EForms Web Services

1
E-FormsWeb Services SOA
National Summit on E-Forms for E-Governance 12th
13th June, 2006 Delhi, India

• Anirudh Srivastava
• Architect Advisor Government
• Microsoft Corporation

2
Current Situation

• E-Government Initiatives (NeGP) have established
  new requirements for the departments
• To create a more electronic working environment
  with far less paper,
• Administrative holdups,
• And redundant work tasks
• E-Government initiatives in USA like
• Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA),
• Electronic Record Management Standard 5015.2

3
Current Situation

• Government paper-based forms remain the primary
  data gathering interface often manually
  intensive and expensive to process.
• Existing government systems designed to focus on
  specific objectives, as a result
• Fragmented work processes that duplicate work
• Reduce productivity
• Add cost and drain resources

Rigidity and logistics burdens of manual,
paper-based forms add hidden costs and time
delays to critical business information flows.
Virtually impossible for Government officials to
handle large volume of forms and respond to
request in timely manner.
4
The Need for a Government E-Forms Solution
Government departments struggle with maintaining
a structured, streamlined process
Government Challenges

• Processing paper-based forms is expensive and
  time-consuming
• Data Inaccuracies
• Timely delivery of Services
• Sharing information across functional groups and
  departments is difficult
• Departments are under pressure to consolidate
  existing applications into multi-departments
  solutions

Citizens
Government Departments
5
E-Forms Solution Vision

• To help government departments process forms more
  efficiently, timely, securely, helping achieve
  cost savings and meeting the demands of an online
  department.

6
Solution
Integrated Forms Processing System
A System in which e-Form Never Breaks Its
Connection to a Business Information Workflow
An e-form is a self contained collection of
declarative meta-data that defines how a form
should look, behave, and operate on a computer.
7
Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
8
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
9
Create

• Business Requirements are captured.
• Research e-Forms requirements.
• Identify type of e-Forms.
• Information Gathering Forms.
• Transaction Processing Forms.
• Regulatory Compliance Forms.
• Specify the structure (metadata) of e-Forms
  name, data type, length, context, etc.
• Process Reengineering

10
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
11
Design Phase Considerations

• Help layout forms text, input fields and graphics
  in the e-Forms.
• Allow a non-programmer to define the meta-data
  which comprises an e-form including
  presentation, content, structure and behavior.
• Build e-forms automatically from existing
  meta-data.
• Meta-data for e-forms should follow meta-data
  standards like W3C XML Schemas, XML etc.
• Should support Custom-defined schemas or industry
  standard schemas.
• Support for registry for response dataset schemas
  used by e-forms.
• Reuse and harmonization.
• Capture common form information consistently.

12
Design Phase Considerations

• Design Once Deploy Everywhere.
• Should have multi-lingual Support.
• Should support Accessibility features. (USA
  Section 508 compliant)

13
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
14
Publish Phase Considerations

• Design Once Deploy Everywhere (User Interface,
  browser).
• Ease of publishing forms on the Forms Server from
  Forms Designer.
• Scalable to address demands of the government
  departments.
• Extend data-gathering solutions to support client
  based, cross-browsers and cross platforms on any
  device.
• Should support intranet, extranet, internet
  portals, forms by email, document management
  system, etc.
• Translates the meta-data contained in e-Forms
  into standard HTML and serve it via standard Web
  Server.
• Should support document template library to store
  the forms, version control and rights management.
• Should support various security level for
  publishing, editing/adding/removing forms from
  the Form Server.

15
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
16
Complete Phase Considerations

• Search
• Support Searchable Forms Catalog on the
  internet/intranet.
• Should support respondents profile information
  for personalization, and access to forms.
• Acquire Fill
• Authenticate e-forms users and their signatures.
• Validate data at the time of entry.
• Reduce time spent filling out forms.
• Acquire forms via intranet, internet, extranet
  portals, email etc.
• Fill on any device using web browser/ User
  Interface Agent.
• Support pre-populating forms with data from
  previous forms, from other responses.
• Provide Accessibility Support and Multilingual
  Support.
• Provide support for Help.
• Submit
• Should provide collection point for submitted
  forms and routing to appropriate back end
  processing systems.

17
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
18
Process Phase Considerations

• Streamline business processes and connect forms
  to multiple line-of-business applications.
• Perform standard workflow management for e-forms
  documents, including routing, approval, etc.
• Integrate with the back-end processes using
  standard approach i.e. Web Services.
• Facilitate information Sharing and promote
  component and data reuse.
• Promote Service Oriented Architecture.
• Integrate with any corporate portal via custom
  integration.

19
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
20
Manage Phase Considerations

• Centralize the management and control of forms
  solutions.
• Rapidly deploy sustainable forms solutions.
• Centralize control over who can create and
  publish forms.
• Manage the version control and life of the form.

21
E-Forms Life Cycle
Forms Consumer (Citizens)
Forms Producer (Government)
Complete
Create
Design
Publish
Search
Fill
Manage
Submit
Process
Archive
22
Archive Phase Considerations

• Should support standard Enterprise Content
  Management Guidelines.
• Should integrate with existing ECM systems.

