Enterprise Forms is a suite of DotNetNuke (DNN) modules designed to allow DNN users to design dynamic web forms for data entry, workflow content management and other general use. Enterprise Forms contains a work flow designer giving users the flexibility to design and create form templates for use in any DotNetNuke portal. Enterprise Forms employs a create once, use everywhere philosophy whereby form templates are created in a portal environment which then can be imported to another portal and used again. The Enterprise Forms suite consists of three components: Form Template Designer, Data Collection Manager and Form Workflow Manager. Each component is a module in itself with each has its own unique function which forms the core functionalities of Enterprise Forms.

Enterprise Forms is designed to allow average DNN users to create and manage forms and content without any knowledge of HTML or DNN custom module development. With its support of drag and drop of form fields, users can quickly create any type of forms and easily associate a business workflow for form management and process approval. Enterprise Forms is designed to alleviate the hassle of forms development with its easy to use form template designer which itself also contains a mini-workflow whereby users with appropriate authority can create and publish form templates.

Form Template Manager

The Form Template Designer (FTD) is one of the core components in Enterprise Forms for creating form templates. A Form template is essentially a blueprint of the form from which the actual form instances are created. Form Template Designer is designed to provide users with a simple yet powerful tool to create on-the-fly form templates via a designated form template approval workflow. The form template approval workflow is used for quality and security control before the form template is used for collecting and managing of form data. Form Template Designer also allows users to create a dynamic business workflow to manage how data is collected and processed via an approval process. Once a form template has been successfully created and published, it can then be used to collect data via the Data Collection Manager and Form Workflow Manager modules.

Data Collection Manager

The Data Collection Manager (DCM) is another core component in the suite of Enterprise Forms modules. The Data Collection Manager module is designed specifically for creating instances of the form templates created via the Form Template Manager module. A Data Collection Manager module can only process a single form template. In other words there is a one-to-one relationship between form templates and the Data Collection Manager module. Thus to manage multiple form templates, multiple instances of the Data Collection Manager module are also required. Once form data have been entered and collected, it will go through a business workflow which is managed by the Form Workflow Manager module.

Form Workflow Manager

Form Workflow Manager (FWM) is another core component in the suite of Enterprise Forms modules. The Form Workflow Manager module is designed to progress form data via the business workflow created with the form template. Once form data have been entered and collected by the Data Collection Manager, it will go through a business workflow process managed by the Form Workflow Manager module. Similar to the Data Collection Manager module, each instance of the Form Workflow Manager module manages only a single form template. Security access of each state in the form workflow is determined by security roles created during the form template creation process.

Report Manager

The Report Manager module is a complementary module designed to provide the facility for an average user to create dynamic reports on collected data of a form. The Report Manager module also provides a mechanism to export collected data based on the fields selected of a report. Similar to the Data Collection Manager, each instance of the Report Manager module is designed to display any report of a form template.