Technical FAQs

In our fast-paced world, where the internet is always a click or tap away, it’s hard to believe business is still conducted on paper. Yet when a loved one is admitted to the hospital, we fill out paper forms, and when we apply for a loan, we end up scanning multiple hard-copies to the bank for processing.

We use a cylinder-shaped instrument which is full of blue liquid to write on the pages. It looks like a stylus but reminds you of those retro writing tools that might bleed onto your hand on occasion. OK, so we aren’t that far in the future yet, but it often seems that way. It feels like the digital age should have rescued us from inefficiencies of paper by now. But instead, we’re stuck with:

• Duplicate, lost, or damaged files
• Time spent searching for documents
• Lack of access, control, or permissions to secure documents digitally
• Collaboration inefficiencies for authoring or editing purposes
• Required manual signatures to validate or approve documents

Many of these obstacles only apply to paper documents, and if they’re digital? Chances are they haven’t been processed by a document management application. Consider file formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG that aren’t even thoroughly profiled with metadata. That can cause an issue. The solution? Document management solutions.

In our latest eGuide, we go in-depth to discuss the top five factors to consider when selecting a document management application for your organization. But as a teaser, let’s share a bit about each here:

1. Business Process Agility

The ideal digital document management application will enable your organization to create, capture, store, discover, collaborate on, transport and secure your documents as needed. To keep pace with your hospital staff, contract managers, in-house attorneys, or other information workers. You need an application that can process documents to do all of these activities without causing needless complexity or business interruption.

2. Enhance Your Application with Document Management

Business applications like CRM, EHR, and bank management software are rich with transactional data. Yet documents like forms, patient records, and contracts add context. Software and SaaS vendors provide their own application program interface (API) hooks to interact with a variety of document management platforms. Interoperable APIs and SDK plugins provide the critical document management functions you need, without the complexity and development overhead you don’t.

3. Collaborate on Documents Within Your Platform

Just as the data within your core business applications change, so does the business context behind it. Enabling teams to mark up, redact, and modify documents empowers your employees or customers to edit documents in real-time. Consider how events like corporate mergers or legal discovery preparation could be better addressed by collaborative document review within a data room or case management application.

4. Digital Signatures for Workflow Approval

As digital signatures have become mainstream for agreements across industries like financial services, government, and healthcare, the need for APIs and SDKs to embed this functionality into software has increased. Managing user licenses and testing the compatibility for stand-alone e-Signature applications can be a costly nuisance. An integrated SaaS plugin makes supporting electronic approvals affordable and easy-to-use.

5. Making Data Discoverable Within Your Document Libraries

Electronic document storage grows rapidly, and metadata alone provides information workers with limited visibility to critical information within each file. Adding functions like barcode, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) allows your employees to discover the data they need within the content of documents in your archives and applications.

Want to know more about how document management APIs and SDKs can increase the productivity of your teams, without the hassle of disrupting your entire application landscape? Download our latest eGuide, 5 Ways to Improve Your Productivity with Digital Documents today.

When it comes to the COVID-19 crisis, the only constant is change. As noted by Insurance Business Magazine, this creates a “growing opportunity” for insurance firms to embrace digital transition and improve their processes — provided they can quickly embrace insurance claim form automation to underpin underwriters’ efficiency.

This is no small task. From legacy systems that were never designed to live on cloud networks to proprietary processing solutions that are struggling with handprinted forms and multiple file formats, health insurance agencies now recognize the need for efficient, accurate, and complete forms processing — but often lack the backend infrastructure to make remote data capture a reality.

Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms can help bolster digital backends and build out insurance data collection capacity with efficient information capture, reliable structured form field recognition, quick data verification, and multiple form identification to both streamline forms processing and support the “new normal” of health insurance operations.

Managing Healthcare Data Analytics During COVID-19

Crisis conditions are rapidly evolving. From dynamic case variables to emerging equations that govern policy and coverage requirements, it’s critical for insurance companies to have systems in place that allow for capture and routing of this data quickly and accurately, in turn empowering actuaries to create cutting-edge risk models.

