Normandale Community College has success with ExpertScan

Posted on November 19, 2013 by AutoData

Customer Profile – Normandale Community College

“We use AutoData’s products every single day now,” says Anne Janzen, a performance improvement specialist at Normandale Community College (NCC) in Bloomington, MN. NCC is consistently ranked as one of the top 50 community colleges in the country and enrolls over 10,000 students.

“In the past, many of our departments were using comment cards and other experience surveys that they were entering in by hand or worse – filing them away and never doing anything with the information collected.” With ExpertScan’s form scanning technology, NCC can take full advantage of the valuable information and insight they collect from their students.

Not only does ExpertScan make it easier for NCC to collect and report important data, but Anne says “ExpertScan allows us to print the surveys through any printer on regular office paper which saves us a lot of money, as opposed to using scantron-type surveys. This also makes the survey creation process more user-friendly.”

Anne further discussed the importance of their process of using paper surveys, “[our] online response rates were horrible and resulted in invalid data. To be able to administer end-of-course surveys and satisfaction surveys in the classroom to get representative rates was wonderful. We really rely on these results to inform decision-making.”

ExpertScan’s automatic reporting features help NCC to communicate those results, “we create lots of standard reports – each faculty member gets reports on each class with their course evaluation results compared with everyone else for that semester.”

“For the price, AutoData’s products are superior to any other I’ve encountered. Without AutoData’s software, our ability to evaluate the effectiveness of our services and programs would be limited.”

Thank you to Anne Janzen and NCC for being this month’s customer profile!

ExpertScan vs. Scannable Office: Part 2 – Reporting the data

Posted on June 24, 2013 by AutoData

In a prior post, we briefly explained the differences in creating forms with our two main survey scanning solutions – Scannable Office and ExpertScan. In this post, we will explain the other main difference between the two products: reporting the data.

An important reason customers choose to use our software is to clearly understand the data they collect. Whether it’s measuring patient care or customer experience, the data doesn’t mean much if you don’t understand it or if you can’t convey it clearly to others. In general, it’s much easier to convey raw data through visuals (bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, etc.). This is where ExpertScan comes in handy.

ExpertScan has automatic reporting built into the software. When you scan in your form or survey, the software creates a handful of different reports on the data automatically. With the click of a mouse, a window pops up with a question-by-question breakdown and option to view the data in bar graphs, pie charts, trend analysis, etc.. ExpertScan also has tabulation rules that allow you to parse out certain types of data. For example, if you have a patient satisfaction survey which is used in multiple hospitals, ExpertScan’s reporting allows you to see the differences, question-by-question, between those different hospitals or even the different doctors. These reports can be easily converted to PDF files and disseminated to appropriate personnel. Further, all of the raw data scanned into your computer also gets saved in a separate Microsoft Access database.

While Scannable Office offers more options in form creation, it does not offer the automatic reporting features that ExpertScan has. With Scannable Office, the data can be uploaded directly to any ODBC compliant database – Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, MySQL, Oracle, Filemaker Pro, etc. Once in the database, one’s options to manipulate and report on the data are endless. However, the options are limited to the user’s experience working with any of the aforementioned databases.

Customers who come from smaller organizations or have less experience working in ODBC compliant databases love the automatic reporting ExpertScan provides. Customers who work in large institutions sometimes prefer Scannable Office because they have the personnel and resources to do much more analysis with the data in ODBC compliant databases.

So there you have it: A brief description on the differences in reporting your data (and previously – from creation). As stated, these are the two most distinct differences between ExpertScan and Scannable Office. But we’d love to chat with you about further nuances between the two! Feel free to contact us directly at any time!

NetE-nable Goes Mobile on Tablets

Posted on July 12, 2012 by AutoData

A tablet displaying a NetE-nable survey in an office

Tablets on the Rise

There’s no use denying it, tablet use is on the rise. Whether it’s for personal use or business reasons, many of our customers and readers use them (you may even be reading this blog on your tablet). Here at AutoData, we have noticed an increase in the amount of questions from customers regarding a survey solution for tablets and mobile devices. The solution? NetE-nable: the cloud-serviced web add-on to ExpertScan.

Tablets are quickly becoming more than just a novelty; they’re gaining popularity among users seeking more portability, ease of use, and simplicity over their current computer experience. Whether you need to catch up on emails, read the latest news in your industry, or take meeting minutes, tablets are proving to be more and more valuable in the business world.
NetE-nable survey displayed on a tablet With countless businesses capturing data (whether it is a patient satisfaction survey, a safety practices/inspections form, a teacher evaluation, etc.), being able to use a tablet has many benefits over a traditional paper survey or form:

Eliminate scanning – By using the web for surveys you’re able to rid yourself of messy paper. You also can avoid trying to decipher sloppy handwriting altogether
Instant data collection – The second the “Submit” button is clicked, data is populated and ready to be used and reported on. No waiting around to go through the scanning process
Ease of access – Wherever you have a tablet (or web browser with internet connection) there you will also have access to your survey. No more waiting for your survey to be printed or copied, forgetting them on your desk, or dealing with lost or out of order surveys

Tablet and Mobile Device Survey Solution

With our cloud-serviced web add-on, NetE-nable, AutoData has the solution to gathering data via tablets. As pictured above, tablets using a NetE-nabled physician satisfaction survey can be filled out and instantly deliver data on tablets with a web browser and an internet connection.

Since we here at AutoData still strongly believe that paper surveys will always have a place in data collection, we offer the combination of both paper and web surveys into one database. This is what separates us from the rest. No need to give yourself (or your IT department) more Access/Excel work dealing with having separate databases. AutoData provides you with the all-in-one solution.

NetE-nable survey displayed on a mobile phone

Have a device with a web browser and internet connection? A NetE-nable survey will work! Try out a sample survey on your device and tell us what you think.

Not an ExpertScan user? Request a demo of our software as well as a live, screen sharing demonstration. Watch the Learning Center’s ExpertScan with NetE-nable intro video for another look at our software.

Already using ExpertScan? Contact us and request a free, 14-day trial of NetE-nable.