Scribbles – Moss and Lichens

Fillable PDF

I had to change a membership form for a non-profit organization from a PDF to a fillable PDF.

We had text boxes, radio buttons and date fields.

In comes to LibreOffice Writer to the rescue!

You can use the Form controls to add form elements to your form:

The position and size controls allow you exactly size your controls and manage the X and Y positions too:

The radio buttons can be assigned a group so that they may be chosen once

Once you are done adding the form elements, you can export it as a PDF and test it. The great thing is that the PDF is fillable and saveable.

Get your LibreOffice Writer here:

Writer | LibreOffice – Free Office Suite – Based on OpenOffice – Compatible with Microsoft

NOTE: It is better to save the document as ODT and not as DOCX. If you save as DOCX, Microsoft Word tends to open it and mess with the LibreOffice positioning.

What’s Schmutzig?

Verschmutzungen per WhatsApp melden – S-Bahn München (s-bahn-muenchen.de)

How often do you see a ticketing system bring a SMILE to your face?

You have Jira ServiceDesk or ServiceNow with their automated email ticketing systems which run you through a few email workflows and web frontend updates.

I came across a modern ticketing system which brought a BIG smile to my face.

I was travelling in the S-Bahn München and saw this half eaten banana thrown unceremoniously on the seat by some monkey.

I look around and I see the poster for “What’s Schmutzig?” (What is dirty?) from the S-Bahn Munich.

The poster has very simple steps to complete.

Get the number of the S-Bahn compartment which is easy to find with a sticker with a four digit number and an icon of the wagon
Take a picture of the dirty part of the compartment
Send a WhatsApp message with the picture and the compartment number

I did steps 2 and 3 and sent the message.

I got a generic response within 3 minutes with the confirmation on WhatsApp

I got a custom response within 7 minutes requesting for the missing compartment number.

Once I found and sent the four digit compartment number I got the confirmation that the cleaning team has been informed with a request to rate the general cleanliness of the S-Bahn Munich using the 1 to 6 scale used in German schools.

I gave them a “3”

Within 2 minutes I got a confirmation of the feedback and wishes for a good evening.

The entire conversation took 20 minutes.

I would give them a “1” for bringing a SMILE on my face for their ticketing system.

Do the ticketing systems on our software systems bring a SMILE to our client’s faces?