Form Builder
THE QUICK LOOK
Content Management Systems invariably require a feature to create forms through which users can submit data. One of the biggest problems with TeamSite, HP’s proprietary CMS (used by banks including Standard Chartered, Bank of Singapore and OCBC) was that it required users to have extensive HTML knowledge for creating and editing forms. HP realized that most of their content providers were not technically savvy and needed a system that used intuitively.
The Software Practice developed a form-builder extension in which users could merely drag and drop the elements they need into a workspace before publishing. Testing and debugging is done inline instantly, informing the user of missing information or clashes that could occur with certain element combinations.
THE CHALLENGES
We encountered two major problems. Firstly, the extension had to integrate seamlessly into an existing CMS. Secondly, since HP’s content providers are located all over the world, it had to be supported across numerous browsers.
After testing numerous cutting-edge frameworks, we settled on the old but reliable jquery. This increased the effort required in building the solution, but the final product has proven to be extremely smooth and stable.
THE SUCCESS
Currently being used by HP content providers around the world, the extension has made the task of creating and publishing forms remarkably simple.
This product was resold to a number of HPs clients (large banking and financial institutions). The engineering team also added this officially to HP’s main product line.
This form builder was also been demoed by HPs CTO at our global customer event sometime in mid 2016.
I have been working with The Software Practice since my team in HP for close to 3 years now, (I have moved to OpenText since July 2016 as a result of an acquisition)
We have engaged them for a number of activities during the time.
1) They helped build our form builder component that was then resold to a number of our customers. The product was quite good and our engineering team has decided to add that (component) formally into our main product. This form builder has also been demoed by our CTO at our global customer event sometime in mid 2016.
2) Help us with UI/Javascript related work. We have engaged them in resourcing capacity and they augment my team in multiple projects/customers: DBS, Bank of Singapore, UOB, Standard Chartered Bank
Their work skill is quite good and the team is very flexible. I have not had any problem with them in terms of quality of deliverables.
They are genuinely flexible and have worked really long hours and over weekend to fix time critical issues.
I would strongly recommend them.