This is especially critical as healthcare costs continue to rise. According to a recent data brief, uninsured patients could face medical bills of more than $74,000 if they experience major complications, while the International Travel and Health Insurance Journal (ITIJ) reports a rising demand for more comprehensive employer-sponsored healthcare policies to help offset out-of-pocket COVID-19 costs.

As a result, it’s critical for companies to focus on the certainties of the current claims continuum: the crisis isn’t static, customer satisfaction is paramount, and comprehensive forms capture across four key functions defines the first step toward improved data analysis and risk modeling.

1) Efficient Information Capture

On-demand information capture underpins effective analytics, in turn empowering agents with the critical information needed to provide best-fit coverage recommendations and ensure high customer satisfaction. Even prior to the COVID crisis, 61 percent of consumers said they wanted the ability to submit and track claims online. But nine out of ten firms lack the in-house ability to process these forms and capture this data at scale, let alone empower staff to do so at a distance. 

FormSuite for Structured Forms provides a software-driven solution to this challenge with the ability to automatically capture forms data using a combination of OCR, ICR, and OMR technologies, making it possible to quickly and accurately record everything from phone numbers and signatures to hand-printed text fields. For actuaries, agents, and underwriters this reduced reliance on manual processes shortens the distance between data information and insight, allowing staff to better serve customer needs with custom-built health policies.

2) Reliable Form Field Recognition

Poorly-constructed fields represent a real problem for insurance data capture and accuracy. Consider common form characteristics such as comb lines or character boxes. If comb lines are too close together or too short, they will not be recognized. They should be at least half the height of any expected character. Accurate, automated reading may be difficult. When it comes to character boxes, meanwhile, rectangular boxes higher than they are wide can result in compressed characters that are challenging to identify. Even paper thickness and bleed-through can cause form field frustrations, in turn reducing overall claims throughput.

Solving this problem starts with improved form frameworks. Insurers are often best-served by leveraging the latest ACORD standards to ensure claims documentation construction is both current and comprehensive. But in a world driven by socially-distant technology solutions, companies must also account for the expanding volume of new forms used by clients and third-party providers alike. Recent PWC data found that “clunkiness and redundancy” remain common across insurance forms. As a result, it’s critical to deploy SDK solutions capable of streamlining form recognition to ensure staff spend less time checking and re-checking paperwork and more time writing new policies. 

3) Confident Data Verification

Data confidence is critical for success, especially when it comes to capturing data from hand printed or scanned insurance forms. Even small errors can cause big problems — if applicant data is incorrectly entered or policy values aren’t accurate, insurance companies lose the information confidence required to drive strategic analytics at scale. 

Confidence values provide the critical connection between OCR assessment and data output. Described on a scale from 0 to 100, higher numbers represent greater likelihood of character accuracy, while lower values indicate a “suspicious” character that may require secondary analysis. FormSuite for Structured Forms allows developers to customize key confidence thresholds that trigger notifications — if characters are deemed suspicious, they can be flagged for further review to ensure data is completely accurate.

4) Multiple Forms Identification

According to the World Insurtech Report 2020, the shift from corporate operations to home offices has accelerated digital insurance innovation, with 60 percent of firms launching in-house innovation teams to help embrace the need for technology-first, customer-facing processes. 

The caveat? These initiatives are only successful with backend processes support, specifically in the area of forms recognition. As noted above, while industry-standard forms remain the ideal iteration for claims processes, pandemic priorities have compelled rapid adaptation as both staff working environments and consumer expectations evolve. To meet emerging demand, firms must be prepared to regularly create, vet, and verify new form templates on-demand. 

Advanced optical character recognition is critical to bridge the gap between scanned forms and current templates by ensuring correct formats are quickly identified and efficiently routed. Formsuite for Structured Forms also takes this process a step further with the ability to accurately detect and align form templates even if they’re rotated, skewed, or scaled.

