in the first place," says Wayne Gramlich, Sun Microsystems' representative on the World Wide Web Consortium. "On-line forms provide a very direct way to pinpoi
nt expenditures."
With business process reengineering in vogue among management theorists these days, you might expect to find a huge e-forms market. Think again. Steven B. Weissman, an analyst at Kinetic Information (Waltham, MA), estimates the 1996 worldwide e-forms business at about $92 million, which is a relatively tiny niche.
So how can e-forms become more widespread? One answer, according to forms-software vendors and potential customers, is -- surprise! -- the Web. As more companies set up public Web sites and private intranets, it makes greater sense to integrate forms with Web pages and link them to existing back-end processes. The potential Web benefits are all in the front-end of the document-flow process. Customers and clients can use any standard Web browser to quickly locate the forms they need on the company's public Web site, while employees can get the forms they need on their company's private intranet. And it's all based on a standard Web-like architecture supp
orted by a growing number of tools and products.
But commercial products that make Web-based forms a reality are only just arriving, and some people argue that the Internet is a communications infrastructure, not an automatic answer to business process problems. Before you can decide whether this is the right step, you have to understand the strengths and limitations of e-forms, and how the Web can play a role in the filling and routing of forms.
One obstacle that has stood in the way of wide-scale use of e-forms has been inadequate infrastructure. "A high percentage of the company must be able to handle electronic forms," notes Gramlich. "You can't do it unless people are wired."
Forms software has progressed slowly as well. "Until about two years ago, electronic forms really just supported basic fill and print capabilities," admits Eric Stevens, group product manager at Symantec, the leader in this market.
As progress happens on both fronts, the basic concepts behind e-forms remain c
onstant. Typically, forms software comprises two basic modules: a client program, called the filler, and a design program that someone uses to create and administer the forms (
see the figure
). The design program is a visual layout tool that lets you mimic the look of a paper form by arranging text, graphics, tables, check boxes, and other elements. Most forms designers also supply a number of templates you can use or modify for specific purposes. But the true benefit of e-forms isn't their ability to mimic a paper form on a computer screen. It's the native intelligence of the back-end process.
By specifying a set of routing rules, for example, you can create a smart form that automatically dispatches to the appropriate individuals in the approval loop. Forms software varies in the way it handles this kind of routing. Some products require that each person approving a form has to e-mail it to the next worker in the loop. Other products can automatically route the form to all the righ
t people.
In the past, forms-software vendors tended to use the proprietary routing mechanisms of e-mail systems to route forms. More recently, they've adopted emerging e-mail standards, such as the Internet Message Access Protocol and Microsoft's Messaging API. Often, these systems also use work-flow servers to handle administration and routing.
Many forms require additional information from back-end databases. Insurance forms, for example, may need data from actuarial tables. For this reason, most forms software can hook into databases, often through Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers. For cleaner links and better performance, some products natively support major databases, such as Oracle7, SQL Server, and Sybase. A forms package that lets you specify these links by editing a database table structure from within the forms designer is much easier to use than a package that requires naked SQL queries. If you don't have direct access to a linked database, you can often embed the database tab
le structure in the form itself.
A filler program allows users to complete the e-forms on their screens. Again, the primary benefit is "intelligence": The forms software can check the validity of user data in a field before routing the form. "Mistakes are caught at the most cost-effective time, and by the user who knows what the correct information is supposed to be," says Michael Cohen, president of Paperless Performance, an e-forms vendor.
Most forms packages don't require a special server for simple implementations. You can design the forms on a PC, replicate the forms on all the client PCs, and route them via your e-mail system. More sophisticated implementations require a server that stores the forms, manages the work flow according to predefined rules, and handles communications with other back-end applications (such as database servers).
Maintaining the work-flow rules on a central server is particularly important. This enables businesses to adapt e-forms to rapid changes in business
processes. "Business processes change, and they change fast," explains Gramlich. "Approval processes change all the time as companies implement cost controls, hiring freezes, and capital expenditure limits." By housing the rules for these processes at a central location, it's easier to adjust the behavior of the forms they support.
Adapting the Web
The growing popularity of the Web may rub off on e-forms. According to e-forms vendor JetForm, about half of all publicly accessible Web sites use some kind of form to collect and process information from users. However, the Web also exposes the limitations of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) for the more sophisticated demands of e-forms. "With HTML, we're still stretching to do anything with entry validation or database lookup in real time prior to forms submission," says John Hendricks of Workflow Solutions, a value-added reseller in Bellevue, Washington.
HTML forms will get better, but not soon enough for many organizations
that could take advantage of this technology today. "We understand that current Web forms are kind of wimpy," says Web Consortium member Gramlich, "but it's not the highest priority right now. I'm guessing that we won't see the first phase of a forms upgrade until mid-1997."
Electronic commerce is a natural application for on-line forms, but the spectacular rise of private intranets based on Web standards is creating even more opportunities for deploying e-forms within organizations. The relative simplicity of an intranet makes it easier for in-house developers to create applications for work-flow automation and database access, which are central to a workable forms process.
"The Web is acting as a focal point, but this is a new twist on an old theme, not a completely new way of doing business," according to Hal Bennett, an Internet commerce consultant based in Menlo Park, California. "Computers have been Ôelectronifying' forms since day one. Most client/server systems, for example, have long enab
led forms-based business processes."
