eform report

Report: E-form & Workflow Application Ecosystem

Technology Brief, Key Products & Competition

Landscape

STRATEGY DOCUMENT 12 November 2012

E-Forms & Workflow Application

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CONTENTS Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER ONE: E-Form Evolution & Future...................................................................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER TWO: E-Forms Application .................................................................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER THREE: E- Forms Automation ............................................................................................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER FOUR: Vertical / Sectors Implementation ................................................................................................................................... 6

Public Sector .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 6 Financial Services and Insurance................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Manufacturing .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Healthcare .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Life Sciences .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER FIVE: FORMS TECHNOLOGIES AND FORMATS ........................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER SIX: CUSTOMER MINDSET ON E-FORMS FEATURE .................................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER SEVEN: E-FORMS VENDOR EVALUATION .................................................................................................................................. 11

Vendor Landscape Method ............................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Definition ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11 Weighing Factor: Product Evaluation .................................................................................................................................................. 12 Weighing Factor: Vendor Evaluation ................................................................................................................................................... 12 E-Form Landscape ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 13 TABLE STAKE ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Value Index Method ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 15 CHAPTER EIGHT: PRODUCT & VENDOR COMPARISON............................................................................................................................ 16

Adobe Livecycle .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 Microsoft InfoPath ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 MS InfoPath Form Services ............................................................................................................................................................................. 18 HP Autonomy Liquid Office ............................................................................................................................................................................. 19 IBM Forms ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 20 LincDoc ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Formatta ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 22 Perfect Forms ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 23



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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

IT organizations are faced with shrinking budgets and increased end user demand for better collaboration tools. As organizations create competitive positions centered on collective knowledge and resources of their workers to build better products and create effective solutions, they need tools to make those assets more efficient and effective. IT executives are continuously aiming to position IT as a business enabler rather than a cost center. To maintain that balance, IT executives are looking into solutions that let IT do more with less while remaining agile and continuing to innovate.

With the rapid proliferation of smartphones and tablets, the demand to deliver electronic forms to many people across multiple devices, both online and offline, has grown multifold. Now electronic Forms integrated with Workflow solution enables customers to automate forms based Workflow. The E-Forms with Workflow does have a "built-in" workflow engine and design tool that enables users to create process flows through a point and click GUI, assign forms to those processes, view, fill and route the forms to users and even monitor workflow operations with valuable reports. Electronic forms and workflow now operate in one elegant package.

In 2006, Adobe and IBM were the clear market leaders in e-forms. In the past few years, activities in the market have led to consolidation as well as transformation, as e-forms today are more aggressively integrated with content management and business process solutions to support internal data capture and Web self-service. The maturity of the technology over time and its future plans clearly indicates that it shall stay in the IT ecosystem for long.

This document outlines the finer elements of the technology, future directions and product & Vendor comparison. No interview has been taken from the organizations or its customer and is fully researched product with varied inputs available in Public Domain.



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CHAPTER ONE: E-FORM EVOLUTION & FUTURE

As processes become more automated, organizations started thinking of forms as more than a user interface to capture information from end users. When e-forms first emerged, the goal was to replicate a paper form on a computer screen. While this requirement is still typical of e-forms projects, it‘s also possible to utilize e-forms functionality in richer interactions with customers — creating a dynamic user experience that guides users through the process of filling in information. Beyond the customer experience, e-forms bring efficiency and automation to business processes. E forms are rarely used simply as a piece of content that is accessed a later date — virtually all forms contain information that is part of a process (or processes) and must be routed appropriately.

HOW IT GOT HERE? WHERE IT IS GOING?

Stemmed from early electronic facsimiles of standard business forms.

Initially forms could be downloaded, and then routed to different steps.

Next, they could be completed entirely online but were still tied to the look and feel of the paper business form.

As electronic use and access increased, forms-driven business processes have evolved to become electronic only and never hit paper.

With more external stakeholders gaining electronic access, forms could exist entirely online and no longer be tied to a physical counterpart. As a result, e-forms are employing rich user interfaces.

Built-in Rich UI to optimize data input/output improves user experience and decrease abandonment.

