I've been trying to solve this for a while and I can't come up with a workable solution:

In our business, we utilize many subcontractors around the world (without Zoho user accounts) to produce reports and client sites which they then submit back to us for review, we then issue certification accordingly.

Currently reports are created using a word template and data is manually extracted for the review process, analysis and recording within both CRM and external MS spreadsheets.

How can we streamline this for data collection / extraction?

Key limitations:
Subcontractors do not have Zoho users.
Reports are generated offline and browsers can't be used.
We do not want to duplicate any processes (i.e have the subcontractor input data twice).

The ideal function would be an upload portal, link or form that the subcontractor uses to upload a word document; this is then processed by Zoho to extract requisite data and updating fields within CRM and triggering next actions.

Any input welcome.

Thank you,

Daniel