Cheapest/easiest software to create an electronic personnel action form?

[wetcamelfood]

Please bear with me, I'm a novice at this, was going to post this on the newbie board but figured those that post on this board would know right away what I need to use.

I'm trying to create an electronic personnel action form (non profit, so no money for Peoplesoft Smart EFP etc.) that would be menu drive like an E-survey form (one question per page as many multiple choice/drop downs as possible and as few written text felds as possible but just want one person's answers printed out on one sheet as is, not saying "100% of one people chose (this answer) to (this question)" in a pie chart etc.) either in a table in a Word doc/or Excel (meaning, something editible once a completed one was submitted to HR via e mail). We still have paper files so we do ned to print the final product out for the file but it'd be easier having one full sheet of typed correct info instead of a dozen half scribbled out correction ones in the files instead etc.

MS Infopath seems too much like a paper version of a PAF (i.e. too many ways for people to interpret what is needed, therefore, even though making them required fields, can still cause conflicting answers (like choosing a managerial job title with a Non-Exempt overtime status, hence the reason I'd like a survey style for users as a funnel to use as many branching questions as possible (e.g. once they choose the new hire's home address state from the list of 50 states drop down, the next screen would have a town drop down of just towns in the chosen state, then the next drop down would be just the zip codes in the town chosen). This kind of funnel technique is more relevant in terms of the organizational information that would be added in most of the form (departments, cost centers, etc.) but figured I'd do the address as an example so you'd know what I'm after (so no way they could choose Chicago, Massachusetts or whatever.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[lordsmurf]

For somebody like me, "PAF" means nothing. It's still just data.

You'll need to be clear on three things:
1. What specific data has to be input.
2. If there needs to be sanitizing or verification on submissions.
3. How the information is delivered (i.e., via email or dumped directly into a database).

Nothing would ever go into Word (word processing software, not data collection software) nor Excel (accounting/spreadsheets). At best, data collected into a database can be exported as CSV, to be manually imported to Excel.

There's a good chance I could suggest something, if I actually knew what you wanted.

[wetcamelfood]

OK thanks, I'll try to be as clear as I can, but regarding number 1, most of it relates to processes we deal with internally as an organization so you or the other in this form won't know what they mean. I'll PM that info to you I guess.

3. The supervisor's completed form would ned to come to me in an e mail.
2. Yes, even if it is to be set up as needed there will be cases where I would need to modify the answers that are e mailed to me before i can process it s it doesn't have to be Word or Excel but the point being it can't be something I can't modify (i.e. pdf etc.)

I guess there is 2 big humpos to overcome:

1. To set up the tables of the everday data I spoke of in a way which it can be funneled (state, towns in chosen state, zips in chosen town)
2. Import data in to this form from our HRIS system so when a supervisor logs into the form and they wanted to change the status of one of their existing employees, they could choose from a drop down of staff names that just they supervise, then it would ask them, what kind of change they want to make, from the choices let's say as an example they decide to choose John Smith who works for them and they want to change their pay rate then the next screen would say John Smith's current rate is 10.00 an hour what do you want to change it to? then there would be a drop down of dollars and cents numbers they could choose from to assign Smith his new pay rate. It's important that the specific previous rate appears though since we often get paper forms now where what they state as the person's old rate doesn't match what our system has so they need to calculate it off of the correct old rate otherwise we don't know whether the new rate they put on the paper is the rate it's supposed to be or if they were supposed to calculate the new rate off of the rate we have in the system, therefore the new rate is different to what they originally wrote down.

PM on the way (might take me a while to type all the different scenarios out though but i will send it soon), though if the above helps clarify things enough for others reading this where they can give suggestions in this thread please post about it here.