IBM Lotus Forms

IBM Lotus Forms helps you reduce the time, costs, and problems inherent to manual, paper-based forms processes. Providing far more than simple electronic print and fill capabilities, IBM Lotus Forms aids in streamlining and automating end-to-end business processes that are initiated by forms.

IBM delivers innovative capabilities within Lotus Forms software to help your organization more easily and cost-effectively move towards automated process automation.

BM Lotus Forms exemplifies service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA is about enhancing the software and IT infrastructure clients already have, and augmenting it with software based on open standards, best practices, and patterns. SOA breaks IT into flexible services that can be combined, configured and reused to address changing business priorities. SOA delivers a flexible IT foundation that enables the enterprise to adapt with speed.

Lotus Forms combines form data and business logic into a single document, an intelligent message that flows through the service connections. In a sense, Lotus Forms activates an SOA, adapting to the various components regardless of platform or vendor choice. It becomes the information distributed by workflow engines, enabling automated business processes.

Lotus Forms does not require proprietary software to deliver and manage e-forms. Rather, its open standards architecture helps it adapt to existing IT investments.

Lotus Forms helps improve time-to-value for forms projects through reusable templates that help speed form design. Lotus Forms introduces the Forms Services Platform that helps accelerate form applications development and that integrates the applications to processes and systems. It also provides the optional capability to connect to over 40 enterprise systems and Industry Accelerator Packs in the financial services, healthcare, and consumer products and manufacturing area. This capability is provided through optional IBM WebSphere® Transformation Extender Adaptors and Industry Packs. IBM WebSphere Transformation Extender is included in Lotus Forms 3.5, and provides a “point and click” mechanism to map electronic form data to enterprise systems.

Solution Overview

IBM Lotus Forms can provide the front end for your organization’s electronic processes. For example, consider a ‘new account’ process moving to the Internet. In this case, users might log on to a web site to create a new account. Once on the web site, they still need to provide information about themselves.

Using the Lotus Forms tools built on Eclipse technology, you can easily create an electronic form that will capture this information. Once the user submits the form, you need to get the information from the form into your business process. Again, the Lotus Forms tools make this possible. Using Lotus Forms Server product, you can capture the information from the form and pass it to your existing systems, be they workflow applications (such as WebSphere Business Integration), database applications (such as DB2 Universal Database or DB2 Content Manager), or some other electronic process.

Integration is also simplified by the nature of the forms themselves. Lotus Forms is written in an XML syntax called XFDL (eXtensible Forms Description Language). Each form is a single XML file that contains both the description of the form and the data the user has entered. Because it is XML, it’s easy to integrate with other XML-based processes, and because it’s a single file, it’s easy to move a form through your systems.

• Lotus Forms Designer is the primary tool for creating e-forms. Lotus Forms Designer provides an easy-to-use interface, with user-friendly features, such as drag-and-drop creation of form components.
• Lotus Forms Server consists of two components. Lotus Forms Server – API provides integration capabilities. Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server is a server-side component that translates XFDL into HTML/JavaScript, providing a zero-footprint “thin client” rendering system.
• Lotus Forms Viewer is a browser plug-in that provides enhanced features to users working with Lotus Forms applications. (Note that Lotus Forms Viewer isn’t a requirement for working with Lotus Forms applications; users can use an out-of-the-box Web browser to do this. Lotus Forms Viewer, however, provides more features and functionality.)

The primary target audience for Lotus Forms is business analysts and others involved in the design and implementation of business processes within your organization.  Lotus Forms can help you create more efficient business processes, and bring old processes into the 21st century.