Certain days, mana just seem to drop from the heavens -- and the release of the new OBA RAP for E-Forms processing a week back was one such timely moment.
We are working with a number of customers (both public sector and commercial) to explore automating forms handling. These forms are accessed from the customers' respective public portal web-sites, and is typically processed wither manually or with difficult-to-maintain custom code. Suffice to say, agility, faster turnarounds, and better accuracy are often cited as basic automation goals. Customers also look forward to end-user maintained forms business logic, better business insights, better integration with existing or external systems.
The E-Forms Processing RAP (or Reference Application Pack) describes just such a system enabled by Microsoft Office Systems (hence the OBA or Office Business Application moniker) -- specifically with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (providing the Portal front-end, Forms, Workflow and Business Data Catalog service features), Microsoft Office InfoPath (for forms design), Microsoft SQL Server (for records management, content, document, metadata storage) and Microsoft Windows Server (leveraging on the .NET Framework, and core infrastructure services.)
Although this reference application illustrates an application for hunting and fishing license (not exactly applicable in Singapore's context,) the underlying architecture framework can be adapted to many of the common forms scenarios we see.
Go download the PowerPoint slides from http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb643796.aspx. Keep a watch out as the accompanying source code will be made available soon.
More OBA RAPs for various vertical industries such as (Banking, Healthcare) and scenarios (Supply Chain Management, Price Management) are available at the 2007 Microsoft Office System for Architects site.
