BFMA Presentation: Why use one form format over another?

BFMA Presentation: Why use one form format over another? Jim Healy CTO & Founder FormRouter.NET Jim.healy@formrouter.com Page 1 of 22

Why use one form format over another? Online forms are great for efficiently collecting responses. There are numerous form editors for creating eforms that can be hosted online. Each electronic format has its own strengths and weaknesses. How do you know what format is best for your needs? Learning the pros and cons of each form format will enable you to make the right selection for specific problems. Form Formats Evaluated 1. HTML 2. ASP & ASP.NET 3. Adobe PDF 4. Microsoft InfoPath 5. Microsoft Excel 6. Microsoft Word 7. Macromedia Flash MX & MX 2004 Criteria 1. Ideal usage situation (defined in layman s terms) 2. Development tools required to create 3. Experience level to create (Beginner/Intermediate/Expert) 4. Programming skills required (VB, Javascript, VBA etc..) 5. Field types supported (regular/dynamic) 6. Validation options (regular expressions) 7. Output options 8. Dynamic generation options 9. 3 rd Party Plug-ins & Code 10. Multimedia Support 11. Browsers required 12. OS supported 13. Standards based (are they cheating) 14. Cost 15. Servers to support format 16. Servers to capture responses 17. Hosting restrictions 18. Security features 19. Digital Signature support 20. 2D Barcode support Page 2 of 22

HTML HTML forms are where eforms got their start. This format is still widely used but appears to be getting pushed aside by more feature rich technologies. This might be because HTML form standards have changed little since 1993. But, don t give up on this technology yet, because XHTML and XForm standards are just around the corner. These standards will enable the humble Web Browser to support extremely rich form features. The current lack of these features is the reason for people turning to higher end tools. The question will be, who is going to develop the great editing tools for these new standards, and will the software giants sacrifice their proprietary tools to embrace these new standards in their free browsers? Ideal Usage HTML forms are a good choice when: The form requires the broadest user access There is no reason to keep a printed copy of a form Digital signatures are not required When the form must be dynamically generated The form may need to be used in an e-mail The form needs to be picked up by search engines The form needs to open over low bandwidth The form does not need to be locally saved The form does not need dynamic sections Development Tools Text Editor Macromedia DreamWeaver MX Microsoft FrontPage Experience Level Basic HTML required Programming Skills JavaScript for validation Server scripting language to process Field Types Text Field Password Text Area Dropdown Box Select Box Multi Select Box Radio Buttons Check Box File Upload Hidden Buttons Validation JavaScript Server Script Validation Output Options HTML POST (Encoded Name/Value pairs) Dynamic Generation Easy to generate programmatically if you understand Page 3 of 22

serve side programming. 3 rd Party Free web scripts to process Free JavaScripts to validate Multimedia Support Macromedia Flash Microsoft Windows Media Player RealPlayer (Audio/Video) Animated Graphics (GIF Format) Browser Required Supported by all major HTML browsers OS Support Standards Supported by all major OSs World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) HTML 4.01 XHTML (Improved form features) XForms 1.0 (Separating data, logic, and presentation into three distinct areas) XForms Tools & Browser Plugins Novell (http://developer.novell.com/xforms/) IBM (http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xmlforms) WC3: Next Generation of XHTML & XForms Low End features Tabbing control between data entry fields Improved GUI controls (choice lists, checkboxes, radio buttons, action buttons, bar codes, etc.) Date formatting Currency formatting Patterns for field data display (i.e. picture clauses for text and numeric data fields) Mandatory fields detection and enforcement Context sensitive field help Protected fields (i.e. display only for calculated fields or locked by signature fields) Mid-level features Field Calculations (including date and time, basic arithmetic, and financial calculations) Data Validations Data controls Database lookups and updates. High End features Digital signatures High fidelity printing (Many highly regulated industries such as government and financial require Page 4 of 22

precise and exact print output.) Saving work in progress and completing the form during another session. Multiple page forms with data validations and calculations across the pages. Spell checkers. Dynamic subforms (i.e. the number of dependents entered would generate at run time the number of dependent subforms that would be displayed.) Cost $0 and up Server Host Options All major Web servers on all OSs Server Capture Options Open Source Scripting Languages Perl (Open Source) PHP (Open Source) Commercial Server Scripting Software ASP & ASP.NET (Microsoft) JSP (SUN / IBM / Open Source) Cold Fusion (Macromedia) Web Services FormRouter.NET Hosting Restrictions None Security Features 128-bit SSL Digital Signatures Not supported No way to bind signatures to changes in the document 2D Barcode Support Possible via server manipulation Page 5 of 22

