Tales from the Field: Data Entry Automation and Validation
The dynamic nature of digital information provides many opportunities for improved performance. These improvements affect work performed in traditional office environments, but are fully realized when applied to fieldwork.
Power system engineers require a lot of detailed information about the electrical system of an industrial facility before they can model and analyze it. A technician takes large forms that represent common couplings of electrical components to record information about breakers, panels, substations, and the like. The problem is that the electrical systems they are recording often deviate from the structures represented on the forms. To compensate, the technician draws extra boxes and records a lot of information in the margins. Digital forms can adapt to match the information that must be recorded. Dependent upon entered information, other fields can be displayed or hidden, presenting the user with only the fields that need to be filled.
Given a specific context, a smart system can predict, to some extent, a user’s intent. Auto-completion shortens the amount of time spent entering data by offering the most likely options as quick selections. The system can also enforce valid data input. Certain fields should only contain numbers, or numbers within a specific range, or a specific number of characters. Some fields are required, while others are optional. As the user records information, the system can check entered values to ensure that they match expectations. When they don’t, or when required values are missing, the user can be alerted. This significantly decreases errors, ensuring that mistakes are corrected, keeping problems from occurring downstream.
