Orbeon Forms

What do you like best?

It is an XML based form which heavily relies on HTML concepts. So the learning curve is not very steep for someone who knows HTML. There is a functionality to even drag and drop fields if you do not want to build forms from scratch. This form builder is very easy to use and the interface is simple. However, the flexibility of creating forms from scratch provides the ability to manage validations, required fields, grouping conditions and much more.

What do you dislike?

The one XML form file can get too big and complicated. However, as familiarity with the model structure of the file increases the ease of usage increases.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Major benefit was ease of deployment as the deployment did not need a new war file to be generated. This made the application loosely coupled making it easy to maintain and make changes. We used Orbeon for forms of more than 250 products. The time taken to build the form was much lesser as compare to building an equivalent JSP, JavaScript file. Additionally, for Banking industry this form is very beneficial in terms of capturing account details, specifications of financial products, client details etc.