ASP & ASP.NET For more serious HTML like online forms, using ASP and ASP.NET will deliver a more powerful solution and will still render well in the majority of Web browsers. The latest set of tools offered by Microsoft opened up opportunities to create forms with windows desktop like interactivity. Beyond just forms, this is a fantastic technology for anyone developing interactive Web applications and represents a huge leap in Web-based interface technology. The only downside is that in order for the forms to take advantage of interactive features, the server must be hit all the time. They call this round-tripping. This can be a problem with people who have slower connections. It also causes a lot of extra load on servers, so you may need more of them. Ideal Usage Development Tools ASP forms are a good choice when: The form requires broad user access The form needs intelligent dynamic sections The form needs the ability to show and hide fields There is no reason to keep a printed copy of a form Digital signatures are not required When the form must be dynamically generated The users has medium to high speed access The form does not need to be locally saved ASP and ASP.NET forms require Visual Basic and Visual Basic.NET code. Because of this, you will want to use the most powerful tool you can afford. The better tools offer rich libraries of code examples and actually assist you to write functions. Microsoft Visual Studio.NET (Best Tool) ASP.NET WebMatrix (Open Source) Macromedia DreamWeaver (Limited) Text Editor (Last Resort) Experience Level Intermediate to Advanced Programming Skills Field Types Text Field Building forms in ASP.NET is more like creating a windows program than it is building an HTML form. You drag and drop form field objects to the page, then set their interactivity, validation and actions with Event Procedures. Event Procedures are a fancy term for code that executes when an event occurs for example, after you update the value of a field, another field may recalculate. HTML ASP or ASP.NET Visual Basic or Visual Basic.NET C# (Microsoft s Java like language) Page 6 of 22

Validation Password Text Area Dropdown Box Select Box Multi Select Box Radio Buttons Check Box File Upload Hidden Buttons Offers very powerful drag-and-drop validations that are much easier that writing JavaScript: Required Field Compare Field Regular Expressions Range Validation Custom Validation A nice feature that can accompany validations next to fields is the Validation Summary (a grouping of all validations that have failed on a form). Output Options HTTP (Post) XML Web Service Call Custom programmed Dynamic Generation Very powerful dynamic form generation tool 3 rd Party Hundreds of 3 rd party vendors of components Multimedia Support Macromedia Flash Microsoft Windows Media Player RealPlayer (Audio/Video) Animated Graphics (GIF Format) Browser Required ASP and ASP.NET render to the browser s standard HTML code. The ASP.NET servers have intelligence built in to determine if the browser supports JavaScript. If JavaScript is supported, then validation will be passed to the browser as JavaScript, if not then the validations will be done on the server side. Microsoft Internet Explorer (Best Results) Any standard Web Brower OS Support Windows OS Linux & Solaris (ASP with Chilisoft) Standards HTML 4.01 XML SOAP Cost Development Tools: Page 7 of 22

Visual Studio.NET ($2500) Windows 2003 Web Edition ($300) Server Host Options Although you can run ASP 3.0 solutions on Sun s Chilisoft, the new ASP.NET is so powerful you will want the Microsoft IIS. Microsoft IIS with.net 1.0 (2.0 is on the way) Linux & Solaris (With Chilisoft by SUN) Server Capture Options Microsoft IIS with.net 1.0 Any SOAP Web Service Hosting Restrictions Not well supported on non Microsoft Servers Security Features 128-bit SSL PassPort Login Windows Login Active Directory Control Other 3 rd Party Controls Digital Signatures Not supported 2D Barcode Support Can be added programmatically by adding in 3 rd party components. Page 8 of 22