The emergence of digital media, e.g. new cameras and input methods, in personal devices is creating an increasingly digitized world, allowing more rich content to be built into forms.

Cloud-only vendors are appearing and allowing form data to be stored entirely in the cloud, without offering an on-premise solution at all.

Mobile form use, previously only enabling simple workflow participation (e.g. approvals) is expanding to more complex forms and tasks, and onto tablets for field operations, e.g. real estate, insurance, field sales.



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CHAPTER TWO: E-FORMS APPLICATION

Using E F forms offers a variety of benefits by expanding participation, increasing efficiency, meeting regulatory requirements, and reducing waste. E Forms technology also addresses the need to maintain forms processes that support both paper-based and electronic versions.

Hybrid Forms Processes: Because of requirements for conventional pen-and-ink signatures, many business processes must include both electronic and paper forms. This is especially common in business-to-consumer and government-to-constituent scenarios where businesses and agencies cannot mandate technology usage to its consumers or constituents. Even when downloading a form online and completing it on their computer, consumers and constituents often still need to print it and sign it because ―wet‖ signature, made with a pen are required. E forms are an ideal solution in such multichannel situations because they can be used online and offline and can effectively transition between paper and electronic processes.

Imaging: Imaging a paper form to reinsert it into an automated process is often required. Optical and intelligent character recognition can be employed to capture information added manually to a paper form and 2D barcodes can be applied to the form before it is physically printed to embed digital information for later capture during imaging. E forms are especially adept at supporting such requirements, for example, processes that require a wet signature can be reconnected to the data supplied in an electronic form.

Security and Electronic Signatures: Many business processes and regulations require signatures made with a pen at many steps of a process. Physical signatures made with a pen can still be a part of an approval process, as mentioned in the previous section; however, electronic signatures can also be used. E forms do not require adopting special electronic signature technology, although the E forms standard does support industry-standard, electronic-signature technology, such as digital certificates for signing or certifying forms.

Mobility: Living in a connected world means that more business processes can be taken to participants as opposed to making participants come to the process, such as going to a business or government office. Submitting forms online can improve user satisfaction, reduce errors, and reduce processing time. It can also increase participation rates, for example, when citizens participate in a government program from the privacy of their own home rather than having to go to a public government office. In these scenarios, electronic forms must support storing form information offline until a user has successfully completed the form before submitting it. The standard supports storing form data both online and offline.

Reducing Waste: Electronic forms can help reduce the environmental impact of business activities and generate derivative cost benefits in other areas where businesses are attempting to lower costs. Paper usage is immediately reduced in workflows that implement only electronic forms, but hybrid workflows can benefit as well, because electronic forms can be designed to enforce green best practices, such as mandating double-sided printing. Reducing document printing reduces printer duty cycles, supporting other important cost-reduction initiatives such as printer consolidation. This also leads to fewer ink and toner cartridges that must otherwise be recycled or disposed of in landfills.



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CHAPTER THREE: E- FORMS AUTOMATION

Data-entry forms ensure that structured data is efficiently collected. The data can then be used in other process contexts, which may be transparent to the user of the form. The user does not necessarily require knowledge of the larger business process, beyond the requirement to enter data.

In contrast, business forms require some knowledge of the business process. These forms usually are rendered to the physical paper dimensions of a standard business document and often must exist as paper forms as well at some time in their lifecycle.

Hybrid forms contain both structured and unstructured content, so they can be used for both data collection and data output.

Different business needs can be fulfilled by different levels of forms automation, from basic department routing up to enabling mission-critical enterprise processes. As with many technology domains, the available tools range from simple combinations of common desktop software (for example, spreadsheets and e-mail) all the way up to large dedicated technology systems specifically designed to enable the creation, distribution, and processing of large volumes of forms.

Ad Hoc Forms Automation: Most enterprises conduct a large amount of ad hoc forms automation. Ad hoc

forms are typically user-driven processes with very little process integration and few participants. Often, pre-existing forms are reused, but there is no prescribed workflow routing procedures.

