

Ask HN: Use cases for forms-based software tool? - ahochhaus

We are working on a prototype of FormBig, a platform to quickly create forms-based software.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;formbig.com&#x2F; [video]<p>To prioritize our development goals, we are looking for community feedback about:<p>1) What use cases would you use FormBig for?<p>2) What features are important for your use case?
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gee_totes
I am building a similar forms based framework/product. Here is what I have
discovered is needed:

-Proper handling of an other field, like there is on paper forms. I.e. What is your favorite salad? a) Fruit b) Vegetable c) Other __________

-Ability to string multiple forms together in a workflow (kind of like a CRM). Form 1 must be completed before the user can move on to Form 2. However, when some or all of the fields are optional, there needs to be some type of trigger logic to mark the form in the workflow as completed. (I sort of saw this in the video, but it seemed that the forms were marked simply as steps and the end user could skip from Step 1 to Step 9)

-Sub-forms, both in terms of adding multiple contact addresses (for example) or switching from Sub-form A to Sub-form B in the context of a form workflow (you guys seems to have this)

-Permissions on every question and on every part (Form 1, Form 2, etc) in the workflow (you guys seems to have the question permissions down, but I'm not sure about the statistics)

-A rich query language to crunch statistics from every form field filled out (It seems your application outputs CSVs and leaves the user to crunch them in Excel)

-If a form is tied to an entity (say a Student, for example), the ability to assign that Student to a Teacher or an Administrator. (I did not see this)

-Ability for daily e-mail reports on what new forms have been created and updated and what new Students have been added to the system. (this was mentioned on the about section, but I did not see it in the video)

My forms framework does all this and more, but it took quite a bit of effort
to build. I would be more than happy to talk specifics with you guys; my
e-mail is in my profile.

I must warn you though, you are entering a rabbit-hole.

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eksurfus
Thanks so much for the feedback. What market(s)/use cases did you consider
when you designed your forms platform (eg medical forms for private practice,
tax-related forms for government, HR forms for enterprise)? We are finding
that our general model works ~80% well in a lot of these cases, but we're
working to identify the market segment to really focus on drilling down into.

I think you said it well when you said you're entering the rabbit hole :).
Building these types of applications is HARD, and there's a high barrier to
MVP. We're currently working to get as much feedback as we can to scope our
problem more narrowly. We've found interest from people in developing
applications in government and K-12 especially - have you had similar
experiences?

While its a tough nut to crack, we think if we can grab a toehold and iterate,
this type of solution could save vast amounts of developer time.

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gee_totes
We're targeting a pretty specific market that I don't want to mention, but it
is an industry that uses alot of forms.

For us, there wasn't a very high barrier to MVP. We went from initial concept
to MVP in about 2 weeks using some of the ideas around superfast development I
outlined in this talk [0].

Where the rabbithole came in is once we put out the MVP, we were bombarded
with feature requests for things that were beyond simply an easier way to fill
out forms (this is where alot of the CRM functionality came in).

We haven't reached out to anyone in government or K-12. We'd like to build our
forms framework and keep it in this little niche market we've discovered and
then start reaching out to other markets.

Our forms application has been very hard to build as well, but I think we are
one major re-factor away from having a good platform. I'm thinking at the end
of the day we are going to get something that looks like a cross between
Redmine's CRM functionality and Drupal's modularity/observer pattern-
ness/business logic in the database-ness.

What are you guys writing FormBig in? I'd be interested in collaborating on a
set of open-source HTML5 form controls with you guys if that's something that
you're finding a need for. It could address some of the things that I've found
lacking in the standard HTML forms (such as the support for an other field and
dynamic switching of sub-forms). I'm probably going to end up writing this
library anyway, but it would be good PR for both of us :)

[0] [http://www.slideshare.net/LeeGillentine/superfast-
developmen...](http://www.slideshare.net/LeeGillentine/superfast-development)

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sexylibrarian
We're going to need a form like this on our new site. We currently have a form
(for submitting book reviews) on our current site:
[http://www.inthestacks.tv/submit-review/](http://www.inthestacks.tv/submit-
review/)

We'll shortly be leaving the WP site. Please email me more information about
your product. We might want to try it for the above and for new user sign up
and preferences.

Many Thanks - Michelle Z., michelle@inthestacks.tv

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Someone1234
Doing a MVP is fine, but frankly your web-site is so light on details that I
don't have a strong opinion about where this product would slot in.

I cannot help but immediately want to compare it to Ruby On Rails or
Microsoft's MVC framework. They both offer a lot of the plumbing for you, and
leave the actual content to you.

Maybe it is more akin to Microsoft Lightswitch, not sure.

But that might be just from my misunderstanding. It should be noted I watched
the video without audio, and it just shows someone entering XML and showing a
form.

~~~
ahochhaus
Great feedback. We are too light on details. I'm adding a more detailed
description shortly.

The original idea with the video was to show the types of functionality that
FormBig exposes (eg: integrated logins, JS-based logic, rich text editing,
etc) rather than the details of how one achieves them. However, I think since
we went that path it is important to get more details in the body of the page.

Thanks for the pointer to MS Lightswitch I'm learning more about it now.

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eksurfus
We currently use this platform in-house for a K-12 application with 40K+
users.

We found that there was a tremendously high hurdle to building forms-based
applications to meet user expectations (eg rich-text editing, PDF generation,
auto-saving, real-time collaboration, per-field versioning, etc). FormBig
factors out this plumbing, allowing developers to instead focus on the
specific forms, business logic, and end-user use cases instead.

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semmem1
What kind of cost do you expect to charge for this? A problem I have now with
some of the form base software is that the charge for multiple users who each
create one form is very high, as they charge per user, not based on how many
forms the users make.

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ahochhaus
We don't have a final pricing model figured out yet, but we would like to
support applications with a variety of needs. If we had a per-form based
pricing option would that meet your needs?

Can you describe your use case a bit and the other platforms you have looked
at thus far?

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ahochhaus
The two co-founders (myself and eksurfus) are here to answer any questions. We
are hoping to gain insight into specific use cases for FormBig to guide our to
market strategy and development priorities. Thanks for any feedback you can
offer.

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sharemywin
we use a form editor to create documents for claims and policies. They are
form letters that usually have a combination of data from the claim system and
custom entry for the specifics of the claim.