PDF Adobe PDF has come a long way since 1993 when form functionality was first offered via a plug-in. By Acrobat version 4.0 the ability to add forms was embedded in the interface. Since then Adobe has been working hard to take the PDF format and make it the standard for digitally signed and printed forms. Whether it was pure genius or the fact that Adobe did not originally intend for PDF to be a form tool, they got one thing right from the beginning forms are documents first and forms second. The ability to preserve perfect fidelity when printing a form has allows PDFs to make a smooth transition between printed and eforms. In addition, PDFs ability to support dynamic 2d barcodes allows PDF forms to be used in print and digital space simultaneously. Since President Clinton Digitally Signed the E-Sign Act in 2001, making digital signatures legally binding in a court of law, PDF has been racing to expand the ease of digital signatures integration into Adobe Acrobat and the free Adobe Reader (via Reader Extensions). At this time PDF is the dominant player in digitally signed documents. It is important to note, the thing that makes PDF documents fundamentally different from other form formats is that a PDF document is a container. Because it is a container it can hold inside of it intelligence, security features, files, documents data and business logic. This gives PDF the advantage of being extensible over time and very flexible. Almost all other form formats are just files that render a form in a browser. Ideal Usage The form requires broad user access Need perfect printing characteristics of online forms for legal purposes Need 2D Barcodes Need to Digitally Sign eforms Need to archive forms for future reference Need to save forms locally (work offline) Need security features inside eforms Development Tools Although PDF is an open standard and many companies offer tools for creating PDF forms, many of the new features Adobe has been offering in recent releases may not work if forms are created with non-adobe tools. Adobe Acrobat Professional Adobe Designer 3 rd party tools Experience Level Building basic PDF forms is intuitive and simple using Adobe Acrobat Professional. Pushing to develop more intelligent forms requires a good grasp of JavaScript. If you choose to build forms with Adobe Designer, more advanced understandings of XML and Web services are required to take full advantage. Beginner to advanced Page 9 of 22

Programming Skills JavaScript provides an excellent programming platform inside of PDF forms. If you have used JavaScript in HTML forms in the past you may find some limitations in PDF s implementation of JavaScript. For security reason JavaScript in PDFs only have power to effect events inside of the PDF. There is no way to control Web browser interactions through JavaScript. JavaScript Adobe PDF Object Model Web Services for Adobe Designer Field Types Text Field Comb Fields Password Digital Signature Text Area Dropdown Box Select Box Multi Select Box Radio Buttons Check Box File Upload Hidden Buttons Validation Output Options Additional in Adobe Designer: Dynamic Fields (can add fields on the fly) The Acrobat interface provides a good set of easy to select validations, which are broken out into the Format and Validation controls. Required Field Range Validation Field Format Controls (Number, date etc ) Calculated fields Custom Validation (JavaScript) One nice feature of PDF is a simple interface to select the type of output from PDF forms. Posting like HTML allows PDFs to work with code written on most popular web servers to process form responses. The Ability to submit complete PDFs makes it easy to capture PDFs with digital signatures into an archive. HTML (POST) FDF XFDF Complete PDF document XML (If forms are built in Adobe Designer) Page 10 of 22

Dynamic Generation Although JavaScript allows some control to show and hide fields, serious dynamic manipulation of the interface is limited. Show and hide fields If using Adobe Designer to build forms, dynamically growing sections can be added. This is excellent for eform invoices and expense reports. 3 rd Party There are hundreds of 3 rd party tools on the market to increase the functionality of PDF forms. Online PDF information sites offers lists. Be careful, some vendors run information sites that promote their own tools first. PDFZone.com (Vendor neutral site) Multimedia Support Graphics (even high definition) Sound files Flash File attachment Browser Required Adobe Reader (Free) Adobe Acrobat (Fee) OS Support Because PDF documents scale to the browser size, it is an ideal format for smaller handheld devices. All major OSs Handheld Support Standards XSLT-generated modified version of XHTML, not XForms Cost Adobe Reader (Free) Adobe Standard ($250) Adobe Professional ($400) Reader Extensions Server ($65,000 10 Forms) Reader Extensions are also offered as a service on a per form or seat licenses base by FormRouter.net Adobe LiveCycle Servers (Call Adobe) Server Host Options Any standard web server (IIS, Apache etc ) Adobe LiveCycle Form Manager Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server FormRouter.NET (Service) Server Capture Options XML (Web Service Post) Complete PDF document HTTP Post Hosting Restrictions If complete PDF forms will be submitted, users will desire better than dialup connections to submit. Security Features 128-bit SSL Active Directory control Document level passwords & encryption Digital Signatures Supported Page 11 of 22

