency, and empower your team to get work done faster with Docubee. Ready to get started? Schedule a demo today.

The insurance market is booming. As noted by research firm Deloitte, the property and casualty (P&C) sector saw a massive income uptick in 2018 and steady growth last year that’s predicted to carry forward through 2020. To help manage the influx of new clients and handle more claims, many firms are spending on insurance technology (insurtech) — digital services and solutions that make it possible to reduce error rates and enhance operational efficiency. InsurTech SDKs are important components of this transformation.

Both in-house insurtech solutions and third-party platforms often excel in specific areas but come up short in others, putting insurance firms at risk of writing off potential gains. While solution switching and ground-floor rebuilds offer one route to success, there’s another option that’s more custom to your business needs: software development kits (SDKs). Here’s a look at three top SDKs that offer customized functionality potential.

FormSuite for Structured Forms: Solving for Data Capture

Time is money. The faster insurance companies accurately complete and file documents, the greater their revenue potential. And as noted by KPMG, the need for speed is more pressing than ever. Many insurance sectors have seen substantial increases in both claims and new applications as the COVID-19 crisis evolves. 

As a result, accurate and agile forms processing is critical to keep up with demand. If current insurance software can’t quickly capture forms data, recognize standard form fields, and let users easily create standard form libraries, policy processing falls behind.

FormSuite for Structured Forms makes it easy for developers to build in form identification and data capture that includes comprehensive form field detection with OCR, ICR, and OMR functionality and the ability to automatically identify scanned forms and match them to existing templates.

ImageGear for .NET and C/C++: Simplifying Conversion

Conversion is critical for insurance firms. Depending on the type and complexity of insurance claims, companies are often dealing with everything from Word documents for initial client assessments and .GIF or .JPG images of existing damage to contractor-specific PDFs or spreadsheets that detail necessary materials, time, and labor costs. The result? A mash-up of multiple file types that forces adjusters to spend valuable time searching for specific data instead of helping clients get their claims process up and running. This makes it difficult to recognize value from emerging digital initiatives. 

Accusoft’s ImageGear for .NET and ImageGear for C/C++ empower developers to integrate enterprise-class file viewing, annotation, conversion, and image processing functions into existing applications, allowing staff to both quickly collaborate on key tasks and find essential data across a single, easy-to-search document.

ImageGear: Streamlining PDF Capabilities

While insurance technology offers substantive opportunities for end-users to capture, convert, and retain data, this technology can also come with the challenge of increased complexity. According to recent research from PWC, for example, firms looking to capitalize on insurtech potential must be prepared to rapidly develop new product offerings and embrace the expectations. 

As a result, companies need applications that streamline current functions and allow them to focus on creating cutting-edge solutions. For example, PDF is a file format that is still used by enterprises worldwide to maintain document format consistency and maximize security. When it comes to converting multiple files into a PDF, software can be expensive and introduce data security issues. 

This can all be solved with an SDK like ImageGear, which makes it possible to integrate the total PDF package into any document management application, both reducing overall complexity and freeing up time for staff to work on new insurance initiatives.

Insurtech forms the framework of functional futures in policy applications, claims processing, and compliance reporting, but existing software systems may not provide the complete capability set companies need to make the most of digital deployments. These top SDKs offer insurance IT teams the ability to integrate key services, improve speed, and boost security at scale. Learn more about Accusoft’s SDKs at www.accusoft.com/products. 

Far from just another tech industry buzzword, artificial intelligence (AI) is fast becoming a mainstay of data collection and analysis for many organizations. According to research by Accenture, not only do 84 percent of executives think leveraging AI is critical to meeting growth objectives, but three out of four of them believe they will risk going out of business if they don’t scale those initiatives.

That fear of being left behind is why 88 percent of companies have already invested in AI or machine learning technology or plan to do so in the near future. With some 175 zettabytes of data expected to be created in 2025, organizations without the AI data processing tools necessary to analyze and make sense of that data will struggle to develop effective business strategies and deliver a competitive customer experience.

It’s a tremendous opportunity for independent software vendors building the next-generation of applications across various industries. In order to deliver on the promise of AI, however, these software solutions also need to provide the tools that allow users to leverage their capabilities to streamline business processes. After all, a powerful AI solution isn’t of much use if it can’t be integrated with existing workflows.

Getting the Most Out of AI Data Processing

The most successful developers understand that AI data processing is only one piece of the puzzle. Their innovative AI technology is driving the car, but they still need the frame and wheels around it if the application is going to take their customers anywhere. That means building the less glamorous, but equally essential technology that helps AI data processing solve everyday tasks.

