Systems, methods and apparatuses for automated form templating

• US 10,552,525 B1
• Filed: 02/12/2015
• Issued: 02/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MFTB Holdco Incorporated
• Original Assignee: DotLoop LLC (Zillow Group, Inc.)
• Inventors: Allison, G. Austin, Hu, Justin Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): Roy, Sanchita
• Application Number:
  US14/620,262
• Time in Patent Office: 1,818 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for the automated templating of electronic forms. The templates can include user input fields corresponding to user input elements of the electronic form. The attributes of the user input field can be determined based on contextual data proximate to the user input element, such as the surrounding text. The templates can be used in various collaborative environments and electronic workflows.

Claims

1. A form templating system, comprising:

a form templating computing device comprising as least one processor and at least one tangible computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed by the processor cause the processor to;

receive an electronic version of a form, wherein the form comprises a plurality of user input elements and a text portion and wherein the electronic version of the form has a first resolution;

identify each of the plurality of user input elements of the form;

generate user input fields corresponding to each of the plurality of user input elements;

store the generated user input fields in a user input field layer;

determine one or more contextual tags for each of the user input fields of the form, wherein at least one of the contextual tags is based on a text, of the text portion, that is positioned proximate to the user input element;

store, in connection with the electronic version of the form, for each of the generated user input fields, (1) dimensional placement data, (2) at least one contextual tag, and (3) a type for the user input field, wherein the dimensional placement data correlates the placement of the user input field relative to the electronic version of the form;

receiving input corresponding to a first user input field stored in the user input field layer;

receiving input corresponding to a second user input field stored in the user input field layer, wherein each user input field stored in the user input field layer has a second resolution and wherein the second resolution is lower than the first resolution; and

providing, for display, the electronic version of the form having the first resolution and the user input field layer storing the generated user input fields having the second resolution and including the received inputs.

2. The form templating system of claim 1, wherein a first user input element corresponding to the first user input field appears in a plurality of instances on the electronic version of the form.

3. The form templating system of claim 2, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

in response to receiving user input for one of the plurality of instances of the first user input element, automatically populate other instances of the first user input element with the received user input.

4. The form templating system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of user input elements comprise at least one box and at least one line.

5. The form templating system of claim 1, wherein the electronic version of the form comprises a unique electronic fingerprint.

6. The form templating system of claim 5, further comprising:

generating the unique electronic fingerprint for the electronic version of the form, wherein generating the unique electronic fingerprint for the electronic version of the form comprises applying a hash process to the electronic version of the form.

7. The form templating system of claim 1, wherein the electronic version of the form is received from a form database and wherein the user input fields of the user input field layer are stored in a field database separate from the form database.

8. The form templating system of claim 7, wherein each user input field of the user input field layer dimensionally corresponds to an underlying user input element of the form.

9. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a form templating computing device, an electronic version of a form, wherein the form comprises a plurality of user input elements and a text portion and wherein the electronic version of the form has a first resolution;

identifying, by the form templating computing device, each of the plurality of user input elements of the form;

generating, by the form templating computing device, user input fields corresponding to each of the plurality of user input elements, wherein each of the user input fields is stored in a user input field layer;

determining, by the form templating computing device, one or more contextual tags for each of the user input fields of the form, wherein at least one of the contextual tags is based on a text, of the text portion, that is positioned proximate to the user input element;

storing, by the form templating computing device, in connection with the electronic version of the form, for each of the generated user input fields, (1) dimensional placement data, (2) at least one contextual tag, and (3) a type for the user input field, wherein the dimensional placement data correlates the placement of the user input field relative to the electronic version of the form;

receiving input corresponding to a first user input field stored in the user input field layer, wherein each user input field stored in the user input field layer has a second resolution, and wherein the first resolution is lower than the second resolution;

receiving input corresponding to a second user input field stored in the user input field layer having the second resolution; and

providing, for display, the electronic version of the form having the first resolution and the user input field layer storing the generated user input fields having the second resolution and including the received inputs.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein at least one text of the text portion is identified using optical character recognition.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the dimensional placement data associated with a first user input field comprises an indication of the lower leftmost corner of the first user input field and an indication of the upper rightmost corner of the first user input field.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving input for a first user input field at a first location of the form;

determining that the first user input field of the form appears in a plurality of locations within the electronic version of the form; and

in response to determining that the first user input field of the form appears in a plurality of locations within the electronic version of the form, populating instances of the first user input field with the received input at locations of the form other than the first location of the form.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising:

displaying the electronic version of the form at the first resolution while displaying, at the second resolution, at least one user input field of the user input field layer having the second resolution.

14. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a form templating computing device, an electronic version of a form, wherein the form comprises a plurality of user input elements and a text portion and wherein the electronic version of the form has a first resolution;

identifying, by the form templating computing device, each of the plurality of user input elements of the form;

generating, by the form templating computing device, user input fields corresponding to each of the plurality of user input elements, wherein each of the user input fields is stored in a user input field layer, wherein each user input field has a second resolution, wherein the first resolution is higher than the second resolution;

determining, by the form templating computing device, one or more contextual tags for each of the user input fields of the form, wherein at least one of the contextual tags is based on a text, of the text portion, that is positioned proximate to the user input element;

storing, by the form templating computing device, in connection with the electronic version of the form, for each of the generated user input fields, (1) dimensional placement data, (2) at least one contextual tag, and (3) a type for the user input field, wherein the dimensional placement data correlates the placement of the user input field relative to the electronic version of the form;

receiving input corresponding to a first user input field stored in the user input field layer;

receiving input corresponding to a second user input field stored in the user input field layer; and

providing, for display, the electronic version of the form having the first resolution and the user input field layer storing the generated user input fields having the second resolution and including the received inputs.

15. A computer-readable hardware device storing instructions that, in response to being executed by a computing system having a processor, cause the computing system to perform a method comprising:

receiving an electronic version of a form, wherein the form comprises a plurality of user input elements and wherein the electronic version of the form has a first resolution;

for each of the user input elements, generating a user input field corresponding to the user input element, wherein each of the user input fields is stored in a user input field layer, wherein each user input field has a second resolution, wherein the second resolution is greater than the first resolution;

for each of the generated user input fields, determining one or more contextual tags for the generated user input field;

storing in a user input field layer in connection with the electronic version of the form, for each generated user input field, (1) dimensional placement data, (2) at least one contextual tag, and (3) a type for the user input field;

receiving input corresponding to a first user input field stored in the user input field layer;

receiving input corresponding to a second user input field stored in the user input field layer;

providing, for display, the electronic version of the form having the first resolution and the user input field layer storing the generated user input fields having the second resolution and including the received inputs.

16. The computer-readable hardware device of claim 15, wherein the plurality of user input elements comprises at least one radio button.

17. The computer-readable hardware device of claim 15, wherein determining at least one of the contextual tags comprises:

suggesting two or more contextual tags to a user of the computing system; and

receiving, from the user, a selection of at least one of the suggested two or more contextual tags.

18. The computer-readable hardware device of claim 17, the method further comprising:

suggesting a data type for each of the suggested two or more contextual tags to the user of the system.

19. The computer-readable hardware device of claim 15, the method further comprising:

receiving, from the user, an update to at least one of the determined one or more contextual tags.

20. The computer-readable hardware device of claim 15, wherein determining at least one of the contextual tags to be associated with a first user input field comprises identifying text that is positioned proximate to the first user input field.