Departmental Business Forms Automation: At the department level, forms automation becomes more

formal, with preexisting workflows that use preexisting forms. Processes are usually owned by a single area of the business, but participation can be enterprise-wide, such as human resources performance reviews and IT move-add-change (MAC) processes. When formal processes are required, forms automation technologies begin to add value. For example, form designer software adds value by creating professional business forms for departmental and business support, even if workflow and electronic completion is not needed.

Enterprise, Mission-Critical Forms Automation: At the enterprise level, forms automation frequently

supports run-the-business, mission-critical processes, especially industry processes. Participation is usually across the extended enterprise, including partners, employees, customers, suppliers, and providers. Participants in these workflows are driven by the process as opposed to driving the process—which occurs in most ad hoc workflows. Forms automation technologies at this level are often implemented as dedicated systems, but are frequently components of enterprise application suites, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or even content management suites. Industry examples at this level include:

Financial services and insurance—Mortgage application processes, insurance claims processing

Manufacturing—Request for quotations (RFQs), engineering change orders (ECOs)

Life sciences and pharmaceuticals—Electronic data capture for clinical trials and regulatory submissions

Public sector—New business government licensing, social services benefits enrollment



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CHAPTER FOUR: VERTICAL / SECTORS IMPLEMENTATION

Specific industry and business requirements often dictate form design and utilization.

PUBLIC SECTOR

Public sector organizations depend on forms to interact with and provide services to a broad base of constituents, including citizens, businesses, and other government agencies. Most organizations use hybrid business and data forms.

The primary challenge that public sector organizations encounter with forms automation is that the broad base of constituents that they serve have differing interaction capabilities. For example, some constituents can use and prefer electronic forms, while others have to participate in paper-based processes, because of a lack of digital connectivity or aptitude. Therefore, public sector organizations must frequently employ forms that retain the same look and feel in both paper and electronic formats. These forms are also frequently required to move back and forth from paper to electronic format during execution of government processes, from initiation by constituents all the way to archiving. An additional challenge for public sector organizations is that citizens often have to complete forms from multiple agencies to complete a single action. This lack of collaboration among different governmental agencies results in public sector processes appearing as anything but transparent to the constituent.

FINANCIAL SERVICES AND INSURANCE

Forms are at the core of the financial services and insurance industries. Without forms, applications for accounts, loans, mortgages, or investments would not be successfully processed nor would insurance claims, statements, or policies. Organizations in these industries require sophisticated forms automation so that review and approval processes are completed in a timely and accurate manner, and regulatory compliance can be assured and verified. Customer-facing forms are often the main point of interaction and have a major influence on customer satisfaction. In the financial services and insurance industries, process standards, such as those from ACORD or MISMO, often dictate business form structure and content. The consistent presentation of form elements across processes and organizations is required to ensure compliance with standards. To satisfy the needs of these industries, electronic forms must be able to store information inside the form itself as well as integrate with databases.

Because E forms can output data captured from other forms, such as other PDF forms, rich internet applications, and HTML forms, financial services and insurance industries can assemble information from a variety of process capture points into industry-standard business forms. This allows the industry to create branded and compelling customer interfaces for data capture, while complying with industry standards for processing.

MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing organizations employ forms across the entire product lifecycle, from idea generation, to engineering and design, to manufacturing, delivery, and servicing. The industry is also a heavy user of forms to perform maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) activities. These forms often become the official archived record, and are used to ensure and verify regulatory compliance for such industries as pharmaceuticals, chemical manufacturing, and energy production. In manufacturing industries, the design of both structured and unstructured information on a form is often driven by the equipment and instrumentation used in the production process, so the presentation and data layers of a form must be able to accommodate these requirements for interoperability and data capture. E forms can enable manual data capture from manufacturing processes or automated capture from real-time data sensors or historical trend information from operational data stores.



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HEALTHCARE

The healthcare industry is one of the largest generators of forms, from the documents required to admit patients, to their medical records, and prescription and insurance information. Not only does patient health information have to be tracked, but the interactions and professional development of healthcare professionals must also be recorded. Communication among healthcare professionals, providers, and payers further complicates the matter, and handwritten forms lead to errors and delays in providing appropriate patient care.