Take, for instance, document or image management. Organizations that gather data from physical forms or scanned documents need some way of extracting information so it can be converted into a format AI data processing tools can utilize. Manual data entry is both time-consuming and prone to error, so requiring users to transfer information by hand is simply not viable. By building document and image processing capabilities into their applications, developers can greatly enhance the versatility of AI data processing by automating key aspects of the collection process.

There’s also the question of what can be done with all of that data once it’s been gathered. Legal organizations, for example, often need to apply that information to contract creation, while insurance agents turn to it when assessing risk. By combining AI data processing capabilities with document assembly tools and search functionality, organizations can further automate key business processes to improve efficiency. Why painstakingly draft legal contracts or master service agreements from scratch when applications can use automation tools in conjunction with AI to assemble documents with greater speed and accuracy?

Build vs. Buy?

This often presents a challenge for software developers with limited resources. On the one hand, they need to invest as much time and energy as possible into their innovative AI data processing capabilities in order to meet the collection and analysis needs of their customers. But without also providing some way of interacting with and using that data to improve other key tasks, they will struggle to persuade potential users to adopt their innovative platform.

One solution is to build that functionality in-house. For software developers with substantial resources, this might sound like a good option. Unfortunately, the reality often proves less than ideal. Even something as basic as viewing and converting documents can quickly become a massive undertaking that draws valuable developer resources away from the AI data processing capabilities that are supposed to help the product stand out in a crowded market. 

In many cases, the company ends up having to outsource the work or push back key deadlines. Even worse, it may also end up creating more problems than it solves by relying on open source toolkits and libraries. The biggest problem has to do with security vulnerabilities. A recent study found over 2,600 bugs reported in open source projects between 2015 and early 2020. Even worse, many of these vulnerabilities were not formally reported to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) until well after they were first exposed, giving hackers and other hostile actors time to exploit the security gaps.

The Integration Solution

Developers can avoid delays and security risks by turning to proven SDK and API integrations for their application needs. This is especially effective for complex, but essential functionality like viewing, conversion, compression, editing, and assembly. By relying on code-based integrations that are actively supported, they can ensure that users will be able to leverage their AI data processing solutions securely and effectively.

Rather than building features from the ground up and wasting valuable development resources, independent software vendors can devote more time and energy on the core competencies that will make their application more competitive. That allows them to build more powerful AI data processing capabilities and bring those features to market even faster.

Enhance Your AI Data Processing Application with Accusoft Integrations

Accusoft’s family of SDK and API integrations helps software developers realize the potential of their applications by delivering proven document and image processing functionality. Whether you need document assembly tools to get the most out of your legal AI sifters or powerful HTML5 viewing capabilities to harness the power of risk management automation, our easy-to-implement, code-based integrations can help you realize the full potential of your application’s AI data processing.

Find out more about how the Accusoft development team is incorporating machine learning into their processes or talk to one of our integration specialists today to learn how we can enhance your AI data processing application.

Although often considered a bit old fashioned, the insurance industry has made great strides in recent years to adapt to the changing needs of its customers. The latest generation of insurance customers expects faster service, better support, and more options from providers. Given these pressures, it’s no surprise that InsurTech developers have found ample opportunities to deliver solutions that help insurance firms better manage their workflows and create better customer experiences.

Despite the successes of this digital transformation, however, there are still a number of challenges that InsurTech developers face when building new applications. Investing heavily in creating powerful AI and big data tools might help those platforms stand out from the crowd, but they won’t find much success with firms if they don’t also provide the core functionality organizations need to service their customers. 

That’s why many InsurTech developers are turning to versatile SDK and API integrations to expand their feature sets without compromising their development timelines.

4 Major Challenges of InsurTech Applications

1. Security and Privacy

As the insurance industry continues to shift toward digital processes and platforms, it’s become more important than ever for InsurTech applications to keep sensitive data secure. While most organizations do invest in cybersecurity protections, they often don’t realize how their own practices could potentially pose a risk to customer information. This is especially true of insurers that rely on third-party programs for various tasks like document viewing and editing. Take, for instance, the case of Folksam Group, which inadvertently shared client data from as many as one million customers with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Adobe in late 2020. 