Solving for Structural Integrity

Structural integrity is essential for insurance success in the age of COVID-19. To achieve this goal, firms can’t simply focus on front-line functions. Other critical steps include needing to bolster back-end forms processing and bridge functional gaps, empowering staff to capture data, identify form fields, achieve higher character confidence values, and identify document formats on-demand. Ready to streamline claims processing? Download your free trial of FormSuite for Structured Forms.

Banks and financial technology (fintech) companies commonly use document life-cycle management solutions to make their back-office functions run more smoothly. To take full advantage of these systems, organizations must be able to transform documents into a format they can work with.

Since software development best practices are largely based on communal agreement instead of raw data, we often find ourselves arguing for and against certain practices. This is especially true when it comes to software quality. In fact, as of a couple years ago, only a single university taught software QA as a major in the United States. In this article, two test engineers will debate code reuse in test code.

Matches Development Practices

Eric: If we consider that everyone on the development teams are writing tests then we should try to follow the same best practices we use when writing production code. It is far easier to get buy-in from the team on adding test cases if the developers are going to be doing more of the test implementation and they don’t have to break away from the paradigm they are used to. Code reuse is definitely part of best practices and I expect good developers to be more on board writing tests if they don’t have to knowingly break best practices.

Noah: This is a valid point and one that should definitely be considered if you work in a company where developers are heavily involved in writing tests or in a company that uses automated QA as a feeder for junior development. I do worry that developers working in tests could lead to over extending a function for the sake of saving a few keystrokes in a code base you don’t care about as much. That, however, is based on training or personnel and doesn’t really fit here.

The Cost of Modification Has Been Significantly Reduced

Noah: Imagine a UI test for example, that requires logging in as a user. Your first test logs in a standard user and validates something on the page to ensure we are logged in; simple enough. We can pull the login functionality out and pass in the username and password and now all tests can use it. Next test logs in as an admin who is taken to an admin panel. Now we can’t use the login method to validate logging in as it stands.

If we add an if/else we are covered…until we need to write a test for a sales person, who upon logging in is taken to a sales reporting page. Oh, and what about those customization options that change what a user sees when they log in? As you can see, we can quickly have a wall of if/then statements. Now we’re barely into the site and were already managing complex state and all for the benefit of some future were the locator for password changes?

With modern IDE’s we can use ctrl-F or cmd-F and find all the locations were we’re using that locator. Since all the test logic is in the test, we can make an educated choice about changing that locator; or for the YOLO crowd, we can do a replace all.

Eric: The login issue is a pretty typical problem you run into when you start automating tests where you have to deal with web UI so the scenario is an appropriate example on how the scope of a test step can get overburdened. We can take the approach of adding conditional logic or separate the steps to be more specific to the class of user logging in but we shouldn’t always do it the same way all of the time.

The issue I have with not writing conditional logic to support code reuse is that, at the beginning of the example you provided, we had a method that we trusted to log in the user the same way all of the time. Once we break that away to use and slightly modify elsewhere, we are improving that test code but the original code we may have written months ago is neglected forever. We never pulled forward the tips and tricks we learned along the way in our journey as SDETs to improve test code. What I have experienced has shown me that, especially in the realm of web UI automation, my first implementation is rarely the best and we improve as we add and fix other tests. Without reusing code and taking the time to make sure that conditional logic is elegant and reliable, we could end up with tens, maybe hundreds of iterations of code which does the same thing but one or more iterations could have been written by me a year ago when I wasn’t as competent with the technology and is more prone to flakiness or using something that will be deprecated sooner.

Reusable Code Is More Inclusive

Eric: I would argue with more fervency to reuse code at a unit test level since it sits so close to the implementation of the code that is the SUT because the test code is going to be very similar and less conceptual. That being said, there are good reasons to adopt code reuse farther right on the V model as well (such as in web UI automation). By reusing code, I think we are more inviting for those who may be less experienced to jump in and just drop in the method for doing a given step and work out the more difficult part which is the new assertions we are going to need for the new cases we are adding. I’d rather not spend time trying to get something working from the ground up with someone who is unfamiliar but rather get them past the mundane hurdles and to objectively thinking about what the test is proving than the steps to get to the proof.

