Captricity can help! Here’s how it could work if, for example, a dentist wants data from her forms as well as the images of the teeth:

1. She draws a box around each data field and image field on her form
2. For the image fields, she specifies that it is a “select-one” data type, with a single choice, “There are marks on the diagram”.
3. She uploads scans of her completed patient forms and runs the job as usual.
4. When the job is completed, she finds each image fields represented as a column in the results page. To see the original image, she clicks the cell (see picture below).
5. She can then right-click to save that image.

This technique can be used for signatures, images, drawings, or even long passages of free-form text.

Could you use this feature? Try Captricity out now for yourself, or get in touch with us to learn more!

Captricity's new Table feature

Captricity has always been good at extracting structured data, but until now, if a form is primarily a table, Captricity’s output format did not match the original table format. For example, the results of a signup sheet with 40 rows and 5 columns (e.g. Firstname, Lastname, Phone, Email, Zipcode) was represented as a single row of 200 (40 x 5) columns in Captricity’s Job results.

You asked us to change the output format to follow the original table format — and we listened!

Now, with Captricity’s Table feature, the output results will have 5 columns, with each signup sheet taking up 40 rows. For example, sheet one would be in rows 1-40, and sheet two in rows 41-80, and so on (see photo below).

The Table feature also makes it super simple mark up a table form:

1. Click the Table tab of the Toolbox.
2. Draw one big box around the whole table
3. Type in the number of columns and rows, and click resize (see image above)
4. Name each column.
5. Run your job and get your results back in table format (see image below)

Fully-entered, digitized data, in the same table format as before

The new Table output form makes it easer to visualize results in Excel or import into a CRM, SQL database, or analytics software.

We think this new feature could be a game-changer for many people who have large tables in forms.  Give it a try to find out!

Photo Courtesy of SDI

Here at Captricity, we think a lot about how data is collected. We’ve recognized for a while that paper is often the cheapest and easiest way to collect data. Recently, we heard about an inspiring network of organizations which has also found that paper is often the best way of including and giving data ownership to even the most underrepresented members of a community.

I first learned about Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) at an ICTD (Information and Communication Technology for Development) Technology Salonand then in a longer interview.  SDI works to empower and give voice to urban poor in almost 3 dozen countries. Their incredible programs are complex and encompasses a number of elements and aspects, but I was particularly struck by their common practice of enumerating every person and dwelling in a given slum area .  The very act of counting themselves gives community members new insights into their own collective needs, and begins to give them the political voice they lacked for so long.

A focus group discussion in Aura, photo courtesy of SDI

Within SDI’s member federations, community members are the ones who collect, double-check and own the data. They thus think very carefully about which mode of collection is used. The most vulnerable and underrepresented members of a community are often the last to gain access to new technologies, so choosing an electronic means of data collection inaccessible to them could further exclude their voices and increase the already-severe social gaps. Mobile phones and some ICTs do reach many people in certain of SDI’s locations, but in many others, only the use of paper can reasonably include all inhabitants. Community members thus use paper to collect data on every household, tabulate the results onto more paper, and sit with other community members to discuss, dispute and verify the data, thus ensuring high accuracy. SDI eventually digitizes the data from those pieces of paper for easier visualization and access by city officials, politicians, donors and other key stakeholders.

Community planning in Cape Town, photo courtesy of SDI

A copy of the community registers are left behind with the community, and shared with the local government office and the support NGO in the form of digital data which is also printed and available on paper.

It is inspiring to see an organization put such effort into choosing appropriate technology for both data collection and ultimate dispersal. We hope that our work digitizing paper data may make it easier for more organizations to follow SDI’s example, making careful and separate decisions about both the data collection technology employed and ultimate output format desired. Regardless, how amazing to see what SDI has done so far, and I am excited to follow their future work. You can read more about their enumeration and mapping, follow their blog, and check out their annual report.

Captricity's Booth at GHIC

about the truly incredible work being done to improve health and save lives around the world! We learned about more innovative projects than we could begin to name, and were moved by the many people we met who truly cared about the work they were doing and the populations they were helping.

We were especially thrilled with all the positive feedback we heard about Captricity. Over a dozen people exclaimed “I can’t believe something like this exists!” when they discovered our web-based data digitization service.  Many of them shared with us stories of struggling to enter data in the field with limited staff and budgets, or frustrations of long lag times in data processing, and disappointing quality  and accuracy when they finally did get the data. It was heartbreaking to hear of such incredible work being hampered by data issues that we can easily solve.

While we’ve been interested in the global health space for awhile – Captricity was born out of Kuang’s research in a Ugandan health clinic, and my background is global health – this conference inspired us to do more. Stay tuned to hear about our plans to give away our services to some of the most inspiring “do-gooders” around the world.

In the meantime, are you or your organization struggling with data entry from paper forms? Please try out Captricity for yourself, or get in touch to learn more.

