Core Benefits

Nine Levels of Help

Help goes beyond just program help to include form specific help and field specific help.  But help does not end there:

MultiForm assists in the actual entering of information via data shortcuts, and in the checking of the entered data for data accuracy and appropriateness.

1. Overall Program Help

Clicking on "Help F1" under the "Help" pull down menu will display overall, general Program Help.

2. Context Sensitive Help

Pressing F1 at any point in the program, it will bring up context sensitive help. That is, if one in on the Print Menu, then pressing F1 will bring up the overall program help file to the Printing Help section.

3. QuickStart Help

Clicking on "QuickStart" item under the "Help" pull down menu will display summary information about operating key parts of the software, in order to get a quick overview.  This is especially useful when first using the software.

4. Individual Form Help

Pressing [Shift][F1] will, if that form has specific help, display information particular to the form being used. All the Fannie Mae Appraisal Addenda Forms have Individual Form Help. The Individual Form Help for the Appraisal Addenda includes information and pictures about where on the actual Appraisal form itself the information to fill out the Addendum form comes from. It also includes information about the upload process.

5. Individual Field Help

Any field that would benefit from having additional instructions regarding what information is needed in the field will have those instructions displayed at the bottom of the MultiForm window. Not all fields have individual help, but many do.

6. Conditional Logic Help

In the completion of each form, in order to increase the accuracy of the data making it to the form, MultiForm will provide data validation. For example, certain fields on the Addenda forms are *required* fields. If any of the fields are left blank, MultiForm will, prior to allowing the form to be prepared for uploading, display a dialog naming the required fields that have been left blank.




Where possible, MultiForm will validate the data that IS entered into the field. For example, on Date Fields on the 5 Addenda forms, MultiForm will complain if the date placed into the field does not have a MM/DD/YYYY format.




Further, MultiForm provides for a short hand entering of the date: for example if 0123 is typed into a date field, and [Enter] is pressed to move on to the next field, the date will automatically be expanded and formated as 01/23/2006.




MultiForm will also check that the date is in fact a VALID date. If one were to type 0132 and press [Enter] in the date field, MultiForm would complain about the invalid date, and request trying again.




Another area, where data validation occurs on the Addenda forms is the logic surrounding repair costs and As-Is and As-Repaired Values. MultiForm will insist on an As-Repaired Value. 1) to be the same as the As-Is value if no repairs are needed, and 2) to be greater than the As-Is Value if repair costs are reported. MultiForm will not prepare the file for uploading if the validation conditions are not met.




With the Addenda forms, since they require a PDF of the Appraisal form itself, MultiForm will also require a PDF file be included with the Addenda form. If a separate PDF, i.e. the Appraisal PDF, is not selected for inclusion, MultiForm will complain, and request it be selected for inclusion.

7. Verbose Dialog Help

Dialogs like the "OutBox" dialog have descriptive designs. If additional information is needed for that task, additional assistance is displayed on the dialog itself, not buried in a help file. For example, The "OutBox" dialog has an instruction area that constantly displays help upload instructions. The instruction area is at the bottom of the dialog near the OK button. It is always showing.

8. Logical Software Design

Much thought is given to designing the operation of the MultiForm itself to be as logical as possible and to require as few a steps as possible to accomplish the desired task, reducing the need for assistance in the first place.

9. 800 Number Help

Anything not clear with the above levels of help, can get clarification by calling our TOLL-FREE 800 number. 800-235-1600.

Nine Levels of Help