But client/server solutions can be expensive to implement and are sometimes more complicated than the mainframe solutions they were intended to replace. One possible alternative: a more economical intranet that uses Sun's Java language to drive intelligent forms. A compact forms filler written in Java can run on almost any client operating system and download with the form to the client workstation.
That would be a boon for large organizations that must cope with huge distribution and maintenance problems each time they change a business process or upgrade an application. "Far and away the biggest issue for customers is the ability to deploy enterprise-wide work-flow-enabling applications without having to go to the client," says Hendricks. "At Boeing, for example, we're talking about over 30,000 desktops."
In effect, the intranet/Java model could combine two different approaches: Melding the advantages of mainframe computing, which centralizes maintenance
and deployment, with client/server computing, which off-loads some of the data processing to lower-cost client workstations.
Vendors Board the Bus
E-forms vendors are taking different approaches to this new technology. Some see the Web as a widely accessible and up-to-date warehouse for e-forms. "We're using the Web as a distribution and transaction system," says Cohen of Paperless Performance. "A user could go to the Small Business Administration site, for example, and download the forms for an electronic loan application using our NeoForms helper app."
Web servers are potentially superior to LAN servers for storing forms because the Web centralizes access. "Putting forms on a Web site simplifies updates, and with a single place to go, people don't get lost as easily," says Joanne Correia, JetForm's director of Internet and small business products.
JetForm is among the most aggressive forms vendors in the development of a Web strategy. In July, the firm released Je
tForm Web Filler, a plug-in for Netscape Navigator. It lets users view and fill out non-HTML e-forms with a familiar Web browser interface. First, users have to download the version of Filler that's specific to their platform, because this version isn't written in Java. Currently, versions are available for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. When the user clicks on a Web hyperlink that leads to a matching e-form, Navigator launches the filler application and downloads the form.
The first time a user requests a particular form, the Web server sends the latest version. If the user requests the same form later, the server checks to see if the user has the most recent version. If not, the server automatically sends the updated form. One disadvantage of this arrangement, however, is that users don't know if there's a new form without hitting the server. "The Web environment is not client/server -- it's a terminal emulation environment," says Correia. "That's why everyone's looking to Java."
As the user enters
data into the form, JetForm Filler validates the information and also provides drop-down menus of acceptable entries for given fields. A purchase requisition, for example, might list only company-approved items in the menu (
see the screen
).
When the form is complete, the user clicks a Submit button to send a data file back to the Web server. JetForm's back-end forms-processing server polls the Web server at intervals and picks up the data files. At that point, the JetForm server can pass the data to another application, add it to a database, or send it to a work-flow server. Eventually, the form will probably be routed to the appropriate individuals through an e-mail system. "This approach leverages the Web to gather data but uses an organization's existing e-mail and LAN system to route the form," says Correia.
In other cases, people might simply use the Web to download a form, then route it to the appropriate person themselves as an e-mail attachment. This works particularl
y well for the growing corps of mobile users who may have trouble logging onto the corporate LAN remotely but can easily gain access to the Web. "If you don't have a story that works for nomads, you don't have a story," says Gramlich of Sun and the World Wide Web Consortium.
The Future of E-Forms
Forms on the Web could really catch fire when more Java applications begin to appear. JetForm has a prototype Java filler that has many advantages over the current version. First, it's more compact and downloads more quickly with the requested form. Since Java code is platform-independent, vendors won't have to support multiple executables, and users needn't concern themselves with downloading the proper filler program for their machine. Just-in-time compilation is an option if the interpreted Java applets aren't fast enough.
By removing some of the technical obstacles to client-side deployment, the Web and Java technology may reduce the cost of implementing e-forms solutions. "The form
s automation companies have tenaciously held to the seat licensing model, and large companies are pretty tired of paying the price," says reseller Hendricks of Workflow Solutions.
As a result, some forms-software vendors, including JetForm, are planning to make their Java-enabled fillers available at little or no cost. If electronic commerce on the Web takes off, forms vendors will have an even better reason to streamline their client components: Every order-entry screen will need some kind of e-form.
Sun is exploring the possibilities of a Java-based forms solution. Gramlich, however, suspects that the window of opportunity for these solutions might be limited. "After the phase we're entering now -- with Java-enabled and, if Microsoft gets its way, ActiveX-based forms -- I think we're going to see a shift back to HTML for perhaps 80 percent of electronic forms," he says. "They're easier to develop, and you'll be able to get everyone to agree to a forms standard built on HTML."
Perhaps that'
s why many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach to this new technology. The Bank of Boston, which has 3000 users completing expense forms electronically with JetForm software, is on the fence. "There's a fair degree of interest," says Bob Nowak, the bank's director of workgroup technology, "but the Internet is still an unknown today. People are treading carefully before they really go out and do something with it."
Others see the Web not as a solution but as simply the latest transport mechanism. "It's an infrastructure, and infrastructure doesn't solve business problems," says Symantec's Stevens. "Applications using infrastructure solve business problems."
The salient contribution of the Web may be its influence on the convergence of work-flow automation, client/server computing, and e-forms. Whether the forms are implemented with HTML, Java, or proprietary plug-ins, the common denominators would be HTTP on the servers and Web browsers on the clients. The Internet/intranet architecture may
prove to be the catalyst that brings it all together.
Where to Find
Paperless Performance
Waterloo, Ontario
Phone: (519) 725 5034
Internet:
http://www.paperless.com
Forms Follow Function
