Technical FAQs

Cells does not support concurrent/collaborative editing of the same document. It is designed for a linear workflow where saved data is made available to authorized users, enabling them to start with a spreadsheet that was previously populated by someone else.

The last twelve months have seen an unprecedented shift in the way organizations and customers are utilizing digital services. According to data gathered by McKinsey in 2020, digital adoption made roughly five years worth of progress in a span of eight weeks at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this massive shift impacted almost every industry, the government sector in particular faced tremendous disruption as its legacy systems struggled to keep pace with demand.

Many of the changes in the way people access government services are likely to remain in place even after the threat of the pandemic recedes, which creates a huge opportunity for software developers specializing in GovTech applications. A closer look at GovTech trends for 2021 provides some insight into those opportunities.

5 Key GovTech Trends to Watch in 2021

1. Remote Functionality 

Government agencies had to fundamentally rethink the workplace in response to the pandemic. Non-essential personnel transitioned to working remotely whenever possible, but this move created a number of challenges in terms of collaboration and security. Employees still need to be able to view, edit, and share files without compromising privacy or creating version confusion. All too often, remote workers resort to ad hoc solutions involving third party programs and conventional email, all of which make it incredibly difficult for an organization to maintain control over its essential files. GovTech developers can address these challenges directly by building software that facilitates remote collaboration entirely within a secure application.

2. Doing More with Less

One of the downstream consequences of social distancing restrictions and stay at home orders has been the erosion of sales tax revenue at the state and local level. While the impacts have not been as catastrophic as originally feared, many states are still facing significant budget shortfalls despite making deep spending cuts. The pressure will be on to find GovTech solutions that are easy to implement, use, and maintain. Efficiency and flexibility will continue to be important considerations as state and municipal governments seek out platforms that can address multiple needs and allow them to eliminate costly redundancies.

3. Shift to Digital

When government offices were forced to shut their doors in the early days of the pandemic, they had to scramble to find ways to deliver services digitally. This was especially difficult for agencies relying on legacy infrastructure and outdated software, but the transition to digital is unlikely to slow down anytime soon now that it’s underway. According to a recent study, 61 percent of government officials surveyed believe that the pandemic has accelerated their digital transformation goals, while 75 percent claim that their agency is pushing to offer even more services digitally. That will mean plenty of opportunity for innovative GovTech developers that can provide the automation and data management tools governments need to bring their services into the 21st century.

4. Fight for Privacy

Government agencies sit upon massive amounts of private data that must be kept secure at all costs. From personally identifiable information like Social Security Numbers to contracts and applications that contain confidential business data and vital trade secrets, governments have a responsibility to protect sensitive data at all times. They need systems and software that not only keeps files safely within the secure confines of an application, but also provides the redaction capabilities that allow agencies to comply with information requests. By designing platforms that promote transparency while also protecting privacy, GovTech developers can play an important role in building trust between government and citizens. 

5. Citizen-Centric Experience

The combination of evolving public expectations and demographic change was rapidly reshaping the delivery of government services even before the pandemic. In a global survey conducted in late 2019, Accenture found that 50 percent of respondents believed that requests to an agency could be resolved faster with the use of AI assistants or chatbots and that a transition to 24/7 access to government services would be greatly beneficial. Respondents also wanted easier access to their personal information (74 percent), faster response times (73 percent), and greater visibility into the status of their queries and applications (64 percent). Younger citizens accustomed to customer-centric experiences are further shifting expectations of what services the government should be able to offer digitally. It will fall to GovTech developers to design applications that connect citizens to their government and streamline processes that have long relied upon inefficient manual practices and direct physical interactions.

Enhance Your GovTech Application with Accusoft Solutions

Working with the government sector presents a number of challenges to even seasoned developers. From meeting complex compliance and privacy requirements to managing a dizzying range of document types, building and implementing an effective solution takes a great deal of time and development resources.

One of the easiest ways to speed up that process is by incorporating proven functionality into an application with SDKs or APIs. Accusoft’s collection of software integrations helps GovTech developers get to market faster by providing reliable and government-ready content processing features.

• PrizmDoc Viewer: A powerful HTML5 viewer with annotation and redaction capabilities, PrizmDoc Viewer makes it easy to view, edit, and manage public records, contracts, and even more sensitive documents all within a secure GovTech application.
• ImageGear: With ImageGear’s extensive image processing, conversion, and compression features behind them, GovTech applications can easily improve document workflows, consolidate information, and meet government archiving standards (thanks to PDF/A support).
• FormSuite: Processing government forms can quickly overwhelm an application if it doesn’t have the capabilities to handle multiple form types or clean up document images. FormSuite for Structured Forms is a collection of forms processing SDKs that helps GovTech applications quickly sort and extract data from structured forms for superior speed and accuracy.

As GovTech trends continue to accelerate in 2021, developers need partners they can trust to provide secure, reliable functionality to their applications so they can focus their efforts on building software that meets the exacting needs of the government sector. Learn more about how Accusoft can fulfill that role and elevate the potential of GovTech applications.