SurveyMonkey's Printable PDFs

SurveyMonkey's Print to PDF option

Let’s say Sara runs a neighborhood cafe and wants to know how her clients like the coffee. About half of her customers have their laptops constantly in tow; completing an online survey telling her how much they love the soy chai latte is a no-brainer. But then, she has a large and loyal clientele from the retirement community around the corner. They would happily sit for a few extra minutes to write about how delicious her new drip coffee is, but they wouldn’t go near an online survey. Sara uses SurveyMonkey to create an online survey and print out a paper version. At the end of the week, she drops the filled-in paper surveys into a scanner, uploads the results to Captricity, and gets a spreadsheet of her results.

We’re excited to be working with SurveyMonkey to make this even more tightly-integrated experience. Does this sound like something you’d like to use? Check out SurveyMonkey’s Printable PDFs.

(image from zoom_artbrush on Flickr )

We attended the Nonprofit Technology Conference last week. What incredible work organizations are doing to change lives around the world!  Unfortunately, nearly all struggled with data in one way or another,  including volunteer management, donations processing, and reaching less tech-savvy stakeholders. We want to help!  Below we’ve brainstormed some ways Captricity can ease the data burden, and would love speak more about others.

Data Integration
Most organizations used up to 6 or 7 of different databases and systems, many of which had similar information, but weren’t interoperable. They often included paper files and stacks of forms and surveys. Why not use Captricity  to digitize all that paper? We would provide one CSV file that could be synched with all databases and systems; no need to enter the data at all, let alone multiple times into multiple places!

Volunteer Management and Donations Processing
Non-profits are unique in their reliance on people outside of their organization, including volunteers and donors. An incredible amount of paper data is required to manage them, from the initial sign-up or membership forms, to even registrations, donation forms, etc. Much of this data is incredibly important and time-sensitive, but entering can be slow and takes staff time away from other important tasks. Captricity can help – send us a photograph or scan of the form you need entered, and we’ll get you data in a few hours. Spend time sending thank you notes and pledge forms, not typing in data.

Reaching Less Tech-Savvy Stakeholders
Retirees and wealthy elderly patrons may be some of nonprofits’ most important stakeholders, but most of them aren’t plugged into social media. The same is often true for target populations of many interventions. With Captricity, organizations can us paper to reach out to all of these constituents, without needing to worry about the amount of data entry they’ll have to do later.

Do you work with a non-profit? Do you think Captricity could help you? Sign up for our beta or contact us to learn more. While Captricity certainly can’t make data collection and management completely pain-free for nonprofits, we’d love to help ease the burden to give organizations  more time (and the data they need) to continue saving the world.

The National Archives provides background on the project in a video here: http://www.1940census.archives.gov/ . It describes how 6 people spent 3 months going through about 3.9 million images to transform enormous amounts of paper forms into digital data.  The video also describes how the original census data was collected, and the fascinating span of US history it covers.

Occupational Coders working on the 1940 Census (from Flickr)

FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/1940census) and Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census) are among the genealogy sites excited for the release of this data. One can see the value of this data not just to those interested in their own family’s history, but to researchers and historians spanning many subject areas.

Here at Captricity, we’re quite fascinated by the building excitement surrounding the census’ release. It shows on one hand that people still care deeply about “old” data. It also shows how important the act of digitization is to making archived paper data widely accessible to the public. We wonder whether this release will bring a renewed interest in digitizing historic data, and are also looking forward to seeing all the fascinating and innovative uses people find for this invaluable information.

At the same time, we’ve thought a lot about privacy, and wonder whether the release of this data will raise any concerns. Many people enumerated in that census are still alive today. While no one can search by name, simply knowing where someone lived can allow one to hone in on the information for that specific “enumeration district,” typically a quite compact area. Is even this too specific?

We’d love to know what you think, and look forward to following the story as it unfolds in the months following April 2nd.

Everyone looks on as we flip the switch on the site! (left to right: Kuang, Jeff, Trevor, Yori Lee)

It’s been a really exciting 24 hours for us. We unveiled our open beta to the public at the Launch Conference yesterday in San Francisco and were blown away by the overwhelmingly positive reaction.

We’re super excited and humbled the judges selected us as winners of the Launch “1.0 Best Technology” award. It was an honor to be able to present alongside so many other really cool startups, and we had many memorable conversations and interactions with fellow entrepreneurs. Many thanks are due to Jason Calcanis for organizing such an awesome event.

Nick mans the Launch booth. Note our sweet signage.

It’s been a really exciting journey building out the beta, and many thanks are due to the team, and those who’ve helped us in our journey to this point. Special thanks go out to Akshay Kannan, Jake Abernethy, and Logan Bowers who helped us build out the very first iterations of the service.

We’re looking forward to seeing how it can be put to use to solve real-world use cases, and we’ve got lots of really cool ideas and features lined up — this is just the very beginning of many more release announcements, so stay tuned!