Application format providing device and application format providing method

Abstract

To reduce deficiencies in application documents.SOLUTION: An application format providing device 1 comprises: a database 12 which stores an application format template 13 in which a field for embedding the number of application documents is provided for each application procedure; and application format generation means 10 which calculates the number of application documents from the number of applications to be submitted using an application format template 13 of the application procedure selected by a user and the number of attached documents required for the application, and generates an application format 14 in which the number of application documents is embedded in the field provided in the application format template 13.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present application relates to a technology for providing an application form to be used when carrying out application procedures on paper. [Background technology]

[0002] Although application procedures are increasingly being digitized, many companies and public institutions still use paper-based application procedures. One problem with paper-based application procedures is deficiencies in the application documents sent by applicants. If there are deficiencies in the application documents sent by applicants, the process of accepting application documents becomes cumbersome. If there are deficiencies in the application documents, it may be necessary to return the application documents to the applicant or to store the deficiencies until the deficiencies are resolved. Therefore, if there are deficiencies in the application documents, it will take extra time and effort for both the applicant and the staff handling the acceptance process.

[0003] Patent Document 1 discloses an invention for safely and correctly managing defective application documents. In this invention, a defect confirmation code is issued for each defective application document, and the defective application documents are managed in association with the barcode provided on the defective application document. In this invention, defective application documents are safely and correctly managed. In the invention of Patent Document 1, defective application documents are safely stored and correctly managed, thereby preventing the loss of defective application documents. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0004] [Patent Document 1] JP 2015-187821 A Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0005] The present invention aims to reduce the number of incomplete application documents. Reducing the number of incomplete application documents not only improves the efficiency of application document reception, but also saves applicants unnecessary time and effort. [Means for solving the problem]

[0006] The first invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is an apparatus for generating an application form to be provided to a user, which comprises: a means for storing an application form template for each application procedure, the application form template having a field for embedding the number of application documents; and an application form generating means for calculating the number of application documents from the number of application forms to be submitted using the application form template for the application procedure selected by the user and the number of attached documents required for the application form, and generating the application form with the number of application documents embedded in the field provided in the application form template. In the first invention, it is desirable that the application form generation means displays a selectable list of attached documents that the user needs to select, and calculates the number of application documents based on the attached documents selected by the user. Furthermore, in the first invention, it is preferable that the application form template is provided with the following fields: a text field for embedding the number of application documents as text, and a barcode field for embedding a barcode encoding the number of application documents, and the application form generation means embeds text indicating the number of application documents in the text field, and embeds a barcode encoding the number of application documents in the barcode field.

[0007] The second invention is a method for generating an application form to be provided to a user, comprising the step a) of an apparatus having means for storing, for each application procedure, an application form template having a field for embedding the number of application documents, calculating the number of application documents from the number of application forms to be submitted using the application form template for the application procedure selected by the user and the number of attached documents required for the application form, and the step b) of the apparatus generating the application form with the number of application documents embedded in the field provided in the application form template. In step a included in the second invention, it is desirable for the device to display a selectable list of attached documents that the user needs to select, and calculate the number of application documents based on the attached documents selected by the user. In the second invention, it is preferable that the application form template is provided with a text field for embedding text and a barcode field for embedding a barcode, and in step b, the device embeds text indicating the number of application documents calculated in step a in the text field, and embeds a barcode encoding the number of application documents calculated in step a in the barcode field. Effect of the Invention

[0008] The present invention solves the problem of the present application by providing a user with an application form that displays the number of application documents calculated from the number of application documents to be submitted using an application form template for the application procedure selected by the user and the number of attached documents required for the application form. In addition, since there are application forms that require the user to select attached documents, in the case of such application forms, it is desirable to display a selectable list of attached documents that the user needs to select, and to calculate the number of application documents based on the attached documents selected by the user. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide the application form template with a text field for embedding text and a barcode field for embedding a barcode as fields for embedding the number of application documents so that the number of application documents can be read visually and mechanically. [Brief description of the drawings]

[0009] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an application form providing device according to an embodiment of the present invention. [Diagram 2] A diagram showing the operating procedure of the application form providing device. [Diagram 3] 3 is a diagram for explaining an application form template stored in the application form providing device. [Figure 4] 1 is a diagram for explaining an application form generated by an application form providing device. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0010] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention disclosed in the present application will be described. The embodiment is for facilitating understanding of the present invention, and the present invention is not limited to the embodiment. Furthermore, unless otherwise specified, the drawings are schematic diagrams drawn for facilitating understanding of the present invention.

[0011] Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of an application form providing device 1 according to this embodiment. The application form providing device 1 disclosed in the present application is a device configured to allow a user 2 who accesses it via a network 3 to download an application form 14. Like a typical server, the application form providing device 1 is equipped with hardware such as a CPU and memory.