2D Barcode Support PDF 417 Supported with a plug-in Page 12 of 22

InfoPath Microsoft InfoPath is the new kid on the block. Until recently the product called xdocs. Developed with the inventor of XML, InfoPath is now a part of Microsoft Office Suite. The tool is a combination form builder and browser built into one. Like all Microsoft development tools, the interface is powerful and intuitive. Building complex eforms with dynamic repeating sections is easy. InfoPath is a chance for Microsoft to get users away from building Excel and Word forms. InfoPath forms can be e-mailed to others, posted to a shared drive, or a Microsoft Sharepoint server. This allows users to build their own forms and e-mail them around to test workflows before getting IT involved to develop more complex Web services. Because Infopath is XML based, it is well suited to consume and post to Web services. The fact that Microsoft offers servers and sophisticated development tools to build web services is a bonus. To those who have used Adobe s Designer to build forms, it is hard to ignore the interface similarities. The core difference between the two products is that Adobe Designer produces PDFs that can be used in the free Adobe Reader and InfoPath produces.xsn files that must be opened in the InfoPath Browser. Because InfoPath does not have a ubiquitous free browser, PDF still has the upper hand with regard to portability and reach of forms outside of the network environment. In addition, InfoPath forms are forms first and documents second. This limits the usability of the forms in circumstances when the printed forms need to meet specific legal requirements or require heavy collateral material to be included in the document. For forms used inside of the office network, I have a feeling that InfoPath will make great strides over the next few years as more end users start hacking out forms while IT is busy on other projects. Ideal Usage All users have Microsoft Office with InfoPath All users are on Microsoft Windows OS All users have access to a shared drive or MicrosSoft SharePoint Server Form does not require perfect printing characteristics of online forms for legal purposes Need to have different views of the same form Need to e-mail forms around for workflow Need to Digitally Sign eforms Need to archive forms for future reference Need to save forms locally (work offline) Need to have dynamic repeating for sections Page 13 of 22

Need to build forms from existing database structures or XML Web services Development Tools InfoPath Experience Level Beginner to Advanced Programming Skills To extend functionality VBscript JScript (Microsoft s version of JavaScript) InfoPath Object Model Web services to consume data posted Field Types Text Box Rich Text Box (font control) Dropdown List Box List Box Date Picker (very nice interface) Check Box Option Button (radio button) Selection Area Repeating Section Repeating Table Button Hyperlink Picture Expression Box (used for calculations of fields) Ink Picture (lets you draw in a field area) Validation Validation rule interface Script validation Output Options XML Web Services Call Excel HTML (Flat) Dynamic Generation Repeating Tables Repeating Sections Date Picker 3 rd Party I have yet to find any 3 rd party plug-ins for InfoPath. But if they do arise you may find them on: http://www.microsoft.com/infopath http://groups.yahoo.com/group/infopath/ Multimedia Support Graphics Browser Required InfoPath OS Support All Windows OSs Standards XML Cost Free with bulk purchases of Microsoft Office $200 for stand alone license Page 14 of 22

Server Host Options Local drive on windows OS Shared drive with permissions SharePoint Server Web Server (causes functionality limitations) Server Capture Options Hosting Restrictions InfoPath has a concept of Trusted Forms. A Trusted Form has been registered in your Windows Registry. Trusted Forms allow forms to access private resources and Web services. This prevents a user from opening a form that may conduct malicious acts once opened. Web Server (can causes functionality limitations) Security Features Trusted Forms Digital Signatures Supported (Section signing or whole document) 2D Barcode Support InfoPath allows users to write ActiveX controls and have them embedded into form template. You could write or purchase an ActiveX control that does 2D barcode. To find vendors of 2D barcodes for InfoPath see ComponentSource: http://www.componentsource.com/ Page 15 of 22

