In administering forms, data collected is often manually keyed into a back-office systems. With Electronic forms, the wastefulness of having to key information twice is being addressed – back-office systems are increasingly opening up to receive data electronically.

 

Data collected on a Victoria E-form is available in a simple, open format. Programmers can write custom code to take data, formatting it and sending it on to all manner of back-office systems.

 

Back-office system data handling has varied from vendor to vendor – each requires data to be sent in a proprietary format, which often involves writing long complicated code to convert form data into the proscribed format.

 

Introducing XML

 

Over recent years there is increasing move to standardisation between the way that different systems back-office import data and talk to one another.  Various industry and government initiatives have encouraged vendors to converge around XML as the preferred means for receiving data.

XML is a method by which raw data is structured and labelled in pre-specified way (the specification is called an XML schema). When form data is structured and formatted into XML according to the Schema, it can then be received and processed by any system that is compatible with this data schema.

 

XML Export

 

Victoria Forms XML exporter software imports an XML schema. With minor modification of forms, form data is then automatically converted into fully compliant XML data files.

 

XML conversion is configured separately for each form, so that different forms within the library may be converted into XML files according to different XML schema. Each form can therefore be sent to a different back office system.

 

Conversion occurs either automatically on submission or after initiation by an administrator.

After conversion the form data is sent to the appropriate back-office system.

 

The Enterprise Forms server tracks the progress of each exported form:

 

• After successful export, the our system updates the form record, to show to users that the form has been successfully imported.
• If export fails, the form will be marked accordingly, and various options will be available to the operator.

 

 

Form Administrators

If your back-office systems are able to import data, data collected on forms and received by Enterprise Forms Server, this add-on converts data into a suitable format and sent straight to your system. Please contact us to discuss this option in more detail.

Application Developers

At the heart of the back-office data integrator is our XML conversion software. Your application may make direct use of this software, to create XML data documents. Your application can then send these to other systems.