23
Integrated Electronic Forms Processing System
Security Component
Forms Designer Component
Forms Consumer Component
User Agent
Browser
Form Generator
Form Authoring
24
Microsoft Solution (Integrated Forms Processing
Solution)
Security Component
Forms Designer Component
Forms Consumer Component
InfoPath Designer
Cross-browser Cross-platform
Forms Hosting Component
Forms Processing Component
25
Role of Web Services SOA
Backend Systems

• Meta-data XML Schemas
• Data XML
• Infopath forms XSN File Format

Backend Systems
Smart Client and Browser

• Web Services SOA promotes
• Reusability of data, functionality.
• Information exchange xml.
• Scalability

26
Office 2007 Server InvestmentsBetter
empowerment, TCO and developer productivity
Next generation e-mail, project management,
workflow, blog and wiki support
Server-based spreadsheets plus BI portals built
on SQL Server Analysis Services
Windows SharePoint Services
Server-based forms and workflow with smart client
and browser interfaces
Enhanced SharePoint Portal aggregation and
personalization
Integrated document, records and Web content
management
Great relevance with rich people and business
data search
Unified ASP.NET 2.0 workspace foundation for
scalability and extensibility
27
Microsoft Office 2007InfoPath Forms Solutions

• Reach more users with better forms
• Automate data-driven business processes
• Rapidly develop and deploy form solutions

Smart Client and Browser
WSS, SQL, ERP, CRM
28
InfoPath 2007 Forms Solutions Topology
Intranet
Extranet / Internet
Browser
Browser
InfoPath Client (Design Mode)
Office 2007 servers Forms Services
IW InfoPath Designer Developer VS Tools
InfoPath Client (Edit Mode)
InfoPath Client (Edit Mode)
29
Publishing, Opening, And Filling In Forms
Office 2007 servers
XSN, XML loaded Business logicexecution
Publish XSN
Forms Capabilities
Replay event log
ASPX
Generate
WSS
XSN
Download script anddata array
DownloadXSN, XML
Return updated data array
Postback event log via XMLHTTP
Take offline as needed
Generate and render HTML (using script)
XSN, XML loaded Business logicexecution
Validation Execute calculations Execute
rules Editing actions (All using script)
Rendering Validation Execute calculations Execute
rules Editing actions
30
Submitting Forms
Office 2007 servers
XSN, XML loaded Business logicexecution
Forms Capabilities
ASPX
WSS
XSN
Postback event log via XMLHTTP
Submit
Submit
XSN, XML loaded Business logicexecution
31
Thank You!
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
E-Forms Solution should

• Provide the development of sufficient
  capabilities for Converting to, Storing,
  Retrieving and Disposing of electronic data and
  records.
• Extend data-gathering solutions to anyone with a
  browser.
• Streamline business processes and connect forms
  to multiple line-of-business applications.
• Centralize the management and control of forms
  solutions.
• Reduce time spent filling out forms.
• Develop advanced forms functionality without
  coding.

35
E-Forms Solution should

• Validate data at the time of entry.
• Help business users develop their own forms.
• Rapidly deploy sustainable forms solutions.
• Capture common form information consistently.
• Access forms from mobile devices.

36
Conclusion

• Enhance Citizen Satisfaction
• Improved through online forms instead of phone
  calls and paperwork.
• Increase visibility to the status of online form
  submissions.
• Enhance access to crucial, relevant government
  department information.
• Improve Government Compliance
• Address compliance concerns of GoI
• Reduce costs through improved automation of
  information collection, retrieval, and storage.
• Reduce errors introduced through hand-processing
  of paper forms.

37
Conclusion

• More easily share information
• Fewer resources spent on administration of
  information and data.
• Improve multi-agency communication and
  collaboration
• Reduce costs by requiring fewer people to process
  paper-based forms.

38
Priorities in E-Forms Solution

• Ease of deploying the Forms Solution.
• Personalization of, and access to, forms.
• Scalable to address demands of the entire
  company.
• Management of Forms Lifecycle.
• Search for Forms.
• Out-of-box integration.

39
Forms Usage Scenarios

• Submitted to or stored in a database.
• Submitted to any software program or system.
• Printed out/given to someone to process.
• Emailed to end users.
• Submitted to a system via Web Services.
• Downloaded from a portal.

40
E-Forms are made available by

• Intranet portal
• Through Email
• Document Management System
• Internet Portal
• Extranet Portal
• Other

41
Advantages of E-Forms

• Time saving on performing business
  tasks/processes.
• Elimination of duplicate data entry.
• Integration with backend systems and processes.
• More timely information.
• More reliable data.

42
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Professional
InfoPath 2003
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Outlook 2003
Outlook 2003
Portal Views
Portal Views
Excel 2003
Agency Worker
Citizen, Business, Mobile Worker
Client
Server
Windows Server 2003
MS Message Queue
SharePoint Products and Technologies
Exchange
Workflow Capabilities
Collaborative Workspaces
SQL Server 2000
SharePoint
Data Warehouse
BizTalk