Privacy regulations are creating significant challenges for forms automation in the healthcare industry. Regulations such as HIPAA stipulate which information can and cannot be shared, as well as stipulating when patient permission is required before information can be shared. This creates an additional approval layer in many processes and also requires protection of information so that only authorized personnel can access it. Electronic forms must frequently support both electronic signatures and encryption when employed in the healthcare industry.

LIFE SCIENCES

The life sciences industry relies on forms-based processes across the entire lifecycle of products such as drugs and medical devices. International regulatory requirements, such as those from the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, place stringent requirements on process controls and data integrity that require strong digital signatures for electronic forms.

Examples of forms-based processes in life sciences include the capture and review of chemistry and biology data in research and development, the enrolling of clinical investigators and subjects for clinical trials, the capture of patient data and adverse events during clinical trials, and the submission of applications and findings to regulators.

Note: Usage of e-forms & workflow applications in Oil & Gas Industry is dealt at a more detailed level in later part of the document.



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CHAPTER FIVE: FORMS TECHNOLOGIES AND FORMATS

Organizations have numerous technologies and formats to choose from when employing electronic forms. Among these are office productivity formats, such as word processing documents or spreadsheets, HTML web forms, XForms, and PDF forms. When choosing forms technologies, decision-makers must examine the entire process lifecycle to support forms automation from creation to archiving because not all formats are suited for all parts of a content lifecycle.

Standard Office Applications: Basic office productivity applications, such as word processors and

spreadsheet programs, can be sufficient for creating electronic forms in ad hoc processes. In this scenario, participation is usually limited to users who have the native applications, and process integration is generally low or nonexistent. However, as participation grows to include audiences who might not have the necessary application and process and data integration increases, office productivity formats quickly fail as electronic forms.

HTML: HTML is often used for data-entry forms, especially in web browsers. HTML forms are adept at creating

electronic forms for online–only usage and where the look and feel ―fidelity‖—of a form is not important to the process or dictated by industry standards. However, forms do not need to be in HTML to be delivered via a web browser. For example, PDF forms can be delivered and completed online or offline with a capable browser plug-in.

XFORMS: XForms is an official World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation for processing XML data,

especially in web forms. While XForms can be beneficial in handling form data at the process-integration level, especially data exchange, it lacks a robust presentation layer, so maintaining fidelity between paper and electronic forms is difficult. XForms is not widely and consistently supported in readily available applications. To provide much beyond very basic data capture, XForms must usually be extended through proprietary formats and often requires desktop applications.

PDF Forms: PDF forms are a type of PDF file that contains form data, logic, and presentation information to

render high-fidelity business forms, especially forms that require the same look and feel on screen as well as on paper.



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CHAPTER SIX: BEST PRACTISES ON E-FORMS FEATURE

Enterprises seeking to automate their forms-based business processes will want to evaluate the possible Solutions according to performance and fit with the organizations typical business requirements. Based on experience across the globe the best practices were documented. The following table gives an overview of Do‘s & Don‘t while developing the e-forms application.

Business Requirement

Things Buyers look for Things buyers avoid

Dynamic User Experience

Data-driven wizards

Ability to personalize forms process

Secure access outside a firewall

Use of scripting to create limited dynamic behavior

Limited dynamic capabilities

Workflow Sectional signing capabilities

Multi-step workflows

Ability to lock down a document while enabling additional workflow

Definition of role-based workflows

Forms that provide only document- level signing

Invisible fields in a workflow that can be invalidated

Compliance Use of declarative rules engine

Compatibility with signature standards to ensure compliance

Use of JavaScript for dynamic forms that can lead to breaks in document integrity

Security Ability to lock down signatures on any combination of fields, sections, pages or forms

Forms with no secure sectional signing

Performance Lightweight, compressible forms based on XML that enable multiple signatures with small file size

XML parsers with fast APIs to access/pre-populate data directly

Large file sizes resulting from replication of forms attached with each signature

Requirement of numerous file formats that require server translations

Integration Open-standards connectivity to leverage existing architecture

Proprietary infrastructures requiring specific servers resulting in higher total cost of ownership



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Speaking of the critical success factors for the success of the e-form strategy could be summarized as:

1. Establish measurable business goals. It is critically important to define the specific business benefits you expect your forms projects to deliver. This may sound obvious, but many projects fail because this ―obvious‖ success factor is not observed. Goals should be specific and measurable, with time frames established.