Noah: I think there is a belief in this industry that if you legoify code creation, you can make it easy enough to hand over to anyone regardless of skill level. However, the reality is that they hit barriers as soon as the preconceived scenarios no longer work. Then they are often left frustrated and no better off then when they started. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to learning to code.

There’s Not an Efficient Way to Determine Ripple Effect

Noah: When we reuse code, in development code, we have tests to validate the effects of the changes we made in that shared codebase. However in test code, most development shops do not have anything to validate the test code. What does that mean for someone making a change in reused test code? Well, it means you must manually validate that the changes you made, output what you expect for not only your test, but every test that uses that shared code. This means that the reduced maintenance and reduced test development time can quickly be negated.

Eric: I think this will often come down to how painful it is to run all of your tests. If you are in a position where you know before executing, which tests are altered by your changes, and your tests don’t take very long to run, then the feedback loop isn’t likely an issue for you and the risk of breaking something else in the test suite is negligible. Sure, you may find that unrelated tests break now and then when you start monkeying around in the code, but there are few things that can counter that problem. Firstly, if you start off with the impression that the code you write now will be reused in maybe not the same context in the future, it forces you to think of new, and sometimes, much more elegant ways to write your test code. Secondly, if there are failing tests due to new test code, it is just as likely that your new code is actually great and the surrounding code in the failing test has a flaw that is now uncovered by your change in which case, you just found more opportunities to harden your test code.

Proper Logging Can Mitigate Complexity

Eric: There are some situations where we need many iterations of the same steps to validate things like fidelity and in those cases, there have been no clear way of breaking the complexity of the test down by moving steps into separate cases or scenarios. In one particular situation, it was recommended that we split the test and have multiple versions of the code for easier readability in output but we found that the issue was just in the way the test was reporting to us which iteration of the test failed. A far simpler solution ended up being overcoming the flaw in our output by simply adding a case ID to the logger. Instead of spending time duplicating our test code, we made a one line change to our test data and tricked the output into giving us better info. I think problems like this are often linked to the complexity that code reuse may introduce but in reality, are different issues.

Noah: This sounds like a self induced problem. Sounds like you tried to save keystrokes by cramming too much into a single test which made it hard to understand where failures where coming from. So rather than solve the problem, code reuse, you bolted on some additional complexity to manage the lack of clarity.

Code Reuse Should Be Reserved for Helper Functions

Noah: Imagine you were in charge of building a bridge. You would probably start by designing something on paper. Many areas of bridge building are the same, but it would be unacceptable to have a sketch of a bridge where the middle section says “please refer to the work I did on that other bridge.” You may, however, hit some predefined key combination in CAD that will automatically insert a joist.

Code reuse should be reserved for similar functionality. You can write little functions that are designed to speed up development but not fundamentally replace areas of your test code.

Eric: I don’t think we disagree on this point, we may just interpret what code reuse really implies for the test suite we are envisioning. I think that when we start splitting down test steps into smaller and smaller bits of logic, those bits of logic become more generic and applicable in more places. If we abstract steps enough then we get to a point where steps may not have any original code but just reference other steps to accomplish one goal. In my ideal scenario, the only thing unique to an entire case or scenario would be the THEN statement or the assertion made at the end of an “it.”

Maintenance Cost Is Potentially Reduced with Code Reuse

Eric: More reuse means less code and less overall opportunities to need to maintain test code. I’ve seen this hurt productivity in the past when we had multiple ways of handling dragging and dropping elements for different browsers and for different types of workflows in the SUT. In this example, we had 4 ways of performing an action. Originally this was one step, but it was duplicated and changed to support a new workflow, now we had two ways to do the same action. The next duplication came from having to add additional browser support, now we had four ways to do the same action. This worked for a while until a breaking change occurred which started failing all four, but instead of having to fix one method of dragging and dropping, we ended up spending way more time fixing four separate instances. Because we dealt with all four issues at the same time, we were able to devise a reusable method to handle all four conditions in a more elegant way, but I can’t help wondering how much time it would have saved us to search for a more elegant solution for all four instances as the need arose rather than being bombarded by them all at once.

