About Creative Data Solutions
We are a Melbourne business that has spent more than 20 years turning paper forms into clean data. We combine professional graphic design with specialist form layout, then manage printing, distribution, returns and data capture as required. You provide the questions and written content; we bring together the presentation, usability and production requirements, and deliver the agreed data with the images behind it.
What we are
Since 2007 we've prepared, printed, distributed or scanned forms for more than 260 organisations, on more than 600 projects. Nearly three-quarters of those projects were for organisations that had worked with us before.
We specialise in scannable forms. Our clients are research consultancies running the paper mode of a mixed-mode study, university and institute research teams running cohort and participant surveys, schools, training organisations and certifying bodies running exams and assessments, health services asking patients about their care, member organisations surveying their members, employers surveying their staff, and government departments and councils asking residents and service users what they think. We work from our premises in Vermont, Victoria, on Scantron scanning equipment, with forms printed by Australian print partners. Distribution can be through individual Australia Post mail-outs or bulk delivery via Australia Post and other couriers. Completed forms can return directly to us or arrive in bulk from clients and participating sites.
What we are not
We are not a general commercial print shop. Our work centres on scannable forms and the supporting materials your project needs, including letters, instruction sheets, postcards and envelopes. Our form design and supporting artwork service brings these materials together using your supplied content and visual requirements.
We are not a keying bureau: our operators key the open-ended answers on a form the scanner has already read, and key whole forms, yours as they stand if you like, only for small runs where setting up the scanner would cost you more. We are not an online survey platform: you run the online side, we run the paper side, and the two meet in your data file.
How we work
We put the rules in writing before they're needed: the form you've proofed, the exception handling you've approved and the column names you've agreed. The data you receive follows those rules. Every form we print for automated scanning is guaranteed to scan. Every form we scan is imaged. Every job ends with the paper securely shredded or returned to you.