Suitability of InfoPath and MOSS

VoidRoamer — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:23:05 GMT

Hello,

I'm doing a few small jobs for a customer who, amongst other things, wants to create several e-forms to allow clients to send them information which they can view, collate and manage from a central location. They like the simplicity for designing forms with InfoPath however after dabbling around, I am uncertain if it is the correct tool for the job. The following issues are giving me problems; some advice/pointers would be greatly appreciated as my knowledge of InfoPath is fairly limited.

1) Clients are not part of the customer's organisation and will need to access the forms publicly from the Internet.

2) There is no guarantee that clients have their own installation(s) of InfoPath.

3) Confidential information may be transmitted so security is essential.

4) The cost of purchasing, configuring and maintaining a MOSS Enterprise server is impractical and beyond the budget of a sole proprietor.

5) Simplicity of use is imperative in order to minimise training and adoption time. Clients should not require any training whatsoever.

This leaves to several consequences and/or complications:

A) Issue #4 can be avoided by paying for a third-party host.

B) Issue #2 means that browser-enabled forms are mandatory and so the customer will not get full use of the form controls and features of InfoPath.

C) Issue #2 also means that MOSS Enterprise will be required to host browser enabled forms, correct?

D) Issues #1 and #2, #A, #B and #C mean that forms will require full trust to publish further requiring the use of a code signing certificate?

E) After all of the above, issue #5 (simplicity) appears to be out of the window.

My apologies for the convoluted post, and thanks in advance for any assistance.

Newbie Questions

Suitability of InfoPath and MOSS