Noah: Let me tackle this on two fronts. First, code is not a scarce resource. People argue that code reuse saves time, but if it adds additional complexity, it may not really be worth it; codebases will only grow more complex over time.

Second, if you are spending a bunch of time fixing tests, there is a problem with your tests. You either have tests that aren’t testing at the right level, or you are testing something that changes too often for automation.

Less Effort Required for Review

Eric: At the risk of promoting bad assumptions about code review, code reuse means less of a need for critical review of predefined and working patterns. If I create a step in test code that is entirely composed of other steps which have already been written, reviewed, and proven in a test pipeline, then the reviewer does not need to devote time to critically examining all of the code that performs the test steps. In most cases, it is safe to assume that the steps work fine and we can zero in on our assertions and the immediately preceding step.

Noah: So this actually scares me. The moment we start allowing ourselves slack on using critical thought during code review, is the moment we will get errors, guaranteed. Just because a function has been vetted previous doesn’t mean your current use makes any sense. If I had a vetted function that added two numbers, and I write a test that shoves two strings through that code, without critical review of my code, I just introduced bad code into our code base.

While collection and storage solutions have evolved to help manage the document deluge, problems emerge when it comes to personnel. As noted by Tech Republic, staff now cycle through 35 applications and perform more than 130 cut-and-paste actions per day as they attempt to view key resources and complete critical tasks. Big data is taking over the world, but it’s not being managed effectively. Documents of all shapes, sizes, files, and formats are everywhere.

The solution to this application overload in a document-dominated world? Customizable APIs — like those powering Accusoft’s industry-leading PrizmDoc™ Viewer — that allow developers to tackle everything from quick integrations to basic interface adjustments and advanced customization. Ready to do more with documents and get staff back on track? Here’s how PrizmDoc API customization can help.

Level One: Integration

As noted by the SD Times, APIs are the ideal solution for new-decade deployments because they offer the critical advantage of easy integration. Instead of taking the long road of designing applications, identifying interdependencies, and regulating resource calls from the ground up, customizable API solutions offer the shortcut of easy integration with existing apps, allowing staff to stay under the umbrella of familiar functions while adding value-driven features.

By simply adding the jQuery plugin to existing web applications, teams can use the full feature set of PrizmDoc Viewer  — which includes multi-format document viewing, search, annotation, redaction, and conversion — without the need for complex customization.

Level Two: Customizable Configuration Parameters

For many organizations, minor customization to basic functions like tab display and localization help viewer APIs align with user expectations and existing application frameworks. Using the jQuery namespace plugin, developers can customize basic UI elements and set specific initialization parameters. Teams can choose to hide or display tabs, specify the size of the viewer, and set the mode of comparison tools. 

Worth noting? Modifying PrizmDoc Viewer via the jQuery plugin requires no modification to actual code, allowing powerful customization with minimal effort and ensuring the viewer is always compatible with future release versions.  

Level Three: Interface API Customization

Need to do more with your customizable API? PrizmDoc Viewer is designed using an open markup approach, meaning all HTML and .css code is fully open and customizable. By modifying HTML templates or injecting your own code, you can create a completely redesigned interface that aligns with existing application formats or use the API’s unminified, unobfuscated JavaScript library to edit the business logic and behavior of the viewer. 

For example, PrizmDoc Viewer offers total control over the configuration and customization of its eSignature, allowing you to modify existing parameters or build your own from the ground up, complete with programmatic field fill-in.

