Create!form Case Study

According to Ian Woodborne, Senior Application Consultant at Capita, "We are using Create!form to create and run all the revenue gathering forms used by Mendip District Council, including Council Tax bills and reminders, all invoices and statements, letters to benefit claimants and even small jobs where good presentation is important. The software runs on a Windows NT server, picking up output from UNIX platform and printing through two HP5Si laser printers."

"Previously we were using ten year old software that simply was not up to the job. We looked at the market, tried a Create!form demonstration disk and had a demonstration from PCF that showed us just how easy the product was to use. It was also considerably less expensive than comparable products and worked from Day One. Initially form design and administration has been kept as an IT function, but eventually we expect users to be able to take it on."

Tina Lloyd, Business Analyst Services Manager, at Monmouthshire County Council has been using Create!form on the Council's UNIX system for over a year with an automated process for producing payslips and P60s using prepaid postage and pressure sealing equipment and outputting to two laser printers. "We also use Create!form for sundry debtor's invoices, credit notes and recovery letters. Our Housing Department, which has 5 area offices, will be using the system for sending letters to people on housing waiting lists, tenancy correspondence, such as rent increase notifications and for producing rent payment cards."

"We find Create!form a really good product" commented Tina Lloyd. "We have not had to change any of our applications and the quality is so much better than the previous legacy systems. The debtor's invoices used to be a pre-printed form with the boxes filled in and it looked awful. Now all our forms are designed in-house and we have saved a fortune in exorbitant software costs every time we needed to change a form."

"We are also utilising the Create!form barcode module for Revenue forms. This will enable us to automatically scan the returned forms into our document management system. We intend to implement the Create!form solution throughout the Authority," continued Tina Lloyd, "eliminating the need for pre-printed stationery. We also hope to implement the solution for cheque printing."

Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council use Create!form to design and print Student Loan Assessment forms for further education, Council Tax letters and standard letters requesting more information from residents. John Price at Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council claims that "The system is extremely easy to use and very fast. A recent run of 12,000 letters took just 5 minutes to convert to the new form. The package sits on a Windows NT workstation, talking to a Bull mainframe computer and printing out on a HP D640 laser printer."

Kennet District Council use Create!form on their IBM AS/400 to print personalised Council Tax Giro payment books on Kyocera FS 7000 laser printers. According to Linda Kelly at Kennet District Council, "We do not use the powerful form design facility yet but we print payment books daily and at year end we print solidly for two weeks on four printers. Create!form is invaluable then and allows us to personalise each book."

Winchester City Council produce up to 40 different forms including Council Tax and Business Rates documents, two types of reminders, final demands and summonses as well as discount review forms and standard letters. The output is sent from an outsourced ICL mainframe and the users print the letters on two Kyocera laser printers. While there are peaks once a month and at year-end, the system normally produces around 100 letters a day.

Create!form is available for AS/400, Windows NT, VMS and a variety of UNIX platforms including RS6000, HP-UX, SunOS, etc.