PROACTIVE FORM GUIDANCE FOR INTERACTING WITH ELECTRONIC FORMS

• US 20170192949A1
• Filed: 01/05/2016
• Published: 07/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/05/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Yeom, Kyeung sub, Alisago, James, Gonzalez, Andres, Parmenter, David, Gaither, Shawn, Behzadi, Arian, Matveief, Anatole, Treitman, Richard, Thevenet, Frederic
• Granted Patent: US 10,657,200 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

Techniques for guiding an interaction with an electronic form via a computing device are described. For example, a form guidance engine is initiated. The form guidance engine maintains a state of the electronic form. The form guidance engine also maintains user information in, for example, a user profile. The user information is associated with a user of the computing device and relates to how the user interacts with the electronic form. Based on the user information, the form guidance engine anticipates a potential interaction with the electronic form given the state. Accordingly and prior to a user request for information about the electronic form, the form guidance engine generates a presentation configured to guide the user to perform the potential interaction with the electronic form via a computing device. A user response to the presentation is received. The form guidance engine performs an action associated with the electronic form and updates the state of the electronic form.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for proactively guiding user interactions with electronic forms via a computing device, the computer-implemented method comprising:

storing, by a form guidance engine, user information indicating how a user prefers to import, fill out, validate, or export electronic forms;

storing, by the form guidance engine, state information for an electronic form for the user, the state information identifying whether the electronic form has not yet been imported, has been imported, has not yet been filled out, has been partially-filled out, has been filled out, has not been validated, has been validated, has not been exported, or has been exported by the user;

detecting, by the form the guidance engine, a triggering event for a potential interaction of the user with the electronic form via the computing device, the triggering event detected based on the user information and the state information;

based on detecting the triggering event, presenting, by the form guidance engine, a presentation configured to guide the user to perform the potential interaction via the computing device, wherein performing the potential interaction changes a current state of the electronic form to a new state; and

updating, by the form guidance engine, the state information of the electronic form to identify the new state based on a user response to the presentation.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a resource associated with the user, and wherein storing the state information of the electronic forms comprises:

detecting a notification about the electronic form at the resource; and

setting the state of the electronic form based on the notification.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the current state of the electronic form is set to available in response to the notification indicating that the electronic form is available from a storage location, wherein the presentation requests whether the electronic form should be imported, the computer-implemented method further comprising importing the electronic form by the form guidance engine from the storage location based on the user response indicating that the electronic form should be imported, and wherein the new state of the electronic form is set to imported.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a user preference associated with importing the electronic form and an identifier of a resource associated with the user, wherein storing the state information comprises detecting that the electronic form is available based on the resource and setting the current state to available, wherein the potential interaction is anticipated by determining that the electronic form should be imported based on the user preference and on the current state being available, and wherein the presentation requests whether the electronic form should be imported.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a user preference associated with filling out the electronic form, wherein storing the state information comprises detecting that at least a portion of the electronic form has not been filled out and setting the current state to incomplete, wherein the potential interaction is anticipated by determining that portion of the electronic form should be filled out based on the user preference and on the current state being incomplete, and wherein the presentation requests whether the electronic form should be filled out.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the user preference indicates a time-based condition to fill out the portion of the electronic form, and wherein the potential interaction is anticipated by determining that the time-based condition is met.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the user response indicates that the portion of the electronic form should be filled out, and further comprising:

providing, by the form guidance engine to the computing device, a step-by-step guidance to fill out the portion of the electronic form.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a user preference associated with validating the electronic form, wherein the current state of electronic form is set to indicate that the electronic form has not been validated, wherein the potential interaction is anticipated by determining that the electronic form should be validated based on the user preference and on the electronic form not being validated, and wherein the presentation requests whether the electronic form should be validated.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a user preference associated with exporting the electronic form and an identifier of a resource associated with the user, wherein the current state of electronic form is set to indicate that the electronic form has not been exported, wherein the potential interaction is anticipated by determining that the electronic form should be exported based on the user preference and on the electronic form not being exported, and wherein the presentation requests whether the electronic form should be exported based on the resource.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user information comprises a user preference indicating a condition to interact with the electronic form, wherein the user preference is predicted based on at least one of:

a history of interactions of the user with the electronic form or a history of interactions of other users with the electronic form.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a touch-free modality is used for the presentation and the user response, wherein the touch-free modality provides the presentation via audible requests and interprets a voice response of the user using voice recognition.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the state comprises an import state, a fill out state, a validate state, or an export state, wherein the state of the electronic form is stored in a data store, wherein the data store further stores an association of the electronic form with the user, an identifier of a storage location of the electronic form, and a time measure of how long the electronic form has been in the state, and wherein the potential interaction is further determined based on the time measure.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the state represents a set of actions to be completed to change the state to a next state, and wherein the instructions upon execution by the processor further cause the system to at least:

maintain a sub-state of the electronic form based on a state machine, wherein the sub-state indicates a progress towards completion of the set of actions of the state based on user responses, and wherein the user responses are provided as inputs to the state machine.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein providing the presentation to the computing device comprises transmitting information about the state to the computing device for presentation based on an application hosted on the computing device, and wherein the user profile associated with the application or with the computing device.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions, upon execution by the processor, further cause the system to at least:

rank the plurality of electronic forms based on respective potential interactions with the electronic forms; and

schedule interactions with the electronic forms based on the ranking.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the electronic forms are available from a plurality of storage locations and are of different types, and wherein the instructions upon execution by the processor further cause the system to at least:

maintain states corresponding to the electronic forms, wherein each state indicates whether a corresponding electronic form is active or inactive;

determine that the state of the electronic form is active; and

generate the presentation about the state of the electronic form based on the state being active, wherein the presentation requests a confirmation to interact with the electronic state via the computing device.

12. A system comprising:

a processor;

a memory communicatively coupled to the processor and bearing instructions that, upon execution by the processor, cause the system to at least;

initiate a form guidance engine;

store, by the form guidance engine for a user, a user profile that comprises user information associated with interacting with electronic forms;

maintain, by the form guidance engine, a state of an electronic form associated with the user, the state comprising at least one of;

importing, filling out, validating, or exporting the electronic form;

detect, by the form guidance engine, a triggering event for a potential interaction with the electronic form based on the user information and the state of the electronic form;

anticipate, by the form guidance engine, the potential interaction of the user with the electronic form based on the triggering event;

prior to a request of the user for information about the electronic form, generate, by the form guidance engine, a presentation configured to guide the user to perform the potential interaction with the electronic form via a computing device;

provide the presentation to the computing device;

receive a user response from the computing device based on the presentation; and

update, by the form guidance engine, the state of the electronic form based on the user response.

18. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed on a computing system, configure the computing system to perform operations comprising:

initiating a form guidance engine;

determining, by the form guidance engine from a user profile, a user preference indicating how a user prefers to import, fill out, validate, or export an electronic form;

maintaining, by the form guidance engine, a state of the electronic form;

detecting, by the form guidance engine, a triggering event for a potential interaction with the electronic form based on the user preference and the state of the electronic form;

anticipating, by the form guidance engine, the potential interaction of the user with the electronic form via a computing device based on the triggering event, the potential interaction associated with importing, filling out, validating, or exporting the electronic form;

prior to a request of the user for the electronic form, generating, by the form guidance engine, a presentation configured to guide the user about importing, filling out, validating, or exporting the electronic form based on the state of the electronic form;

providing the presentation to the computing device;

receiving a user response from the computing device based on the presentation; and

updating, by the form guidance engine, the state of the electronic form based on the user response.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the user preference comprises a time-based condition or a resource-based condition for interacting with the electronic form given the state of the electronic form, and wherein the potential interaction is anticipated based on the time-based condition or the resource-based condition being met.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the user preference comprises a condition for interacting with the electronic form given the state of the electronic form, and wherein the condition is determined based on a history of interactions of the user or other users with electronic forms.