2. Align your business and your IT operations. While electronic and Internet forms are driven by technology, they are not about technology. The point of forms is to improve work process functionality; technology is only a means to achieving that end.

3. Get executive support up front. Because enterprise electronic forms implementations are strategic initiatives, top management must actively support them. Without executive endorsement, forms initiatives can be viewed as tactical ―paper replacement‖ programming projects and end up being way down IT‘s priority list.

4. Let business goals drive functionality. Just as electronic

forms projects must be driven by business goals, so must every form decision. If a form doesn‘t directly help your company better serve customers and improve workflow, you probably don‘t need to make it an electronic form.

5. Minimize customization by leveraging out-of-the-box functionality. Customization is often the most costly, time consuming and complex component of an electronic form project. Keeping projects within a reasonable scope and leveraging the out of the box functionality of your design program can reduce the need for customization and reduce the total cost of ownership.

6. Use trained experienced suppliers. Selection of your eForms software provider is one of the most

important decisions you will make. Be sure the provider not only provides a quality, functional product but also provides training, technical support, consulting services, and responsive customer service.

7. Actively involve end users in solution design. Unless you solicit and act on end user input, you run the risk of implementing forms that only address one or two workflow issues while missing the larger picture. Forms serve many functions. Effective forms consider the needs of workflow, container, data, and image. Each user may have a different perspective.

8. Invest in training to empower end users. Training should not merely focus on demonstrating how to use

the software‘s features and functionality. Whenever possible, it is important to retain the look and function of the paper version of the form to reduce user anxiety and learning curve. Electronic forms contain many features that provide help to the end user. Taking advantage of these features can significantly improve acceptance of the overall program.

9. Use a phased rollout schedule. Most successful electronic forms programs follow a phased deployment

schedule. Starting with ―Print-on-demand‖ forms, moving to ―Fill-and-print‖, and then to fully functional ―Enterprise-enabled‖ forms gives users an opportunity to become familiar with how to access and use forms, while delivering a low-cost and immediate benefit to the company.

10. Measure, monitor and track. Once an enterprise electronic forms program goes live, the organization must measure, monitor and track user acceptance, workflow improvements, and effectiveness with an eye to continuously improving the program‘s effectiveness.



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CHAPTER SEVEN: E-FORMS VENDOR EVALUATION

VENDOR LANDSCAPE METHOD

From the domain experience of analysts available in the market and existing comparison, a vendor/product shortlist is established. Product briefings are researched from each of these vendors portal, seeking information from the World Wide Web about products, technology, customers, partners, sales models and pricing when required.

GeoApps Consulting Group‘s Vendor Landscape market evaluations are a part of a larger product selection solution set, referred to as a ‗Select Set.‘

Our analysts score each vendor and product across a variety of categories, on a scale of 0-20 points. The raw scores for each vendor are then normalized to the other vendors‘ scores to provide a sufficient degree of separation for a meaningful comparison. These scores are then weighted according to weighting factors that our analysts believe represent the weight that an average client should apply to each criteria. The weighted scores are then averaged for each of two high level categories: vendor score and product score. A plot of these two resulting scores is generated to place vendors in one of four categories: Champion, Innovator, Market Pillar, and Emerging Player.

For a more granular category by category comparison, analysts take the individual scores for each vendor/product in each evaluation category before they are normalized with the other vendor scores and convert those to a scale of zero to four whereby exceptional performance receives a score of four and poor performance receives a score of zero. These scores are represented with ―Harvey Balls”, ranging from an open

circle for a score of zero to a filled in circle for a score of four. Harvey Ball scores are indicative of absolute performance by category but are not an exact correlation to overall performance.

Vendor Landscapes change every 12 to 24 months depending upon the dynamics of each individual market.

