How to Batch-submit Records From Your Database to a Web Form By: Vassily Lapitsky
Web forms are extensively used over the internet for data entry. There are many reasons why they’re so popular, but main of them are that they’re easy to code and that they suit many purposes: you can send orders, request additional data or assistance from a software developer. On industrial scale, web forms are widely used for data validation. Data validation can mean thousands of records processed daily. Think a middle-sized bank needs to validate data on 1’000-2’000 customers on daily basis.
So how does it usually happen in real-life?
Say a bank has a database for their clients. The database provides a separate table with data on clients registered today. And these records should be submitted to a web form for data validation.
Until recently, there have only been two ways to process these new records:
1. Manual data entry. That means, hire an assistant and they’ll enter the data manually.
2. Writing a custom script that automate the procedure so that it processes the records and sends them to the form one by one.
Still, these two options may prove inefficient and costly. Submitting a record manually may take up to 20 minutes, depending on the form complexity. In most cases, this’ll take 2 to 5 minutes. So it’ll take roughly 3000 minutes or 50 working hours to enter the records for clients registered just in one day. So if you wouldn’t like to hire six data entry assistants full-time, you may turn to option 2. Sure, this’ll require some initial development and integration effort but it will solve the problem, and will be more effective in the long run. Still, what to do if development and system integration is no option? Is there any viable alternative?
Yes, there is. It’s called iNetFormFiller – the only package software that submits data to web forms in batch mode. That means: create and tune data profiles, access the data source, match the profile and the data source, click one button and be free until the iNetFormFiller processes records 1 through 1000 in automatic mode.
- iNetFormFiller is optimized for performance on 24/7 basis. It’s peak performance can be roughly estimated as 10000 -50000 records submitted daily, subject to your machine specs and web form optimization.
- iNetFormFiller Enterprise supports SQL databases (accessed via an ODBC connection), CSV text as data sources. There is also a separate build that supports Excel files.
- iNetFormFiller Enterprise can submit data to multiple web forms in one session.
- iNetFormFiller can automate navigation sequences and save clicks on web pages.
- iNetFormFiller provides Profile Toolbar. It will be useful if the batch mode mode doesn’t work because of aggressive scripts overriding the target form.
iNetFormFiller provides much more, but these features are not focus of this article. Suffice to say, it will be especially useful for:
- data entry managers,
- real estate brokers,
- authors posting their texts on different sites, blogs, and forums,
- PR and HR managers,
- dating agencies,
- healthcare operators,
- those in charge of students registrations at colleges and schools.
Watch how iNetFormFiller batch-submits 12 records with fictional data to a web form. To make the task more complicated, the form is divided in 3 sections and you need to click “Next” to continue. Visit http://www.inetformfiller.com/movies/inetformfillerbatchmode.html
If you want to know more about iNetFormFiller, then visit http://www.inetformfiller.com or write to vassily(at)softinform.com.
About the Author
Vassily Lapitsky works as a product manager for SoftInform Technologies, the developer of iNetFormFiller.
(ArticlesBase SC #688054)
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