The online forms produced by the e-forms system are based on the latest HTML standards (XHTML), fully accessible (up to AAA) and can be completed online by people with virtually any browser or operating system. Depending on form design, they could also be used on PDAs and other mobile devices.

Optional incorporation of customisable access key functionality, progress bar, back button and form status allows you to set the usability features based on the people you expect to be completing the form.

Each form submission is tagged with a unique reference number. The number is automatically included on the thank-you page after a form has been submitted. This unique reference number is not only useful when responding to correspondence/queries but also assists your organisation meeting regulatory requirements.

Since e-forms are created by you, the types of questions, number of questions and design of the pages are all decided by you. The forms created can be extremely simple asking for an email address and comments or can be multiple pages with lots of questions, only some of which requiring a response. Most features can be optionally included based on the purpose of the specific form and profile of the expected users. Available features include:

• Introductory text
• Pagination (multi-step forms)
• Type of the questions (e.g. free-text, radio button choices etc)
• Accessibility options such as access keys
• Response validation
• Text between questions (e.g. hints, introductions/explanations, examples)
• Mandatory versus optional questions
• 'Thank-you' text
• Follow on site address

The design of the form can be specified on a form-by-form basis that allows one e-forms system to add forms to all your websites, even if they are branded differently. For example, the same e-forms system can create forms for all the following sites:

• Public websites
• Intranets
• Extranets
• Client-optimised systems (e.g. WebTV, PDAs)

The e-forms system makes it extremely easy to create new forms and requires no technical knowledge. Free sample forms are provided which can be copied and then edited as required. Forms already created can also be copied and edited as required so it is extremely easy to make a form similar to another one.

Forms can be previewed as they are being built and published only when they are complete.

A library of common questions is included. Questions can be selected from the library and then modified as required. Alternately, questions can be built from scratch by selecting from within the following list of standard form objects:

• Text/number box
• Text areas/multi-line input
• Radio buttons
• Checkboxes
• Select lists
• Hidden fields

Questions can be marked mandatory and grouped as appropriate, either within a single page or across multiple pages. Default values can also be specified. Validation options are flexible and cover the main types of field validation such as:

• Email addresses
• Text of a specific length
• Numeric
• Money
• Dates
• Integers
• Website addresses

An unlimited number of hints, comments, examples and other text can be added throughout the form. A simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor is included to allow the text to be formatted as required. The message that appears when a form is successfully submitted is also fully customisable.

Advanced form-building techniques can be incorporated into a form through the simple selection of choices. These techniques include:

• Piping - populate lists based on responses, questions can include the responses from earlier questions.
• Branching - jump to pages or skip pages based on responses.
• Define exit options (e.g. URL to be displayed after form submission which allows integration with other systems such as payment systems)

Access to forms administration is permission-based and secure.

It is possible to specify that the content of a completed form is automatically sent to specific people (to, cc, bcc). The "from" address which will be used for any emails relating to a specific form can also be specified. Specifying the "from" address is particularly useful if the contents of the form is sent to the user upon submission since they may try to reply to that email.

The maximum number of submissions can be set so that the form is automatically removed from the website when that number is reached. This reduces administration overhead.

E-forms are maintained on a real-time basis. This means that you can quickly make e-forms available, make changes to existing forms, activate and inactivate them. Since the created e-forms are not available for use until they are published they can be created and made available for internal comments and review, allowing multiple people to work on a form before it is approved and published.

Simple reporting is available from within the administrative interface and both graphical and text-based reporting is available. Data can also be exported in common formats (XLS and XML) for integration and analysis in other systems.

E-forms can easily be integrated with other systems in a variety a ways:

• A form can be a stand-alone page, a 'pop-up' from an existing page or integrated within an existing CMS or website.
• Data gathered can be exported and imported into other systems from statistical analysis systems to database and even Microsoft^® Office for use in mail merges.
• Upon completion of the form, the user can be sent to another system/URL for additional processing. All the information gathered by the form is automatically passed to the specified URL. Examples of when this might be useful are when integrating with an existing payments system or a CRM.

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