Definition

Innovator Champion

Innovators have demonstrated innovative product strengths that act as their competitive advantage in appealing to niche segments of the market.

Champions receive high scores for most evaluation criteria and offer excellent value. They have a strong market presence and are usually the trend setters for the industry.

Emerging Players Market Pillars

Emerging Players are newer vendors who are starting to gain a foothold in the marketplace. They balance product and vendor attributes, though score lower relative to market Champions.

Market Pillars are established players with very strong vendor credentials, but with more average product scores.



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Weighing Factor: Product Evaluation

Features The solution provides basic and advanced feature/functionality.

25%

Usability The solution‘s dashboard and reporting tools are intuitive and easy to use.

20%

Affordability Implementing and operating the solution is affordable given the technology.

35%

Architecture The delivery method of the solution aligns with what is expected within the space.

20%

Weighing Factor: Vendor Evaluation

Viability Vendor is profitable, knowledgeable, and will be around for the long-term.

20%

Strategy Vendor is committed to the space and has a future product and portfolio roadmap.

60%

Reach Vendor offers global coverage and is able to sell and provide post-sales support.

10%

Channel Vendor channel strategy is appropriate and the channels themselves are strong.

10%



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E-Form Landscape

Champion Adobe Acrobat

Adobe LiveCycle

IBM Forms

Cardiff Liquid Office

Innovator Perfect Forms

Emerging Player

Microsoft InfoPath & InfoPath Forms Services

Formatta

LincDoc

Market Pillar None



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TABLE STAKE

The products assessed in this Vendor evaluation meet, at the very least, the requirements outlined as Table Stakes.

Digital Signatures Product supports its own signature system, a public certificate standard, or both.

Form Design Product allows users to create and design their own eForms.

Data Integration & Pre-Population

E-Forms can be pre-populated and integrate with data sources.

Form Fill Product provides a client for eForms users to fill out forms.

NOTE:

If Table Stakes are all the customer need from the eForms solution, the only true differentiator for the organization is price.

Otherwise, dig deeper to find the best price to value for your needs.

Many of the vendors go above and beyond the outlined Table Stakes; some even do so in multiple categories. Some of the advance features which are assessed by the purchaser are mentioned herewith.

Feature Feature Description

Self Service Design & Collect EForms design and collection can be done with a rich UI and doesn‘t require IT.

Archiving Archive form submissions to PDF/A. Partial: Archive to an image archive format (e.g. TIFF)

Sample Forms Provide sample business process forms to be customized.

State Transformation Image capture through OCR/ICR, barcode generation. Partial: Through third party tool.

Share Point Integration Formal library services integration with MS SharePoint.

Dynamic Assembly Create forms on the fly based on existing form components.

Rich UI EForms themselves can be designed with a rich UI for enhanced user experience.

Industry Standard Supports industry standards, e.g. ACORD, MISMO.

Workflow Offers a rules and routing engine for eForms workflow.

Mobile iOS, BlackBerry, and Android or Windows Phone 7. Partial: Any mobile client.



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VALUE INDEX METHOD

The Value Score indexes each vendor‘s product offering and business strength relative to their price point. It does not indicate vendor ranking. Vendors that score high offer more bang-for-the-buck (e.g. features, usability, stability, etc.) than the average vendor, while the inverse is true for those that score lower.

Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give the Value Score more consideration than those who are more focused on specific vendor/product attributes. The Value Index is an indexed ranking of value per dollar as determined by the raw scores given to each vendor by analysts. To perform the calculation, Affordability is removed from the Product score and the entire Product category is reweighted to represent the same proportions. The Product and Vendor scores are then summed, and multiplied by the Affordability raw score to come up with Value Score. Vendors are then indexed to the highest performing vendor by dividing their score into that of the highest scorer, resulting in an indexed ranking with a top score of 100 assigned to the leading vendor.

On a relative basis, Adobe Acrobat maintained the highest Info-Tech Value Score of the vendor group. Vendors were indexed against Acrobat’s performance to provide a complete, relative view of their product offerings.