[0012] User 2 operates computer 2a to access website 11 of application form providing device 1 and downloads application form 14 required for the application procedure performed by user 2 to computer 2a. Application form 14 is data describing the format (style) of an application. Application form 14 sent by application form providing device 1 to computer 2a is in a format that can be printed and used on computer 2a. User 2 prints out application form 14 downloaded to computer 2a and sends the application form with the necessary information filled in to the destination as at least the application document.

[0013] Depending on the application procedure, in addition to the application form with the necessary information filled in, Application Form 14, attachments to supplement the information on the application form may be required. The attachments to be submitted together with the application form are specified on the application form. Some attachments are mandatory for the application form, while others require selection by the applicant (User 2). For example, if an identity document is required as an attachment, a passport, driver's license, resident's card, various insurance cards (health insurance card, national health insurance card, social insurance card, etc.) can be used as identity documents.

[0014] If an application requires identification, the number of documents required may vary depending on whether they contain a photo or not. For financial institutions, photo identification (e.g., driver's license) requires only one document for identification, but non-photo identification (e.g., health insurance card) requires two non-photo identification (e.g., health insurance card and resident registration card).

[0015] In this way, even for the same application form, the total number of application documents including the application form and its attached documents may differ. This makes it easy for errors to occur in the application documents that user 2 sends to the application destination. The application form format providing device 1 of this embodiment has been devised with the objective of solving this problem. Note that in this embodiment, the total number of pages of the application form and its attached documents is called the number of application documents.

[0016] As shown in Fig. 1, the application form providing device 1 has a database 12 as a means for storing documents related to application procedures. This database 12 stores at least an application form template 13, which is a template of an application form 14, for each application procedure. This database 12 can also store documents other than the application form template 13. For example, this can be a guide to the application procedure, how to fill out the form, a sample of how to fill out the form, etc.

[0017] The application form providing device 1 has a plurality of web pages that post information related to application procedures, and is provided with a website 11 for providing application forms 14 and the like. The website 11 has, as web pages that post information related to application procedures, a first web page 110 that selectably displays a list whose items are the names of application procedures, and a second web page 111 that selectably displays a document list whose items are the names of documents related to the application procedures. Note that displaying a list so that the items included in the list can be selected means that the list is displayed so that the items included in the list can be selected. The website 11 displays, on the second web page 111, a document list corresponding to the application procedure selected on the first web page 110, and transmits the documents selected by the user 2 on the second web page 111 to the computer 2a operated by the user 2.

[0018] The application form providing device 1 includes an application form generation means 10 that generates an application form 14 to be distributed to a user 2 from an application form template 13. The application form generation means 10 is a function realized by a computer program implemented in the application form providing device 1. The application form generation means 10 is a means for executing a process of calculating the number of application document pages related to the application form template 13 selected on the second web page 111, and a process of generating an application form 14 to be distributed to a user 2 by embedding this number of application document pages in the application form template 13.

[0019] In order to be able to calculate the number of application document pages related to application form template 13, the number of application pages to be submitted corresponding to application form template 13 is added to application form template 13 stored in database 12 as meta information of application form template 13. If application form template 13 contains a page that is not submitted to the application destination, such as an explanation of the application, the number of these pages is not included in the number of application pages to be submitted.

[0020] The attached documents to be submitted together with the application to the application destination are determined by the application of the application procedure performed by the user 2. In this embodiment, an application is assumed that requires the user 2 to select the attached documents. For example, an application that requires an identity document. In the case of an application that requires an identity document, the user 2 needs to select the certificate to be used as the identity document. Therefore, the application form generation means 10 according to this embodiment holds a list of attached documents that the user needs to select as data for each application form template 13. The application form generation means 10 displays a list of attached documents corresponding to the application form template 13 used to generate the application form 14 in a selectable manner, and calculates the total number of attached documents using the attached documents selected by the user 2. The total number of attached documents can be the number of attached documents. In addition, when there is an attached document with multiple pages, the total number of attached documents can also be calculated as the total number of attached documents.

[0021] The application form template 13 is provided with a field for embedding information indicating the number of application documents. The number of application documents to be sent to the application destination in the application procedure must be visually confirmed by the user 2. Therefore, it is necessary to display the number of application documents in text. Furthermore, in order to improve the efficiency of the reception work at the application destination, it is desirable for the number of application documents to be mechanically readable. Therefore, in this embodiment, the application form template 13 is provided with a text field for embedding the number of application documents in text and a barcode field for embedding a barcode encoding the number of application documents. Note that the barcode includes a two-dimensional code in addition to a one-dimensional barcode.

[0022] From here, we will explain the operation of the application form providing device 1. Figure 2 shows the operation procedure of the application form providing device 1. The explanation of Figure 2 also includes an explanation of the application form providing method, which is the invention of the method disclosed in this application.

