Is it easy to build a Customer Onboarding (Account Creation) Solution for a Bank using Infowise Ultimate forms? 

Dear Readers, it's almost a month and a half I have used Infowise Ultimate Forms, and I must say I love the convenience of having everything in one place. I can open up my Infowise Portal, right from my SharePoint, and create forms and processes easily and quickly.

Life without Infowise Ultimate Forms

Assume I was working without Infowise Ultimate Forms; I would need Power Apps or SharePoint Designer to create and update my form design and add the company logo and branding. Sometimes it would also be necessary to add bits and pieces to make responsive web pages. By responsive webpage, I mean an application that works well with all different kinds of devices.

We would also need SharePoint Designer Workflows or Workflows created by using Flows to make sure that the processes work well so that if there is an approval necessary, one would need to add items and create the structure. 

Let's discuss the possible scenarios using an example, say Customer Onboarding in a Bank.

Customer Onboarding: How does an account creation work in a bank?

The process of customer onboarding begins with the request to open an account. Say an individual wants to open a bank account. He will either call or visit the branch. He then needs to fill-up the form and submits it to the bank. He also needs to provide a set of documents, commonly known as KYC or Know Your Customer Documents.

Once the bank receives all the documents, a team of Legal and Compliance officers checks all the information that has been provided by the customer.

If all the information is found current, a new account is created for the customer.

This the first step when a customer gets introduced to the banking service for any bank. It's is very important to have this process streamlined. If the customer is happy with the service, it will not only ensure his loyalty, but he might also recommend other people, thereby increasing profitability for the bank. 

However, this is a very lengthy process and has multiple levels of checks and approvals by Legal and Compliance teams for the information provided. 

Customer Onboarding: Forms and Process in a Bank

To create a Customer onboarding process, one of the most important things is to create a form, which will have all the information about the customer. Traditional consists of an innumerable number of fields and options. All information like the type of account, Branch details, Nominee information all gets stored here.

To create a form, with a large number of fields as the customer onboarding form, it is necessary to make sure that the form is interactive.

My requirements for the form include:

1. It must have the proper bank color branding and logo.
2. The form needs to be divided into blocks of information, using accordions and tabs. This will help us to segregate the information.
3. The fields need to update on the selection of a given field. For example, if my account type is Joint Account, I need to provide the name of another account holder. If it is a Personal Account, then I will not need another account holder.
4. Fields need to be viewed based on form type. As in the case of Account Number, New Item should not show account number, but Edit form needs to have an account number fields. 
5. Field level permission to edit.
6. Once the form has been created, it needs to go through an approval system.

Customer Onboarding: Creating a solution using SharePoint, PowerApps and Power Automate (previously known as Microsoft Flow)

As soon as you create a list of items in SharePoint, by default, a complete set of forms (New, Edit and View) are created in SharePoint. Though the forms are responsive, it's very difficult to add features like hide/show on the selection of an item or hide fields on the type of action like New Item or Edit Item. 

A solution for that is to use PowerApps. However, with PowerApps, we can either change only the form design or create a mobile/iPad based app. Though I can code the app to hide and show fields, based on conditions, a certain amount of coding skills is necessary. 

Moreover, there is no easy drag and drop option to create tabs and accordions to arrange data or any quick custom CSS to change the look and feel.

Once the forms are created using Power Apps I nee,d to use Microsoft Flow to update the approval process. However, this also includes a learning curve and might not be a quick drag and drop solution. 

This, in turn, means that I have to move between applications to create a perfect solution.

Customer Onboarding: Creating a process using SharePoint and Infowise Ultimate Forms

Infowise Ultimate Forms, on the other hand, solves my problem quickly. I could add CSS and quickly create a custom design and branding. Even the conditional show and hide of the account number field can easily be done using the checkboxes. I can add rules and permissions easily, even in each field. I can add custom style to my fields and not just forms and even custom notification.

Custom Validations and Rules can also be easily set on the click of a button. Best of all, everything is either drag and drop or clicks, something that an ordinary user can create. The Form designer also has good documentation, available just by clicking the help icon on the top right corner.

Infowise Ultimate Forms also come with a detailed section on Business Logic, where you can easily create alert and approval processes n the click of a button. 

I can easily create my entire solution in SharePoint, without moving around to any other application. Thus it is simple, easy to use and convenient, even for a non-technical user.

I had fun mapping out my process using Infowise Ultimate Forms. What solutions are you guys working on? I would love to hear about them.

Join me next week as I share more about the data and charts-based application. I have been working on.