Electronic Form Prompt Instancing for Historical Data Integrity
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing electronic forms become obsolete and difficult to use due to changes in business processes and commercial realities over time, leading to obsolete and unusable information.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for generating and processing electronic forms that utilize instantiated prompts, allowing for dynamic updates and maintenance of prompts while segregating user inputs, enabling flexible form generation and data storage that maintains historical integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If electronic forms are updated to reflect changing business processes, then the forms remain relevant and useful, but historical information becomes obsolete and difficult to use
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the electronic form into two independent components: prompts (which can be updated) and responses (which remain unchanged). This allows the prompt portion to adapt to changing business processes while preserving the historical response data intact, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and information integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a copy of the original prompt-instance-response triplet when a prompt is modified. The original prompt instance remains unchanged to preserve historical integrity, while a new prompt instance reflects the updated business process requirements. This copying mechanism allows both adaptability and information preservation.
2Stability of the object's composition
If electronic forms remain static, then historical information is easy to maintain, but the forms become obsolete and difficult to use
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements dynamic electronic forms where prompts can be updated independently of stored response data. The form structure evolves over time to reflect changing business needs while maintaining stable historical records, achieving both stability and adaptability through temporal separation of concerns.
Solution Approach 2:
By segmenting the form into mutable prompts and immutable response instances, the system allows the prompt portion to be dynamic and adaptable while the response portion remains stable and preserved, resolving the contradiction between stability and adaptability.
3Adaptability or versatility
If prompts are modified in existing electronic forms, then the forms reflect current business needs, but data analysis and comparison become difficult
Solution Approach 1:
When a prompt is modified, the system creates a copy of the original prompt instance rather than altering it in place. This preserves the original prompt text for historical comparison while allowing the new prompt to reflect current business needs, making data analysis and comparison straightforward through direct side-by-side comparison of original and modified versions.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method of generating and processing electronic forms may include: generating and storing a plurality of prompts; receiving a first form request from a first user device; generating a first form including a first set of prompt instances; causing the first form to be displayed on the first user device; receiving a first set of user inputs, each of the first set of user inputs being associated with one or more of the first set of prompt instances; and storing the first set of prompt instances and the first set of user inputs while maintaining the plurality of prompts.