[0023] When a user 2 uses the application form providing device 1 to download an application form 14, the user 2 operates the computer 2a to access the website 11 of the application form providing device 1 (step S1). The website 11 of the application form providing device 1 transmits a first web page 110 to the computer 2a that has accessed the website 11 (step S2).

[0024] User 2 operates computer 2a to select an application procedure that user 2 plans to perform from the list of application procedures displayed on first web page 110 (step S3). Website 11 transmits to computer 2a a second web page 111 that displays a selectable list of documents related to the application procedure selected by user 2 on first web page 110 (step S4).

[0025] User 2 operates computer 2a to select a document to be downloaded from the document list displayed on second web page 111, and performs an operation to download the document (step S5). Here, it is assumed that user 2 selects application form 14 as the document to be downloaded.

[0026] Website 11 retrieves from database 12 application form template 13 corresponding to application form 14 selected on second web page 111 (step S6), and passes application form template 13 to application form generation means 10.

[0027] The application form generation means 10 executes a process of calculating the number of application document pages based on the attached documents selected by the user, for example by displaying a selectable list of attached documents that the user needs to select (step S7). Next, the application form generation means 10 generates an application form 14 in which the number of application document pages calculated by the application form generation means 10 is embedded in a field provided in the application form template 13 delivered from the website 11 (step S8).

[0028] The application form generation means 10 passes the application form 14 to the website 11, which then transmits the application form 14 to the computer 2a, which downloads the application form 14 to the computer 2a operated by the user 2 (step S9). The user 2 prints out the application form 14 downloaded from the application form providing device 1 for use.

[0029] Fig. 3 is a diagram explaining the application form template 13 stored by the application form providing device 1. Fig. 4 is a diagram explaining the application form 14 generated by the application form providing device 1.

[0030] 3 has a text field 130a for embedding the number of application documents as text, and a barcode field 130b for embedding a barcode encoding the number of application documents, on the first page of the application form template 13. In addition, the application form template 13 shown in FIG. 3 has a field 131 for entering information related to the sender of the application (address, name, phone number), a field 132 for entering the applicant's personal identification information (e.g., name, date of birth, etc.), a field 133 for entering the application details, and a field 134 for printing notes.

[0031] In the application form 14 shown in FIG. 4, text 140a indicating the number of application documents is embedded in the text field 130a of the application form template 13 shown in FIG. 3, and furthermore, a barcode 140b encoding the number of application documents is embedded in the barcode field 130b. User 2 can confirm the total number of application documents to be sent to the application destination from text 140a. If the total number of application documents to be sent to the application destination can be visually confirmed, it is possible to send documents necessary for the application to the application destination in excess or insufficiency. In addition, the application destination can mechanically read barcode 140b to ascertain the number of documents to be sent from user 2, thereby making the application acceptance process more efficient. [Explanation of symbols]

[0032] 1 Application form providing device 10 Application form generation means 11 Websites 110 First Web Page 111 Second Web Page 12 Database 13 Application form template 14 Application Form 2. Users 2a Computer

Claims

1. An application form providing device that generates an application form to be provided to a user, the application form providing device comprising: means for storing an application form template for each application procedure, the application form template having a field for embedding the number of application documents; and application form generating means for calculating the number of application documents from the number of application forms to be submitted using the application form template for the application procedure selected by the user and the number of attached documents required for the application form, and generating the application form with the number of application documents embedded in the field provided in the application form template.

2. The application form providing device according to claim 1, wherein the application form generation means displays a selectable list of attached documents that need to be selected by the user, and calculates the number of application documents based on the attached documents selected by the user.

3. An application form providing device as described in claim 1 or 2, wherein the fields provided in the application form template are a text field in which the number of application document pages is embedded as text and a barcode field in which a barcode encoding the number of application document pages is embedded, and the application form generation means embeds text indicating the number of application document pages in the text field and embeds a barcode encoding the number of application document pages in the barcode field.

4. A method for generating an application form to be provided to a user, comprising: a step (a) of a device having means for storing an application form template for each application procedure, the application form template having a field for embedding the number of application documents, calculating the number of application documents from the number of application forms to be submitted using the application form template for the application procedure selected by the user and the number of attached documents required for the application form; and a step (b) of the device generating the application form with the number of application documents embedded in the field provided in the application form template.

5. A method for providing an application form as described in claim 4, wherein in step a, the device displays a selectable list of attached documents that the user needs to select, and calculates the number of application documents based on the attached documents selected by the user.

6. A method for providing an application form as described in claim 4 or 5, wherein the fields in the application form template include a text field for embedding text and a barcode field for embedding a barcode, and in step b, the device embeds text indicating the number of application documents calculated in step a into the text field, and embeds a barcode encoding the number of application documents calculated in step a into the barcode field.

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