Software - How it works

PQF software revolutionises data gathering from the desktop.

Dolphin Software’s innovative electronic forms software suite was designed to work alongside Microsoft’s Office® suite as the e-forms product of choice, automatically collating results into any database software, on desktop, LAN or server.

The revolutionary key is the patented Portable Questionnaire Format (PQF) –

a single small questionnaire or electronic forms document, containing a complete data acquisition session
created and produced by the PQF Author

presented to the audience through the PQF Viewer, a ‘client side’ application relying on email
submitted for automatic collation by PQF Collator software into response data base

Email is “the primary means enterprises choose to communicate”…

PQF software is inherently highly reliable with low system impact through using email transmission; it is not an internet browser based solution.

Limitations and unreliability of web access for data acquisition were realised by Dolphin Software early in the life of the e-forms market – Dolphin Software’s PQF patents were awarded from 1995.

PQF established a client application for data acquisition years ahead of major multinational players in the electronic forms market space releasing their client side e-forms software in 2004.

How PQF Works - a simple view

1	PQF Author software is used to design an electronic form or questionnaire
2	PQF Author automatically creates a database / spreadsheet before transmission based on the author's design, in the software of the author's choice.
3	PQF forms are distributed to people participating in the data collation.
4	Participants read and reply to the PQF form (using the preloaded and automatically launched PQF Viewer), and responses are automatically returned to the Collator email address embedded in the PQF form.
5	PQF Collator automatically reads mail, unencrypts responses, and processes the response documents, updating the correct database table or spreadsheet, ready for reporting and decision making. With PQF Collator you can automatically collate responses on the same PC, on multiple PCs within your organisation (eg at head office and at regional offices), or at your strategic partners when you co-own the results – in the database or spreadsheet of your choice.


PQF Technology Benefits

Benefit	Detail
Reliable ‘whole of document’ access through Client side PQF Viewer email application	All PQF electronic forms page presentation, data capture and validation is completed off line from the server, responding to the user at the speed of the local PC Reliable access to the whole PQF document, containing all information Impossible to experience broken linkages and refresh delays common to web forms waiting for page by page server updates or ‘breaking’ with network and server latencies
Speed	The response data are in one integrated small packet, deliberately maintained to be as small as possible (typically 3-6 kb)
Email is a reliable efficient transport mechanism	Reliability higher than sustained on line web sessions Asynchronous, hence serious reduction in server load. Efficient solution for low bandwidth situation High tolerance for concurrent bandwidth demand
Automatic unique participant ID	Responder’s email address is inherently ‘stamped’ as an ID, without resorting to invasive technologies such as ‘cookies’ .
Offline until Submit, or store and forward	Client side applications can run off line until Submit phase Access to the server is only required at the point of submission – even then its email, it can wait til connection is established, unlike dedicated on line applications
Standard format for data presentation	PQF Viewers deliver a standard or uniform format for managing data acquisition in electronic forms
Standard format for transmitting email forms and responses	Faultless communication across PCs running a range of heterogeneous email systems, by using the uniform or standard PQF file format and its free PQF Viewers
Secure PQF files	PQF file format is inherently secure through the encrypted proprietary PQF file format, unlike HTML or XML transmissions
Secure both ways…	Outgoing from PQF Author, incoming to PQF Collator The outgoing PQF file from Author is encrypted to prevent questions and collator addresses from view. The first 8 characters of the file are unencrypted so that the PQF signature and document version can be freely ascertained through Notepad, WordPad etc. The response document (SVR) into the Collator is also encrypted; any program other than PQF Collator cannot intercept answers to questions.
PQF through firewalls	PQF files contain no executable components and therefore are allowed through email firewalls such as MimeSweeper, MailMarshall, IronMail etc.
Security assurance -access to code	Access to the full source of the PQF Viewer code is under a Non-Disclosure contract. Encryption and decryption routines will be removed or obscured.