iAPPS v2.7 Forms Editor

iAPPS v2.7 with Forms Editor functionality is ready to go. The new Forms Editor capabilities make it simple and easy to collect structured data on your website.  Have you ever wanted to quickly put up a form on your site but were told by your IT staff: “Sure, we can have it done in a couple of weeks.”?  Not any more.

With release 2.7, the built-in Forms Editor continues the iAPPS tradition of making powerful CMS features easy to use – in addition to seamlessly integrating new functionality into the existing product suite.   Now adding a form can be as simple as a 4-step process.

Forms Designer

1. Create the form. Use the drag-n-drop forms designer to select all the elements you want in your form.  All the usual types are supported, text, dropdown, radio, etc. including validation (e.g., email address format).
2. Insert the form. In step 1 you created a re-usable piece of content, now all you have to do is drop it into a container on a new or existing iAPPS Content Manager page.
3. Publish the form. In step 2 you modified a CMS page.  Now, just hand it off to a workflow or publish it.
4. Collect form data. After it’s published, sit back and let iAPPS collect the form data.  At any point you can run the Results Report for the form to see the data that’s been submitted by your website visitors or export to Excel to generate reports like a list of conference attendees.

Of course, iAPPS gives you much more flexibility than just this four step process.  The Forms Editor has some advanced element controls like a date picker, file upload button and hidden fields to pass parameters like the IP address of the user or the page the form was used on.  You have access to all element properties for further customization – or just accept the standard ones.  By default, the form is going to be presented as a simple list.  But as with any iAPPS Content Manager page you can tailor the form page to display anyway you want by applying your own styling.

Published Page with Form

Probably the most import time-saver with the Forms Editor is the way it seamlessly integrates with the back-end database.  When you create a form, iAPPS automatically creates the database schema and the Results Report.

Since all iAPPS database functions use MS SQL Server it’s easy to extend the forms system.  If you’re an iAPPS developer you’ll be able to gain full access to the forms data via an additional set of APIs that have been added to the iAPPS Framework.  Regardless of whether you want to extend the core functionality of the system, or build new interfaces to the stored form data, it’s all there for you to use.

The totally integrated iAPPS philosophy keeps on going with the forms editor.  Because the form is treated as a CMS page you can publish it using workflow, set SEO properties, and view previous versions.  And finally, if you’ve got iAPPS Analytics installed you can measure any website “conversions” that would be possible after a successful form submission (e.g., getting to that ubiquitous Thank You page) in addition to evaluating all the usual web analytic metrics like page views, page abandonment rate, etc.