Level Four: Completely Customize Your Document Viewer

Want complete customization control? Use PrizmDoc Viewer as sample code and build your own viewer from the ground up. Our Developer Guide provides insight on using the Viewer API to modify or augment application behavior and the configuration of PrizmDoc application services (PAS) and the PrizmDoc server to enhance both viewing functionality and automated document processing.

With effective document management now critical to business success, full-featured viewer integration and customization is required to help combat application overload, align software functionality, and improve end-user access. From out-of-the-box support to building from scratch, the customizable API of PrizmDoc Viewer gives your team total control.

Video playback has become a fundamental feature in today’s applications, mirroring the shift in user tastes and the widespread presence of multimedia in our digital era. As the appetite for video content rises—spanning tutorials, entertainment, online lessons, marketing assets, and content created by users—applications that provide seamless and adaptive video playback resonate with these needs, boosting user engagement and loyalty.

Additionally, video conveys intricate concepts effectively, resonates with those who are visual learners, and often elevates the user journey with a deeper, more engaging medium. Embedding powerful video playback capabilities can help applications stand out from the crowd, ensuring that they align with modern user demands and stay relevant in a video-driven digital environment.

Introducing PrizmDoc Video Playback

Recognizing the significance of video, the Accusoft engineering team has enhanced PrizmDoc with video playback capabilities. While PrizmDoc already smoothly integrates document viewing features into web applications, this latest addition empowers developers to seamlessly incorporate video features into their software. With PrizmDoc’s video playback, the days of hosting videos on external platforms or depending on poorly secured software plugins to embed videos are gone.

The new video playback feature augments PrizmDoc’s reputation for efficiency and top-tier performance, ensuring the delivery of premium video content with barely any processing delays and supporting a variety of file formats. Developers can effortlessly embed video playback using a straightforward API call, bypassing the need to construct intricate video functionality from the ground up.

Video Playback Benefits for Government Applications

Government agencies stand to gain substantially by integrating video playback capabilities into their applications’ document viewing systems. Here’s an in-depth look at the advantages this integration can bring:

Improved Communication and Collaboration

Incorporating video playback allows government agencies to revolutionize their documentation techniques, creating content that is not only captivating but also densely packed with essential information. This multimedia integration is advantageous in many ways: from presentations that need to capture the audience’s attention, to training modules that benefit from visual aids to ensure clearer understanding, to public service announcements where visuals can often communicate more effectively than words alone.

But the utility of videos extends beyond just the content. They serve as a dynamic conduit for enhanced communication, promoting more profound interactions. When government staff use videos, they open doors to a more direct and interactive dialogue with citizens and various stakeholders. This interactive platform, fostered by video content, encourages shared understanding and insights, catalyzing cooperative ventures. Moreover, it ensures that the core message of the agency is transmitted with clarity, reducing ambiguities and fostering trust between the government and its constituents. Videos are not just tools for information delivery but also instruments for building bridges and fostering collaborations.

Better Transparency and Oversight 

Government agencies can greatly enhance transparency and accountability in their operations by leveraging video playback in their applications. Recording committee sessions and admissible meetings ensures that even nuanced details of discussions are captured for future reference. For independent software vendors (ISVs) supporting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), integrating video playback into their applications provides an invaluable tool for their government customers. Agencies can monitor access to videos, ensuring that the integrity of video files is maintained while still making them available in accordance with FOIA requirements. 

More importantly, constituents who may not have the opportunity to attend meetings in person can still remain informed by viewing these video recordings. This fosters an environment of inclusivity and ensures that all citizens can be privy to government proceedings. Additionally, video integrations provide government agencies with detailed logs, allowing them to track file accesses, view detailed histories, and maintain a comprehensive understanding of the data’s interactions. This systematic organization not only aids in efficient operations but also upholds the tenets of transparency and accountability.

Enhanced Control

Providing access to recorded video content, though seemingly straightforward, brings with it a set of challenges, especially for government agencies. Unauthorized downloading or sharing of these recordings can jeopardize the integrity and security of the content. By embedding video playback functionalities directly within their applications, agencies gain a robust mechanism to regulate access, ensuring that only authorized users can view the content. The option to download files can be removed entirely, making it much easier to control how videos are viewed and shared.

