In this article we are going to look at how to create public facing form based applications on the AgilePoint NX platform.
Form based applications and Data Entity modules were introduced in AgilePoint NX v7.0 release during summer of 2018. These have been the most awaited features in v7.0 where you could create standalone data driven applications which do not need a process model and is a great fit for public facing apps which usually is about gathering data from external audience.
Most applications today are form-based and do not involve workflow. AgilePoint NX 7.0 includes Forms based applications (FBA), which enables citizen developers to easily create form-based applications.
Similarly Data Entities let you to create a business-focused definition of your organization’s data for use within apps, which lets you securely store, and manage data that is used by business applications. Data in form-based applications can originate in any SQL database (Oracle, My SQL, MS SQL Server, etc.), AgilePoint NX’s inbuilt Data Entities, Salesforce entities, or SharePoint entities which has been covered in some of my previous blog posts. For today’s demo, we would be using AgilePoint Data Entities.
Using the above mentioned features, enterprises can rapidly replace hundreds of custom and non-portable UI-based apps, such as InfoPath apps, ASP.Net apps etc. Non-technical users can build future-proof apps, which are not tied to any platform, device or channel and can be embedded in mobile apps, web pages, other form pages, portals, SharePoint apps, Salesforce apps, and more. Here are few key features
- Build data-driven apps fast with a drag-and-drop approach to app design.
- Unlike other products which only allow creating apps on top of their data entities, AgilePoint allows creating apps on top of the inbuilt data entities but also on top of other data sources, such as custom
databases, Salesforce, SharePoint Lists, etc. - Powerful lookup functionality, enabling data to be brought into the form from multiple third-party systems without coding.
- Automatically generate responsive applications that can run on any device with your data model.
- Customize business entities and tailor the user experience to specific roles with a drag-and-drop designer.
- Define role-based custom views for consuming data with customized search support.
- Create rich and powerful custom widgets (portlets), which can be embedded in the portal pages.
A couple of my colleagues helped record this video which showcases a real world yet comprehensive scenario for Form based app covering various features of form designer and Data Entities to create compelling app in less than 30 mins.