Automatic Data Entry

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  • May 26, 2016 at 7:30 AM #16933

    Ben Striker
    Participant

    Is there a way for certain pieces of information to be automatically entered based on other info that has been entered? For example, in our farming scenario, if there’s information we want to track that is attached to growing tomatoes that we always want recorded with any tomato entry but we want the entry to take less time (i.e. tomatoes were grown in this plot and are a part of the fruiting crops category) can that info in some way be filled automatically if we simple record “tomato” into our “crop” entry?

    May 26, 2016 at 12:34 PM #16946

    AngriBuddhist
    Participant

    Hi,

    I’m a Tap Forms user, not the developer.

    What you’re describing is called an IF function. If this field equals “tomatoes” then this field should be “generic text we want associated with every tomato entry”.

    An IF function is typically used in a spreadsheet. Although it’s been brought up before, and Brendan agreed that it may be a useful function, Tap Forms doesn’t have anything like that.

    If you describe the generic info that you want attached to every entry, I may be able to offer some sort of advice. Specifically, is the generic info always the same or do things change? As an example, if they’re in a certain plot today could they be in a different plot later?

    May 26, 2016 at 2:29 PM #16949

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    You can also set a Default Value to be filled in whenever you add a new record, but it wouldn’t be based upon which value you entered from a different field.

    May 26, 2016 at 8:16 PM #16956

    Steve Cross
    Participant

    You might try one of the keyboard utilities such as Keyboard Maestro or TextExpander.

    Keyboard Maestro has been a lifesaver for me as I have been importing from some spreadsheets for the greater power and flexibility of Tap Forms. I’ve been able to use KM to make some pretty complicated formatting adjustments. KM can even press buttons (simulate a mouse click) and fill in search fields. I’ve been able to automatically select and fill-in multiple client records based on the contents of a large text field single cell in my spreadsheet.

    KM is admittedly a little more difficult if you haven’t had much programming experience, but it is well worth the effort IMHO.

    You can also do quite a bit with just a few keystrokes in TextExpander or similar programs. You should be able to automatically TAB from field to field as needed and fill in a LOT of information related to your initial input, i.e. “tomSS” could easily expand to “Tomato – Sun Sugar” and then move on to different fields and add as much additional information as desired.

    May 30, 2016 at 2:03 PM #17046

    Ben Striker
    Participant

    Is there any chance in the future, Brendan, of adding the if function feature?

    May 30, 2016 at 2:39 PM #17048

    AngriBuddhist
    Participant

    Hi Ben,

    The exact function that you describe doesn’t exist in Tap Forms, or any of the many database apps I’ve tried, but there may be other ways to achieve similar results.

    Again, if you describe in more detail what you want to accomplish, there may be suggestions that some of us can offer.

    May 30, 2016 at 4:36 PM #17051

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    Hi Ben,

    I’m always interested in adding new things to Tap Forms that will be beneficial to the majority of my customers. But I also have to be cautious not to add things that are overly complex so customers feel overwhelmed. But you never know. I also haven’t had time to dig into improving the current math parser library.

    May 31, 2016 at 10:39 AM #17073

    AngriBuddhist
    Participant

    A farming scenario.

    Let’s say that you have a Category called Regular Duties and in that you have a Crop Inspection form. That form is then used for all crop types and has to be generic enough for the different types of information associated with each type of crop. The Potato record doesn’t need to have Tomato related information but then when you are inspecting the Tomatoes, you have to enter all the Tomato related information by hand.

    Instead, you could have a Crop Inspection category with individual, customized Forms for each crop type. This way you could have crop specific fields and Picklists that would speed up the process.

    And, like Brendan mentioned, you could have a field that has a Default Value that would include predefined text in every new record.

    When Customizing the Tomato Form, include a Note field. Select that Note field, choose Field options, then choose Default Value. Anything you type here will be included with every new Tomato entry.

    Hope this helps.

    June 2, 2016 at 6:52 AM #17128

    Ben Striker
    Participant

    Guys, thanks so much for all your suggestions. Unfortunately the flexibility we need from our data recording system is a bit on the extreme side. Brendan, I did try using the link to form feature to pre-setup common data. I just had to create too many forms for the different scenarios…lol

    So…I agree with you that you need to keep things simple, but that was why we turned to TapForms in the first place. You made complicated things much simpler. I created a quick spreadsheet in Numbers using if functions that will enable us to continue recording. If you were able, in the long run, to figure out how to include if functions we might be able to come back to TapForms for our data.

    Blessings

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