Excel Although not originally developed to be a form input tool, Excel sports many powerful form features for pure data collection. Traditionally Excel forms have been distributed in organizations as full documents to be filled out offline. Then, documents are aggregated and data is stripped from fields to do analysis. This works well, but can be labor intensive and often is not very secure due to the fact that most e-mails are not secure. There is a better way to use Excel. It is possible to submit Excel form data securely over Internet connections to servers. By adding VBA code to existing Excel spreadsheets, data can be pulled from Excel fields and transmitted to collection servers. It is also possible with VBA to transmit the entire Excel form to the server on submit. The main downside to using Excel forms is that users must have Excel installed on the desktop. This may make Excel a bad choice for extending forms outside of a known group of users. The biggest advantage of using Excel is that people like to use tools they are familiar with. In organizations that are Windows based, most machines already have Excel installed. In addition, almost all people leaving schools today have a basic understanding of Excel. This gives instant advantage to organizations that would like to use Excel as a front-end form format. The best utilizations of Excel forms are often tied to data collection for research where budgets are tight and calculations on forms are often required. Ideal Usage The form format requires broad user familiarity The form needs to have complex internal calculations The form is mainly for numeric input The form needs to be saved locally (work offline) The form needs to be archive for future reference Need to Digitally Sign eforms Need for security features inside eforms No need for perfect printing characteristics of online forms for legal purposes Development Tools Microsoft Excel (includes VBA editor) Experience Level Beginner to advanced Programming Skills VBA Field Types Text Box Dropdown List Box List Box Check Box Option Button (radio button) Page 16 of 22

Button Hyperlink Validation Although Excel offers extensive cell formatting for numeric input, doing upfront validation on field input requires VBA programming. This can become very labor intensive. Numeric Formatting VBA code required for validations Output Options HTTP Post possible with VBA code Web Service call possible with VBA code Dynamic Generation If form users have Excel 97 or later it is possible to dynamically generate excel spreadsheets with calculations with server code: ASP / ASP.NET PHP One ASP.NET technology worth mentioning is ExcelWriter: http://officewriter.softartisans.com/officewriter-257.aspx This code assists in the dynamic generation of Excel spreadsheets with advanced Excel features such as charts, pivot tables, VBA, macros, multiple sheets, image insertion, named ranges, page layouts, and more. 3 rd Party Excel has hundreds of 3 rd party plug-ins to enhance usability, but unfortunately many have little to do with forms. Multimedia Support Charts Graphics Although not supported directly in the worksheet it is possible to insert raw file formats into an Excel spreadsheets to opened if the end user has the corresponding browser. This allows audio, PowerPoint and Flash presentations to be included. Browser Required Microsoft Excel OS Support Windows OS Mac OS (Office:mac) http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ Standards HTTP Post Web Services SSL Cost Street price ($200) Included in MS Office Server Host Options Local server directory Web Server Server Capture Options XML (Web Service Post) HTTP Post Complete Excel Document Hosting Restrictions None Security Features Password protect Excel workbook or sheet Page 17 of 22

Digital Signatures 2D Barcode Support Microsoft has added the ability to digitally sign an Excel spreadsheet. Doing so ensures that you were the last person to make changes to the workbook. For more information see: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288985 Through ActiveX controls or VBA code it is possible to add 2D barcodes to Excel spreadsheets. To find vendors of 2D barcodes for Excel see ComponentSource: http://www.componentsource.com/ Page 18 of 22

Word For most organizations Microsoft Word is the grandfather of all data collections technologies. Because Word is the most used piece of desktop software today, users naturally gravitated to designing print and electronic forms here first. Surprisingly Word has not headed forward to being a robust eform capture format. Although it is possible to write VBA code to capture Word form field data and submit it to a server for processing, it lacks a basic validation interface. In addition, the Forms Toolbar only offers text, checkbox, and dropdown box input options. These shortcomings aside, for many organizations that have standardized on Microsoft Office, Word combined with VBA code can solve many data capture problems with a tool they already have. In the future, look for organizations that are Microsoft Office centric to shift over to Microsoft InfoPath for their data collection needs. Ideal Usage The form format requires broad user familiarity The form needs to be saved locally (work offline) The form needs to be archived for future reference Need to Digitally Sign eforms No need for perfect printing characteristics of online forms for legal purposes Development Tools Microsoft Word (includes VBA editor) Experience Level Beginner to advanced Programming Skills VBA Field Types To keep file sizes small, the best tools to use to add form fields is the Forms Toolbar located under View>Toolbars>Forms. Text Check Box Dropdown Box Validation The Control Toolbox adds more Field type options, but will increase file size. Text Check Box Radio Button Button Dropdown Box List Box Word lacks easy user interfaces for setting basic validation. VBA code required for validations Page 19 of 22

