With the recent announcement from Microsoft that InfoPath has been scheduled for retirement an anxious debate has broken out about what life is going to be like after InfoPath.

 The initial reaction for many organisations is to start worrying that they may have chosen the wrong electronic forms strategy. There may be some concerns about how quickly a new forms technology can be deployed to replace the many millions of InfoPath forms being used throughout the organisation.

But, after the dust has settled from the initial reaction to Microsoft’s announcement, many have realised that there is still plenty of time to review the myriad of alternative options available in this space. After all, the Microsoft Support Life cycle will provide mainstream support until 2018 and extended support until 2023.

The available technical strategies for future electronic forms fall into two categories. The first category, offering the simplest migration path, is the “in-place migration” of existing forms to a new supported platform. The second category, the “rip and replace” strategy, involves removing existing InfoPath forms, and potentially workflows as well, and replacing them with a third-party solution. This second option is obviously going to be more expensive due to the effort and costs associated with purchasing additional products and redesigning and deploying existing forms and workflows. 

The strategy selected will primarily depend on the current state of workflows in an organisation. If the organisation’s forms and workflows support its business processes very well then the “in-place migration” path is likely going to be the most suitable strategy. However if a large majority of the forms and workflows have descended into a state of disrepair then the “rip and replace” approach may be more effective because it provides the opportunity to redesign the forms and workflow, bringing them back into alignment with business processes. 

There are a number of serious contenders that are offering technical solutions now or in the near future to assist organisations with this transition. The following product round up can be used to help determine a suitable strategy for your organisation.

Microsoft's product offering

Microsoft has stated that more details about a new product offering will be revealed at the upcoming SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas in early March. This new product will add to the other forms options already on offer by Microsoft such as LightSwitch, Access Services 2013 and .Net Web Forms. It is hoped that the Microsoft announcement will include guidance and direction around the migration path from InfoPath to the new product. 

While we wait for this announcement, there are other third-party options which can also be considered: 

FormsQuo http://formsquo.com/

The team at Qdabra.com is working up a matrix of migration options based on common customer scenarios. They will also provide their own open source solution called FormsViewer, which is an app that renders and edits InfoPath forms "in place". This solution will be available for simple forms in April and they have committed to continue to add to the form features over the next few years. This solution provides a simple “in place” migration strategy allowing organisations to continue to use their existing InfoPath templates without modification.

Formotus http://www.formotus.com/ 

Formotus provides support to extend InfoPath to mobile devices, such as Apple iPhones and iPads, and is ideal for enhancing business processes with offline forms. In the near future they will be releasing a Windows 8 app that will extend offline forms to the Windows Platform. Formotus provides a per user pricing model that becomes cheaper as more users are licensed.

ServBus’ InfoBus

ServBus provides a product called InfoBus, a reasonably priced add-on to SharePoint, which replaces the functionality of form services. This “in-place” solution allows existing InfoPath forms to be used, viewed and edited and new forms to be created without needing to change the original InfoPath form. 

Nintex Forms and Workflow  http://www.nintex.com/

The Nintex Suite of products provide a comprehensive electronic forms and workflow solution which includes a great mobility and integration story. The Nintex Suite of products have versions for on-premise and Office365 deployments. Nintex is well known for their Nintex Workflow product which provides a drag-and-drop browser-based solution for creating workflows within the SharePoint environment. Continuing the theme of browser based designers, Nintex has released Nintex Forms which offers a simple drag-and-drop interface for creating online forms. Nintex also provides Nintex Live which extends forms out into the cloud so external stakeholders, such as customers or vendors, can complete a form without access into an organisation’s internal systems. Nintex Mobile provides support for mobile devices so forms can be used offline on Windows and Apple devices. Android devices will be added in the near future. The enterprise integration story from Nintex complements Microsoft strategy, as Nintex can integrate with ActiveDirectory, Project Server, CRM, BizTalk and Web Services. If your organisation has a strong deployment of Microsoft technologies then Nintex Enterprise edition would be worth looking into.

K2 Forms, BlackPoint and BlackPearl  http://www.k2.com/

K2 is the 800 pound gorilla in this space as their product offering extends past simple forms and workflows through to reporting and Enterprise Services Buses. K2 has two entry level products in the form of their K2 Forms offering which is very similar to Nintex Forms and a lightweight browser-based workflow designer called K2 BlackPoint. K2 also offers a flagship product called K2 BlackPearl built on its own workflow engine so that it can operate without SharePoint. This might be of interest if an organisation is looking to extract workflows from SharePoint. To provide enterprise integration with line of business applications, K2 offers an Enterprise Services Bus (ESB) and a number of connectors for integrating corporate apps, such as CRM and SAP.

Take time to take stock

Very rarely does an opportunity come along that allows an organisation the time to review their electronic forms and workflow strategy from a holistic perspective. Now is the perfect time to take stock of your organisation’s current business processes and determine if existing electronic forms and workflows are still supporting these processes. 

Here are a few questions to help get you started on this journey:

1. What forms and workflows do you currently have?

With the secondment and workforce turnover, many organisations have lost track of what forms and workflows have been deployed in their organisation. Now is a great time to do a form and workflow audit. This should be a relatively simple process of going through your intranet and identifying any InfoPath forms and workflows that have been deployed.

2. What forms and workflows are still in use and how important are they?

Once you have an idea of what forms and workflows have been deployed, revisit each form to confirm that it is still relevant to the business. There is no point in migrating forms and workflows if no one is using them. This provides the opportunity for cost savings as reducing the number of forms and workflows ultimately reduces migration effort. 

Next prioritise which forms are most important to the business. Which forms are critical to the day to day operation of business and which forms are just nice to have? Categorising in this manner will determine the order in which forms and workflows should be migrated, a step that is integral to the success of a migration project.  

3a. Who owns these forms and workflows?

Take steps to identify the business owners of these forms and workflows. In many organisations IT may have created and deployed the forms and workflows but that doesn't mean they are the owners. The IT department simply own the technology or the platform that supports the forms and workflows.

Electronic forms and workflows need to be owned by the business users who have control over the processes and can define the steps and tasks that need to be completed to achieve the appropriate business outcomes.

3b. Are the business owners still here?

Over time many of the business process owners have moved to other positions or may have even left the organisation, and the corporate knowledge of why specific business logic was used has been lost. Now is a great time to work with current business process owners to understand what is working and what, if any, changes need to be made. 

4. Governance

Take the time to revisit your organisation’s forms and workflow operational governance. Do you have a method for regularly reviewing forms and workflows to check they reflect and support business processes? How do you track what forms exist, where they are located, the purpose, and the business owner? This information is essential for migration and future ongoing management. Some organisations go to the extreme and integrate their forms into ITIL Services Catalogs while some organisations go for simpler strategies such as using a form register or form directory. 

James Milne is a Microsoft MVP (Most Valued Professional) and the founder and director of Myriad Technologies where he consults on large scale portal deployments and publicly evangelises SharePoint within the community. Contact email: info@myriadtech.com.au