7 Remarkable Benefits of Mobile Data Collection Apps

Mobile apps are useful to users and developers. They collect a significant amount of crucial insight into the behaviour, interest, and habits of the customers. And they provide a way to interact with users in a highly personal and interactive way.

Smartphones have many sophisticated sensors like GPS navigation- to give locality recommendations and biometric sensors- to enhance security. Applications are collecting a lot of information every second to provide personal recommendations to enhance the user’s experience. Many companies are also designing their apps in such a way so that they can personalize the user interaction.

 According to Statista “ The number of smartphone users currently in 2020 is 3.8 billion and is forecasted to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years.”

Mobile Data Collection is becoming a standard for every organization with the elimination of paper forms to leverage the benefits of mobile devices that their employees use to collect information digitally without having to worry about managing and maintaining paper forms.

What is Mobile Data Collection?

Mobile data collection is the process of collecting information digitally with the use of mobile apps.

Mobile data collection enables users to reap the benefits of a system that is robust, agile and easy to use and integrate with existing systems of the organization.

Mobile data collection allows organizations to use mobile apps to collect a lot of quantitative data as well as qualitative data. Instead of collecting data manually with pen and paper, the mobile data collection app facilitates data collection by ensuring that the data gets directly uploaded to the platform server, which is then stored in a database that could be used for further analysis to draw insights.

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The benefits of using mobile data collection include:

1. Reduces Cost

Mobile data collection reduces costs by eliminating the need for printed paper forms and shortening the time to fill out a form. Also, Cross-checking information in printer forms requires extra workers that can be reduced when data is collected and validated digitally.

2. Saves Time

Mobile data collection reduces time in the process of collecting information. As information is stored digitally in a database, it reduces the time for performing analysis. A notification or alert could be sent to managers whenever there is a change in data.

3. Control over Quality of Data

Digital means of collecting information consists of many validations and checks on mobile forms for entering data by users to ensure correct information is collected and stored in the database.

Data filters and validations can be applied to data fields to control the quality of information to ensure that the user is entering the correct and relevant information.

 4. Flexibility to Collection Process

Since mobile forms are not rigid like paper forms, any changes or corrections could be made anytime to collect proper information. Making changes in printed forms becomes very difficult and sometimes not possible also it proves to be a costly issue for the company to re-print the paper forms. 

5. Backup and Safe Storage

Paper forms can be misplaced, lost, or destroyed, which could create difficulties. On the other hand, data in digital forms can be easily stored, replicated, and encrypted to prevent unauthorized access.

Data can be stored at multiple locations( Server or Computers ) for secure backup in times of emergency or data loss.

6. Access to Analytics

All the information is digitally stored in a centralized repository or database. Data collected can be used as primary data for conducting research and analysis to draw insights.

7. Proactive Decision Making

Data collected can be used for analysis to make timely decisions. Insights from data analysis can provide information about the pain points to be rectified for improving operational activities and boosting productivity.

What kind of data are enterprises collecting from mobile apps?

HR Applications

Mobile apps provide a variety of HR solutions from ‘hire to retire’. From collecting employee information in mobile forms at the onboarding to leave request management to the collection of investment details. Mobile forms allow employees to use apps on-the-go to submit, view and update information.

Sales Application

Collect all the sales data like customer information, order details, purchase requests, cancellation requests, and more in mobile forms. Collect and feed all the leads in the CRM digitally that can be tracked to make sales.

Audit and Inspection

Collect data for any audit and inspection in mobile forms with a curated checklist into your database. Capture digital signatures, barcodes, and upload documents and access the app even offline.

Field Data Collection App

Collect critical job-related data in mobile forms and eliminate the heavy reliance on manual documentation. Capture travel start time, travel end time, work start time, work end time, and report incidents along with photos and documents digitally in mobile forms.

Administration Applications

Collect information through mobile forms for various administrative applications ranging from office finance to digitizing visitor handing to booking appointments and conference rooms. Digitizing the collection process will eliminate the chaos at the front desk and enable smooth handling of routine tasks. 

Virtual Assessment Centres

Virtually access the candidates with a virtual assessment centre and collect the candidate’s response in a mobile forms app. Assessors can also feed the marks digitally and evaluate the candidate performance virtually.

Clinical Data Collection Application

Collect the patient information in mobile forms digitally rather than making manual entries in a register. Maintain patient drug prescription and appointment scheduled with the doctor digitally using mobile forms.

How can DronaHQ help?

Bajaj Finserv uses a game-approach to hire students from top business schools using ATOM by giving them a steadfast view of their innovation-centric culture, taking a series of assignments to the students and collecting their responses to test their disruptive thinking abilities.

UK-based environmental landscaping and utility company, Maydencroft,  mobilized inspection and audit with DronaHQ, improved the quality, quantity and time of inspection data being collected, raising the bar on on-site inspections and effective hazard management.

No code platform DronaHQ can help in streamlining enterprise data collection and database management with the help of a mobile data collection app with support for the following features:

1. Rich media collection, auto-capture GPS, date & time, signatures, barcodes
2. Spreadsheet to App in just a few seconds for structured data management
3. Data validation and business rules to moderate quality of data collected
4. Robust data collection that works even when offline
5. Automate follow-ups, alerts, email generations, and API calls using Workflows
6. Report generation in desired formats, PDF, email, docs, or graphs

Leverage the benefit of paperless data collection with a mobile app. Create simple forms or dynamic forms to collect information and assist the user to fill the forms. Collect error-free or correct information with the help of validations. Store all your information in the columnar database with an interface like excel sheets. Embrace the power of analysis over the collected data to find bottlenecks and remove them. Share and access collected data across all the channels of your organization whenever and wherever needed. Integrate with the existing platform of your organization with Zapier or APIs. Select from already built use cases or build one from scratch according to your requirements. Build Mobile Data Collection Apps Now.

Author – Kushagra Pal

Kushagra is a digital marketer and content creator. His dream is to help SMB’s understand and leverage technology for brand awareness, growth, and profit.