Today’s organizations gather information from a variety of sources. Structured forms remain one of the most popular tools for collecting and processing data, and anyone who has filled out such a form recently has likely encountered the familiar bubbles or squares used to indicate some form of information. Whether these marks are used to identify marital status, health conditions, education level, or some other parameter, optical mark recognition plays an important role in streamlining forms processing and data capture.

What is Optical Mark Recognition?

Optical mark recognition (OMR) reads and captures data marked on a special type of document form. In most instances, this form consists of a bubble or a square that is filled in as part of a test or survey. After the form is marked, it can either be read by dedicated OMR software or fed into a physical scanner device that shines a beam of light onto the paper and then detects answers based on how much light is reflected back to an optical sensor. Older OMR scanners detected answers by measuring how much light passed through the paper itself using phototubes on the other side. Since the phototubes were very sensitive, #2 pencils often had to be used when filling out forms to ensure an accurate reading.

Today’s OMR scanners are much more accurate and versatile, capable of reading marks regardless of how they’re filled out (although they struggle if the mark is made with the same color as the printed form). More importantly, OMR software has made it possible to capture data from OMR forms without the need for any special equipment. This is especially helpful for processing forms information that exists in digital format, such as PDF files or JPEG images. 

The History of Optical Mark Recognition

One of the oldest versions of forms processing technology, OMR dates back to the use of punch cards, which were first developed in the late 1800s for use with crude “tabulating” machines. The cards typically provided simple “yes/no” information based on whether or not a hole was punched out. When fed through the tabulating machine, a hole would be registered and counted. This same basic principle would allow more complex machines to perform basic arithmetic in the early 1900s before serving as the foundation for early computer programming by mid-century. Entire computer programs were stored on stacks of punch cards, which would remain in use until well into the 1970s when more powerful machines made them obsolete.

Although OMR operates on the same principle as a punch card, it instead uses scanning technology to detect the presence of a mark made by a pencil or a pen. This form of identification was first popularized by IBM’s electrographic “mark sense” technology in the 1930s and 1940s. The concept itself was first developed by a schoolteacher named Reynold Johnson, who wanted to streamline test grading. He designed a machine that could read pencil marks on a special test paper and then tabulate the marks to generate a final score. After joining IBM in 1934, Johnson spearheaded the development of the Type 805 Test Scoring Machine, which debuted in 1938 and revolutionized test scoring in the education sector. In production until 1963, the 805 could score 800 sheets per hour when run by an experienced operator.

The 805 registered marks by using metal brushes to sense the electrical conductivity of graphite from the pencil lead. While effective, it had limitations in terms of reading speed and flexibility. When Everett Franklin Lindquist, best known as the creator of the ACT, needed a machine that could keep up with Iowa’s widespread adoption of standardized testing in the 1950s, he developed the first true optical mark reader. Patented in 1962, Lindquist’s machine detected marks by measuring how much light passed through a scoring sheet and was capable of scoring 4,000 tests per hour.

Throughout the 1960s, OMR scanning technology continued to improve and spread to a variety of industries looking for ways to rapidly process data. In education, however, the OMR market would soon be dominated by the Scantron Corporation, which was founded in 1972 to market smaller, less expensive scanners to K-12 schools and universities. After placing the scanners in educational institutions, Scantron then sold large quantities of proprietary test sheets that could be used for a variety of testing purposes. Scantron was so successful that their distinctive green and white sheets have become synonymous with OMR scanning for generations of US college students.

The next major innovation in OMR technology arrived in the early 1990s with dedicated OMR software that could replicate the drop-out capabilities of commercial scanners. Part of the reason why scanners used proprietary, pre-printed forms was so they could use colors and watermarks that would not register during scanning for more accurate reading. Thanks to OMR software, it became possible to create templated forms and then remove the form image during the reading process to ensure that only marked information remained.

Take Control of OMR Forms with Accusoft SDKs

Accusoft’s FormFix forms processing SDK features powerful production-level OMR capabilities. It not only detects the presence of check or bubble marks, but can also detect markings in form fields, which is particularly useful for determining whether or not a signature is present on a document. Capable of reading single or multiple marks at 0, 90, 180, and 270 degree orientations, FormFix can also recognize checkboxes and be programmed to accommodate a variety of bubble shapes. Its form drop-out and image cleanup features also help to ensure the highest level of accuracy during OMR reading.

For expanded forms functionality, including optical character recognition (OCR) and intelligent character recognition (ICR), developers can also turn to FormSuite for Structured Forms. Featuring a comprehensive set of forms template creation tools and data capture capabilities, FormSuite can streamline forms processing workflows and significantly reduce the costs and errors associated with manual data entry and extraction.

Find out what flexible OMR functionality can do for your application with a fully-featured trial of the FormSuite SDK. Get started with some functional sample code and explore FormFix’s features to start planning your integration.