InfoPath Dev

My agency is considering using online forms for things like vacation requests, check requests, etc.... (all for in-house use only).
I'm looking at both InfoPath and Acrobat Pro. I'm supporting 130 users so I don't have much development time to get this setup. Any suggestions on which is easier to implement? Nothing fancy, just need forms that users fill in online and digitally sign, then needs to be forwarded to their manager for digital signature.

Some questions to consider:
Do all of your users already have Office 2003 w/InfoPath? If not they will need to get it.
Do you need to be able to pull data from another database or populate another db? IP makes this easy.
Are you using SharePoint? If so, it works well with IP

quote:

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Originally posted by dlgross

Some questions to consider:
Do all of your users already have Office 2003 w/InfoPath? If not they will need to get it.
Do you need to be able to pull data from another database or populate another db? IP makes this easy.
Are you using SharePoint? If so, it works well with IP

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Not quite true. You don't actually need Office 2003, although it is bundled with the Office Enterprise edition and while it does integrate well with the other Office apps, InfoPath can be purchased as a stand alone program for MSRP of $199. However, it is true that each user would need to have a copy of InfoPath installed on their computer in order to get full functionality of InfoPath.

However, for some applications there are other options to implementing InfoPath without having to have every user have a licensed copy of InfoPath on their computer. For example, the InfoPathDev Forms Viewer:

http://www.infopathdev.com/webstore/detail.aspx?itemid=11

combined with the InfoPathDev DBXL could be used to do this:

http://www.infopathdev.com/webstore/detail.aspx?itemid=20

Keep in mind that to get the functionality that need in Acrobat may require using more than just Acrobat Pro. In order to get some of the extended functionality of digital signatures (and plain old Reader users to sign digital forms) you may need to get the "Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions" which requires a seperate license from Adobe beyond the Acrobat Pro license, so cost comparison is potentially going to be more than just comparing 130 InfoPath licenses (or the "Forms Viewer/DBXL" solution above) to one Acrobat Pro license.

Having used Acrobat Pro myself for a number of years, including developing a number of forms with it, I can say that I think using InfoPath is much easier - and more powerful. One form in particular that I developed in Acrobat took me about 2 full days to create - and that didn't include any time needed to make the form submit to a database and I had to sacrifice some functionality because Acrobat couldn't handle some simple calcuations I needed it to do! In InfoPath that same form could be developed in a fraction of that time.

There is a trial version of InfoPath if you haven't tried it already:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/infopath/prodinfo/trial.mspx

Good luck!

Thanks to both of you for your responses.
I spoke with Adobe about LiveCycles extensions for acrobat and they said that we would only need that if the end user was saving the signed document onto their hard drive so that won't be an issue for us.
Ted - It sounds like you've had experience with both products. Would you mind if I talked to you over the phone before my agency drops $3000+ on Adobe licensing? or if you feel more comfortable contacting me you can email me at [email protected].
thanks,
Carlton.