Digital form optimization

1. A system comprising:

one or more non-transitory machine readable mediums configured to store instructions; and

one or more processors configured to execute the instructions stored on the one or more non-transitory machine readable mediums, wherein execution of the instructions causes the one or more processors to implement a process for automatically linking redundant form segments, the process comprising:

receiving an empty digital form comprising segments that include a plurality of form fields,

identifying a first group of segments of the form fields, wherein the first group of segments semantically maps to a form schema,

identifying a second group of segments of the form fields, wherein the second group of segments repeats within the empty digital form,

merging the first and second groups of segments, thereby producing a group of potentially linkable segments,

filtering the group of potentially linkable segments to remove duplicate form fields, thereby producing a filtered group of potentially linkable segments representable as an ordered set of segments, the filtered group of potentially linkable segments including a child segment and a parent segment that occurs before the child segment in the ordered set of segments,

determining a type of link to create for the child segment by determining a similarity metric between contents of the child segment and contents of the parent segment in a corpus of existing completed forms of a same type as the empty digital form,

providing a recommendation to create the determined type of link for the child segment, and

creating the determined type of link for the child segment.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the type of link is a hard link between the parent segment and the child segment.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the type of link is a soft link between the parent segment and the child segment.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the type of link is a data source link to a data source.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the type of link is a prefill link.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein determining the type of link further comprises determining a variability metric across contents of the child segment in the corpus of existing completed forms.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment both map to the form schema.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment are maximal repeating segments in the empty digital form.

9. A computer-implemented method to automatically link redundant segments in an empty digital form, the method comprising:

receiving an empty digital form comprising segments that include a plurality of form fields;

identifying a first group of segments of the form fields, wherein the first group of segments semantically maps to a form schema;

identifying a second group of segments of the form fields, wherein the second group of segments repeats within the empty digital form;

merging the first and second groups of segments, thereby producing a group of potentially linkable segments;

filtering the group of potentially linkable segments to remove duplicate form fields, thereby producing a filtered group of potentially linkable segments representable as an ordered set of segments, the filtered group of potentially linkable segments including a child segment and a parent segment that occurs before the child segment in the ordered set of segments;

determining a type of link to create for the child segment by determining a similarity metric between contents of the child segment and contents of the parent segment in a corpus of existing completed forms of a same type as the empty digital form;

providing a recommendation to create the determined type of link for the child segment; and

creating the determined type of link for the child segment.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the type of link is one of a hard link between the parent and child segments; a soft link between the parent and child segments; a data source link to a data source; and a prefill link.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein determining the type of link further comprises determining a variability metric across contents of the child segment in the corpus of existing completed forms.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment both map to the form schema.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment are maximal repeating segments in the empty digital form.

14. A computer program product including one or more non-transitory machine readable mediums encoded with instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause a process to be carried out to automatically link redundant segments in an empty digital form, the process comprising:

receiving an empty digital form comprising segments that include a plurality of form fields;

identifying a first group of segments of the form fields, wherein the first group of segments semantically maps to a form schema;

identifying a second group of segments of the form fields, wherein the second group of segments repeats within the empty digital form;

merging the first and second groups of segments, thereby producing a group of potentially linkable segments;

filtering the group of potentially linkable segments to remove duplicate form fields, thereby producing a filtered group of potentially linkable segments representable as an ordered set of segments, the filtered group of potentially linkable segments including a child segment and a parent segment that occurs before the child segment in the ordered set of segments;

determining a type of link to create for the child segment by determining a similarity metric between contents of the child segment and contents of the parent segment in a corpus of existing completed forms of a same type as the empty digital form;

providing a recommendation to create the determined type of link for the child segment; and

creating the determined type of link for the child segment.

15. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the type of link is one of a hard link between the parent and child segments; a soft link between the parent and child segments; a data source link to a data source; and a prefill link.

16. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment both map to the form schema.

17. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the child segment and the parent segment are maximal repeating segments in the empty digital form.