2. File Management

Today’s insurers are receiving all kinds of documents, files, and images from their customers, which creates something of a document dilemma. A single auto accident claim, for instance, might have valuable information spread across multiple PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheet files, scanned images of hand-written forms, and image files. In order to process claims quickly and effectively, firms need InsurTech solutions that provide an all-in-one solution that can handle a broad array of file formats. Without these file management tools, insurers will be forced to use multiple programs to meet their needs, which creates inefficient dependencies and increases security risks.

3. Data Collection

Insurance companies gather quite a bit of information from form applications, both in physical and digital formats. Unfortunately, transferring that information from a form document into an InsurTech system is often a laborious manual process. Not only is manual data collection time consuming, it also increases the likelihood of human error. Even when firms do implement an InsurTech solution with forms processing capabilities, however, they often lack the capability to read certain types of form fields, especially those completed by hand. The ability to adapt to new form templates is also critical for organizations that want to invest in automation. 

4. Remote Collaboration

The COVID-19 pandemic may have forced insurance offices to rapidly embrace a remote work strategy, but many firms had already been investing in some form of hybrid work model for years. Nationwide was able to transition 98 percent of its workforce to remote status precisely because the company already had the technology solutions in place to allow insurance agents to work from home. Without some way of facilitating remote collaboration directly through InsurTech applications, organizations end up relying on email, which poses serious security concerns. Furthermore, with multiple copies of a document being distributed and downloaded, it quickly becomes difficult to know which version incorporates the most up-to-date changes.

SDK and API InsurTech Solutions

Building new functionality into an application always involves a tradeoff. When developers choose to code something from scratch, that means pulling team members away from another project or extending the product’s release timeline. In a fast-moving industry where InsurTech developers are racing competitors to be the first to market, it doesn’t make sense to design and build every aspect of an application in-house. 

Rather than pulling valuable development resources away from their innovative InsurTech features, developers can solve common insurance challenges much faster with SDK toolkits and API integrations. 

Secure File Viewing

The easiest way for InsurTech solutions to keep documents secure is to integrate HTML5 viewing capabilities directly into the application. Rather than being forced to download or open a file for viewing in a third-party application, employees can view multiple document formats natively. This is critical because it means no data will be shared with third-party programs.  Since the files remain safely within the secure InsurTech environment, firms can also control the level of access to any document, which prevents unauthorized individuals from downloading or viewing the contents. Thanks to API-based integrations like Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer, InsurTech developers can help their applications safely view more than 100 unique file types without any third-party dependencies.

Data Capture

By integrating forms processing capabilities into their applications, InsurTech developers can provide their clients with powerful tools that allow them to gather essential data quickly and accurately. As the essential connective tissue between customers and insurance databases, form field recognition integrations use OCR technology to intelligently identify form data and extract it for processing. They can also be set up to identify a wide range of insurance forms to quickly identify and scan documents to streamline processing workflows. Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms even goes a step further by incorporating powerful image cleanup functionality to ensure that data will be extracted as accurately as possible.

File Conversion

In order to meet the file management challenges of today’s insurance providers, InsurTech developers need document and image processing integrations that can read and write multiple file formats. Information spread across multiple documents, emails, or even texts can be processed using OCR technology, and then consolidated and converted into a variety of formats for easy reference and collaboration. Rather than juggling several files with different dependencies, an SDK integration like Accusoft’s ImageGear can easily output processed files in PDF, RTF, XML, or DOCX format for viewing and editing within a single application.

Editing and Annotation

Providing secure document viewing capabilities solves only one half of the insurance collaboration challenge. InsurTech applications also need to provide both internal and external stakeholders with the ability to edit and markup documents throughout the application and claims process. Content processing integrations can allow authorized users to make changes to documents completely within their InsurTech solution and review markups and comments from other collaborators. 

Since all editing occurs within the application itself, there’s no need to worry about anyone downloading a document to make changes locally and creating confusion over which version is the most up-to-date. Redactions may also be necessary to hide private or confidential information from unauthorized viewers. As an added benefit, PrizmDoc Viewer’s editing features allow users to make a variety of markups and redactions while preserving the integrity of the original file.

Accelerate Your InsurTech Application Development with Accusoft

Accusoft’s collection of powerful SDK toolkits and API integrations provide innovative InsurTech developers with the resources they need to solve core insurance industry challenges. By implementing proven functionality into their applications, project managers can streamline the development process and dedicate more resources to the innovative features that will set their platform apart from the competition.

Whether you’re looking to incorporate versatile document viewing and editing or need a more accurate forms processing solution, Accusoft’s family of InsurTech SDKs and APIs can help your development team get to market faster. Learn more about what our products can do for your application in our InsurTech fact sheet.