More importantly, these integrations allow agencies to generate comprehensive audit trails, documenting every instance of access, and guaranteeing that the sanctity and confidentiality of the content are preserved. Many of these video files could hold sensitive or classified information, the distribution of which, without proper authorization, could have legal repercussions. Through strict controls on how these video files are accessed, viewed, and shared, government applications are better positioned to adhere to legal and regulatory stipulations, reinforcing data security and public trust.

Boosting Efficiency and Productivity

Video content can provide government personnel with a streamlined means to access crucial information. By offering data in an easily digestible visual and auditory format, videos facilitate quicker comprehension and thereby expedite decision-making processes. This ensures that government functions remain nimble and responsive in an ever-evolving landscape.

Beyond information dissemination, video playback can revolutionize operational tasks. Specifically, when it comes to onboarding new employees, standardized video training modules offer a consistent and efficient approach. These modules allow newcomers to familiarize themselves with institutional practices at their own pace, ensuring uniformity in training. Additionally, updates to reflect new policies or insights can be seamlessly integrated, making the training process both adaptable and up-to-date.

Augmented Transparency and Accountability

Videos provide a concrete and unambiguous record of governmental actions and decisions. This visual documentation brings greater clarity to operations, reducing misunderstandings and ensuring that agencies are held accountable for their actions. Providing video evidence helps to build trust, reinforcing that government agencies are operating transparently and in good faith.

Furthermore, modern video platforms offer more than just passive viewing experiences; they are interactive hubs that enable direct communication between the government and its citizens. Through these platforms, agencies can actively seek feedback, opinions, and suggestions from the public, ensuring that their policies and initiatives resonate with and address the genuine concerns of citizens. Video-enabled GovTech applications can also serve as continuous channels of information, allowing agencies to keep constituents regularly informed about new programs, updates, and changes, further solidifying the commitment to transparency and open governance.

Enhance GovTech Applications with PrizmDoc Video Playback

PrizmDoc’s new video playback feature offers numerous advantages for government applications. With this new capability, GovTech developers can help government agencies seamlessly integrate and access video content directly within their applications, removing the reliance on third-party platforms or external tools. Users ultimately benefit from a streamlined and integrated workflow, especially when drawing connections between official documents and relevant videos. By centralizing these functions and reducing associated expenses, GovTech software developers can focus their efforts and resources on other features, ensuring that their applications stay ahead in a continuously modernizing administrative environment.

To learn more about how PrizmDoc’s video playback feature can benefit your GovTech application, talk to one of Accusoft’s PrizmDoc specialists today.

Spreadsheets are to finance what cranes are to construction. As a result, financial services organizations including traditional banks, tax companies, insurance agencies, and fintech firms opt for software-driven spreadsheet solutions as standard operating procedures. The problem? Ubiquitous spreadsheet software introduces a host of cybersecurity, compliance, and collaboration challenges, especially as regulatory and operational requirements evolve around the use, storage, and sharing of clients’ financial data.  Enter PrizmDoc Cells for finance. 

Accusoft’s newest addition to the PrizmDoc Suite — PrizmDoc Cells — offers both form(ula) and functional advantages for financial data entry and integrity.

Managing Market Forces

As noted by Forbes, the finance market is changing. Recent survey data found that 69 percent pointed to fintech firms as a “lifeline” during the current crisis. And these shifts are ongoing. Even once pandemic pressures begin to ease, there’s no going back from the speed and convenience offered to users when brick-and-mortar locations were locked down. 

Financial firms across multiple markets that made the move online application processing, claims evaluation, and loan approvals must now support these initiatives at scale — but many are now finding themselves frustrated by the limitations of current spreadsheet solutions.