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CHAPTER EIGHT: PRODUCT & VENDOR COMPARISON

ADOBE LIVECYCLE

CHAMPION OVERVIEW

Product Live Cycle Adobe‘s enterprise eForms and business

process automation solution; a different product than Acrobat Forms.

Contrary to popular belief, LiveCycle offers full XML and HTML, not just PDF forms.

Employees Headquarters Website Founded Presence

8,660 San Jose, CA Adobe.com/LiveCycle 1982 FY09 Revenue: $2.95B

STRENGTHS

Comprehensive eForms management solution with data integration at every level.

Dynamic assembly lets you use form parts to build new forms on the fly and capture, OCR and 1D/2D bar code support.

Security & DigiSig available in LiveCycle portfolio as add-on.

Supports industry standards, e.g. ACORD, MISMO, PISCES

CHALLENGES

Adobe and partners are building out a library of vertical solutions, continuation of which will be critical to continue to compete with vertical ERP and ECM vendor forms solutions.

While its product offering is far above the standard offering in the landscape, so is its price point; LiveCycle is definitely not priced for enterprises with light eForms needs.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION

If you need a comprehensive and dynamic enterprise eForms solution for mission-critical form-based workflows, then Adobe LiveCycle is Info-Tech’s highest recommendation.



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MICROSOFT INFOPATH

EMERGING PLAYER OVERVIEW

Product InfoPath Microsoft InfoPath is Microsoft‘s desktop (client) eForms solution, without the server-based component of InfoPath Forms Services.

XML-based solution.


89,000 Redmond, WA Microsoft.com/Office/InfoPath 1975 MSFT. FY10 Revenue: $62.48B STRENGTHS

Very strong form design and authoring.

Member of MS Office family, meaning look & feel will be familiar to Office users.

Strong support for XML standards and arbitrary XML schemas.

Provides data analysis and survey capabilities.

CHALLENGES

Microsoft‘s continued refusal to create free InfoPath filler has evolved from being costly to being downright annoying to customers. This prevents it from seriously challenging Adobe Acrobat for desktop eForms.

Future roadmap and Microsoft commitment to eForms is uncertain.


While easy to use and great features, InfoPath remains an eForms gadfly without a free form-filler client.



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MS INFOPATH FORM SERVICES

EMERGING PLAYER OVERVIEW

Product SharePoint 2010 Server Enterprise Ed.

Microsoft‘s comprehensive server-based eForms and process automation solution that works with InfoPath client.

Part of the SharePoint Enterprise Edition, NOT Standard.

Works with other enterprise systems, not just InfoPath.


89,000 Redmond, WA Microsoft.com/Office/InfoPath 1975 MSFT. FY10 Revenue: $62.48B

STRENGTHS

Only fully SharePoint integrated forms solution.

Functionality & architecture is stronger than with Microsoft Info-Path only.

SharePoint-enabled workflow and dynamic form assembly.

It is fully integrated with Microsoft SharePoint library services.

Employs InfoPath‘s strong XML-based format.

CHALLENGES

Form-fill client, InfoPath, isn‘t free, limiting the scope of forms-based solutions, preventing it from seriously challenging Adobe LiveCycle.

Some advanced features are only available through partners, e.g. state transformation, support for industry standards.

Future roadmap and eForms commitment is uncertain.


For SharePoint Server Enterprise Ed. users, SharePoint forms services offers strong integration and a robust architecture. Uncertain product strategy and price of InfoPath limit the value though.



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HP AUTONOMY LIQUID OFFICE

Champion OVERVIEW

Product

Cardiff LiquidOffice Cardiff has historically focused on intelligent

document products, baking rules and routing into content. Their eForm roots began with TeleForms, a paper form capture leader almost 2 decades ago, before acquisition by Autonomy.

Employees: Headquarters: Website: Founded: Presence

1,200 (Autonomy) Cambridge, UK Cardiff.com/LiquidOffice 1996 FY09 Revenue: $740M

STRENGTHS

Strong dynamic assembly, workflow, and BPM capabilities.

Supports capture through OCR, IRC,1D and 2D barcodes.

Part of a family of leading content-oriented products from a strong vendor in the information management market, Autonomy.

