Back in March, I interviewed Gray Knowlton who is the Senior Product Manager for Microsoft Office Infopath 2007. In that prodcast, he mentioned that Infopath 2007 forms will also be able to be rendered and filled out via a web browser. This is probably the number one feature request from customers around the current Infopath offering and it should enable many new scenarios for capturing data via electronic forms.
To get more details on this new solution, I spent some time recently with Christian Stark, who is also a Senior Product Manager in the Office Division. Christian was actually on the product development team for Infopath 2003 and has now switched the "server" side to handle the new Infopath Forms Services and the Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007.
In this prodcast, Christian outlines the functionality for Infopath Forms Services and the primary usage scenarios for this great new technology. He details how InfoPath Forms Services are hosted on top of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and talks about the deep level of integration between the two products. Christian highlights how Infopath forms can be used as the front-end to an existing back-end processes or line of business applications. He also discusses how Microsoft has built tools to provide centralized forms management for enterprise customers.
Finally, Christian also reveals details on the new Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 which enables customers to deploy Infopath forms to THEIR customers over the internet. This server was designed primarily for customers who want to build a pure forms solution without some of the additional functionality that SharePoint Server provides, such as authentication or workflow templates. For example, a government agency could provide forms for their constituents (permits, tax information, license and registrations, etc) and have the ease of use and flexibility that Infopath delivers.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Infopath and am happy to see the next release supporting browser-based forms. Listen to the prodcast and see if you don't get as excited about forms as I do!
Click the links below to play audio (20:09)
WMA Audio
MP3 Audio
For more information on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, please visit the Microsoft website.