Addressing Operational Challenges

Familiar spreadsheet software offers straightforward function: Staff can enter relevant data and derive actionable output through formulas. But these tools also pose problems for finance firms, including:

• • Operational errors — As noted by CFO, 88 percent of spreadsheets contain some type of error. These include errors in formulas, human data entry issues that create impossible data ranges, and even hidden fonts that can impact the outcome of calculations. This is no small issue — for one financial firm, a missing negative sign caused a 2.6 billion dollar mistake in reporting net capital losses, forcing the company to cancel year-end dividend distributions.

• • Version consistency — The more people handle and modify a spreadsheet, the harder it is to identify the “right” version. This becomes especially problematic as spreadsheets are saved to desktops or mobile devices, then modified and sent back into corporate email environments.

• • Data security — While email presents a significant spreadsheet security risk, the same is true of any solution — cloud-based, on-premises or a mix of both — that allows users to download, copy, and share spreadsheets. Consider the case of a well-meaning user who downloads a financial spreadsheet from a cloud app and then sends it to his personal email so he can work on them remotely. If this email account is compromised, so too are any supposedly secure spreadsheets, putting financial firms at risk of regulatory compromise.

• • Ongoing Time and effort — From the time needed to track down and verify the most recent and accurate version of key spreadsheets to the effort required if data is entered incorrectly and requires remediation, current software tools often see staff focused on putting out formula and framework fires instead of moving financial firms forward.

Gaining Control with PrizmDoc Cells for Finance

PrizmDoc Cells changes the spreadsheet paradigm by shifting data out of proprietary software and into the application of your choice. As a web-based spreadsheet viewer and editor designed to natively support XLSX files, PrizmDoc Cells provides the ability to securely embed spreadsheet data into any website, intranet, portal or CMS application without compromising security. This makes it possible for independent software vendors (ISVs) and other fintech providers to deliver the best of both worlds: Familiar functions in a user-friendly, online form that’s separated from the critical formulas and proprietary business logic behind-the-scenes.

Key benefits of PrizmDoc Cells for finance include:

• Solve for proprietary dependencies — Excel remains the de facto spreadsheet standard for many organizations but also locks financial firms into a cycle of software dependency — and if legacy applications or in-house tools don’t work well with Excel, firms face extra operational steps to ensure reliable data access. PrizmDoc Cells solves this proprietary problem by allowing any application to import, edit, and export XLSX files without Excel dependencies.

• Safeguard source data — In many cases, end-users need to view spreadsheets and make minor edits but can’t be granted access to original files. With PrizmDoc Cells, fintech providers can secure intellectual property by removing end-user access to proprietary source files, encrypting the data, and hosting it securely in their own environments.

• Separate underlying logic and UI — While proprietary business logic, formulas, and calculations form the basis of spreadsheet value and actionable insight, users don’t need the ability to see — or modify — these functions. PrizmDoc Cells lets administrators control what’s visible, what’s accessible, and what’s changeable to ensure spreadsheet consistency.

• Streamline version control — By removing the need for client-side software installs and downloads, PrizmDoc Cells sets the stage for enhanced version control. While users can view and edit spreadsheets with the right permissions, these spreadsheets are continually updated with the most recent changes to ensure version consistency. 

• Start ASAP — PrizmDoc Cells makes it easy for companies to get started and get building their best-fit spreadsheet solution by using the simplicity and speed of Docker containers. Instead of worrying about potential conflicts with other software or issues with specific operating system requirements, companies can start up a PrizmDoc Cells container in a matter of seconds.

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Even as the value proposition evolves, the volume of spreadsheets processed by financial firms continues to grow. For industry operators, this presents a challenge: How do they align evolving client expectations with current spreadsheet limitations? 

For ISVs, this offers an opportunity. Empowered by PrizmDoc Cells, vendors can offer a new take on spreadsheet form and function that delivers ease of integration and on-demand customization without breaking the bank — or increasing regulatory risk.

Unlock the PrizmDoc Cells potential — try the online demo today and experience the future of formula and function.