CHALLENGES

Mobile client is for BlackBerry products only.

For smaller SMBs, Cardiff LiquidOffice may be prohibitively expensive.


For more advanced dynamic assembly and capture needs, LiquidOffice eForms is a great choice. It can also handle more basic scenarios, but won’t provide the best value there.



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IBM FORMS

Champion OVERVIEW

Product Name IBM Forms IBM‘s best-of-breed strategic eForm

solution, originally acquired from PureEdge.

Wizard-driven interface.

Multi-million dollar product roadmap.


426,751 Armonk, NY IBM.com/Lotus/Forms 1911 NYSE: IBM. FY10 Revenue: $99.87B STRENGTHS

Very strong support for industry standards, e.g. ACORD, MISMO.

Rich UI, can add documents, images, video, maps.

Strong XML, BPM, Process Server, and FileNet integration

iPad support.

Offers OCR/ICR capture capabilities.

CHALLENGES

No standalone form instance outside IBM‘s XML technology.

Integration is primarily with other IBM products.

While positioning of IBM Forms vs. IBM FileNet Forms has improved in the last two years, the IBM portfolio still contains overlaps between Forms, FileNet, Lotus Notes/Domino, and Websphere, which can confuse eForm buyers.


For those in need of a robust solution and are okay with forms remaining entirely in IBM’s XML technology, IBM Forms is a very strong eForms product backed by a committed and strong vendor



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LINCDOC

Emerging Player OVERVIEW

Product Lincdoc Optional integration, digital signatures, components include data lookups and credit card processing.

More a multi-tenant architecture (cloud and on-premise) in progress right now than a fully-baked eForm solution.


<50 East Rochester, NY Lincware.com 2007 Private

STRENGTHS

LincDoc is LincWare‘s first and only product to date.

Very strong tablet support (iPad and Android).

Forward thinking management team/company.

Competitive price point.

A vendor to watch

CHALLENGES

MS Word/Adobe Acrobat-based form design and creation process is more difficult and unrefined than most form designers evaluated.

Workflow and case management, while available, is fairly light and not suitable for more enterprises with more robust needs.

Potential acquisition target


When it comes to forward thinking functionality like mobile support and cloud ecosystems, LincDoc is a winner. However, clunky form creation and weak workflow hold it back.



pg. 22 CONFIDENTIAL

FORMATTA

Emerging Player OVERVIEW

Product Formatta

Owned by Access, which holds a portfolio of enterprise forms management products. Employees:

Headquarters: Website: Founded: Presence:

50 Sulphur Springs, TX Formatta.com 1997 Private

STRENGTHS

Strong digital signature features, including X.509, remote signing, and LDAP.

Integration via XML, HTTP, SMTP, SQL and SOA.

Strong industry support, especially in education and public sector.

Web client for Apple iPad

CHALLENGES

No dynamic assembly or state transformation.

No survey functionality and Formatta states that they are not a survey company.


Formatta lacks the functionality and architecture to be a leader in the eForms space. That said, their parent company, Access is worth watching and offers impressive niche eForms solutions.



pg. 23 CONFIDENTIAL

PERFECT FORMS

Innovator OVERVIEW

Product Perfect Forms

Born as a survey and data analysis tool before adding more standard eForms, reporting capabilities, and workflow modules.


50 Carlsbad, CA PerfectForms.com 2001 Private

STRENGTHS

Very strong data analysis and survey functionality.

Can deploy through cloud, on-premise, or hybrid with the same codebase – rich browser-based UI.

Dynamic assembly for on-the-fly forms creation.

Cloud origin enables rapid growth of ecosystem of other cloud partners for value-added services like e-approvals.

CHALLENGES

Cannot import forms, but can start with a form image.

Sales reach and support are not as strong as some of the bigger vendors in the landscape


Despite being a vendor underdog compared to the big market players, great usability, features and architecture make Perfect Forms a cloud eForms innovator and a product worth evaluating.



pg. 24 CONFIDENTIAL

eform report

Technology

eforms application

eforms feature

e forms automation

eforms vendor evaluation

forms technologies

eform evolution future

vendor landscape method

product evaluation