Output Options HTTP/HTTPS Posts possible with VBA code Web Service calls possible with VBA code Dynamic Generation If form users have Word 97 or later it is possible to dynamically generate Word forms with server code: ASP / ASP.NET PHP One ASP.NET technology worth mentioning is WordWriter: http://officewriter.softartisans.com/officewriter-186.aspx This code assists in the dynamic generation of Word documents on an ASP.NET server. 3 rd Party Word has hundreds of 3 rd party plug-ins to enhance usability, but unfortunately many have little to do with forms. Multimedia Support Charts Graphics PowerPoint Although not supported directly in Word documents, it is possible to insert raw file formats into Word to open if the end user has the corresponding browser. Browser Required Microsoft Word OS Support Windows OS Mac OS (Office:mac) http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ Standards HTTP Post Web Services SSL Cost Street price ($200) Included in MS Office ($350 $500) Server Host Options Local server directory Web Server Server Capture Options XML (Web Service Post) HTTP Post Complete Word Document Hosting Restrictions None Security Features Password protect Word document Digital Signatures Microsoft had added the ability to digitally sign a Word Document. Doing so ensures that you were the last person to make changes to the document. For more information see: http://office.microsoft.com/enus/assistance/ha010450721033.aspx 2D Barcode Support Through ActiveX controls and server code it is possible to add 2D barcodes to Word documents. To find vendors of 2D barcodes for Word see ComponentSource: http://www.componentsource.com/ Page 20 of 22

Flash Most people think of Flash as being a fantastic animation format for Web sites. In the past few years, Macromedia has been working on making Flash a viable option for the development of rich client interfaces for Web applications. This also makes Flash a possible selection for online forms. To its credit, Macromedia Flash has made its way onto almost every desktop that supports a Web browser. This makes Flash great for broad user bases on all OSs. Because of new approaches to security, Flash Browsers can be controlled to only open Flash forms from servers that allow certain permissions. For example, forms can be set to only post to certain servers after being filled out. They call this a security sandbox. Flash forms can have multiple form interfaces laced into one Web browser experience. This consolidates forms that normally would have to spill over to many separate pages. In addition, Flash interfaces can have a creative look unmatched by any other form format. On the downside, developing forms in Flash takes some knowledge of ActionScript, a proprietary language used by Flash. Also the Flash interface comes with a steep learning curve. Ideal Usage The form format requires broad user base The form requires a graphically rich interface There is no reason to keep a printed copy of a form Digital signatures are not required The form does not need to be locally saved The form does not need dynamic sections No need for perfect printing characteristics of online forms for legal purposes Development Tools Macromedia Flash MX Experience Level Intermediate to advanced Programming Skills ActionScript Field Types Text Check Box Dropdown Box List Box Radio Button Button These field types are now standard user controls with properties that can be set in Flash or ActionScript. Validation All validation must be done in ActionScript Output Options HTTP/HTTPS Posts possible with ActionScript Web Service calls possible with ActionScript Dynamic Generation Can be done with advanced ActionScript inside of a Page 21 of 22

3 rd Party Not for forms Multimedia Support Flash form Not available from server although Macromedia has just released a server called Flex that may be able to do this soon Flash is a multimedia format by nature Graphics Animations Audio Video Browser Required Flash (Free) OS Support All OSs supported Standards HTTP Post Web Services SSL Cost Flash MX 2004 ($499) Flash MX 2004 Professional ($699) Server Host Options Local server directory Web Server Server Capture Options XML (Web Service Post) HTTP Post Hosting Restrictions An XML file may have to be installed on the Web server hosting the Flash form as well as the Web server collecting the responses to the form. Security Sandbox Security Features Flash files are semi-compiled and are not easy to hack unlike HTML forms. Security Sandbox SSL Digital Signatures No support 2D Barcode Support None Page 22 of 22