Introduction
**Update 2015-02-24
** As per Becky Bertram’s recent blogpost about Recap of Conversation with Microsoft’s Sonya Koptyev regarding the Future of Forms, there’s been some clarifications on the topic of Forms. Finally.
Recently Microsoft announced that InfoPath as a forms solution for SharePoint and Office 365 were to cease to exist. In my opinion this is great, because I never really liked InfoPath and it wasn’t very widely adopted in any organization I’ve ever worked with. There were benefits with InfoPath, but nothing we couldn’t do as developers or that the end-users couldn’t do themselves using free form-plugins from the web. Purchasing an enterprise-license just for the sake of forms was a really hard bargain to root for.
Read more about the announcement from Microsoft: Update on InfoPath and SharePoint Forms
We have InfoPath today, what do we do?
With the decision to retire the development of InfoPath, what decisions do we need to make in our organizations?
InfoPath 2013 & InfoPath 2013 for SharePoint on-premises
If you are utilizing forms today with InfoPath 2013 client or using the InfoPath 2013 browser forms features, you are still fully supported until 2023, so you have a lot of time. Right now, I’d wait until further announcements (see further down in this article).
Office 365
If you are utilizing forms today in Office 365, you have at lease until the next major release of Office (and then some) before it’s unsupported. My take on this is that since we’re in the cloud-first world now, the updates will roll out on Office 365 long before on-prem, which also makes it important to listen to Microsoft’s guidance here. As soon as they decide to cut the support, Forms might stop working in Office 365. But as mentioned, you’ve got some time until then.
Migrating InfoPath forms?
Microsoft is cutting InfoPath. We can live with that, but how do we move our current forms into the replacement technology? Microsoft mentioned “We don’t know yet, we are evaluating various options to aid in migration” and “Third parties may provide tools, or even support running InfoPath forms into the future“.
So the answer right now is to sit tight and don’t make any hasty decisions – if you don’t have an immediate need to replace InfoPath for whatever reason, let the forms live on until further notice.
What does the future look like for Forms with SharePoint and Office 365?
We will soon see some new replacement technologies that will be the ground zero for Forms with SharePoint and Office 365. Microsoft said that any new Forms features for on-premises SharePoint will not be launched until the next version. So if you’re eager to try something that doesn’t already exist, you once again see that the cloud-first strategy is in full effect.
Here’s the key announcements:
Excel Surveys
Albeit not the newest technology, Excel surveys will be a large part of creating forms. Excel Surveys are not specifically tied to just SharePoint but can have a broader usage.
User Scenarios
- Form Design: Design Forms in Excel Online with Excel Surveys
- Form Completion: Web
Timeframe
- Office 365: Continuously shipping
- On-premises: Included with Office 2013
List Forms (FoSL – Forms on SharePoint Lists)
Update 2015-02-24:
FoSL is Dead (read more here http://www.savtechsol.com/Education/BeckysBlog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=7a1cfe30-f6b0-41c7-981d-05069e5dd421&ID=224)
List Forms, or FoSL which means Forms on SharePoint Lists and pronounced “Fossil”, looks pretty slick. This is where they enable an easy creation of forms for specific lists. We will see a lot of improvements and developments of this technology, and I would argue that this may be the most popular and widely adopted forms feature if the promises are kept.
User Scenarios
- Form Design: FoSL, Forms designed on SharePoint Lists
- Form Completion: SharePoint
Timeframe
- Office 365: Between summer 2014 and October 2015
- On-premises: Next version of SharePoint (SharePoint vNext)
Structured Documents
A bit surprising to learn that Structured Documents is a type of form technology that enables you to create modern forms in Word.
User Scenarios
- Form Design: Word
- Form Completion: Word
Timeframe
- Office 365: Current plans target the end of 2014
- On-premises: Current plans target the end of 2014
App Forms
App Forms are forms that you design in Access and complete in SharePoint. This is a type of forms technology you would use with more complex forms with multiple tables of data and multiple types of forms. I predict that you can create some pretty fancy stuff with App Forms, but we’ve yet to see what it holds for the future.
User Scenarios
- Form Design: Access
- Form Completion: SharePoint
Timeframe
- Office 365: Continuously shipping
- On-premises: Included with Office 2013
When should I use App Forms vs. FoSL?
- Access/App Forms are best suited for self-contained apps with multiple related tables and multiple forms.
- FoSL is better suites for single forms with a single table, which is a SharePoint list.
I noticed that Visual Studio wasn’t mentioned as a form design tool, why?
Visual Studio is a developer technology, for people who develop stuff. Microsoft is deliberately targeting no-code users. In other words: Microsoft wants to target the Information Worker, not the developers.
I think this is a great decision, and I’m hoping that we can see some of the aforementioned form technologies flourish and get a wide adoption by the users. Simplicity is key.
We can’t wait for the new form replacements, we need them now!
All the new features that are being announced sounds pretty hot, but since we can’t use them as we would like right now, what alternatives do we have?
Mark Rackley created a tool on CodePlex called Forms7, which works with SharePoint 2007, 2010 and 2013 alike. Based on traditional HTML and jQuery, you can easily integrate it essentially anywhere.
I urge you to check it out if you are in a need for forms quickly. All the data is stored in SharePoint lists, so you can easily access all the information at any time.
Summary
Microsoft have announced a set of new replacement technologies in the area of forms. All the aforementioned technologies seems like they can have some pretty nice use cases. As for existing InfoPath customers, I would sit tight in the boat for a while to see what Microsoft announces in the future. If you are thinking about implementing forms for the first time, take it for a spin with some industry experts to get input on what your goals are and what would benefit you in the long-term and short-term respectively.
Microsoft has a new philosophy in recent years. Open source and open communication. I love this approach, and with that you can also see that there’s a User Voice site available for sending input regarding Office Forms vNext. If you have input, get in there and publish it so the Office team can take action!.
Enjoy!
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Archived comments
This is a great article with very good detailed information. I saw ur other post on access form too and it looks very cool. we will try this out on-premis to find if we can use this for all our forms needs.
thank you!
Thank you Niklas.
Appreciate your feedback. Good luck with the forms!
Tobias.
hello tobias thank yo ufor great info about this. your blog is good.
how if we have current forms we can migrate them to new form solutions for sharepoint and how we can automating this to make it as simple so possible so we dont need to do much of the work??
Hi Juan,
I'm glad you like my blog and the content I provide, I appreciate the comments.
As for your question;
It depends on how your current forms are implemented. Are they InfoPath, are they web forms, are they using any third party form solution provider?
If I know the details of your current form solution I'm pretty sure we can figure out a way to move forward.
Cheers,
Tobias.
I really don't get why Microsoft is sending the message that they're deprecating InfoPath, but fail to provide a clear follow-up. They said SPC14 would bring clarity to the future of forms, but all I see is the same flawed story and vague promises about vNext features (which will probably be cool, but unusable until vNext SP1 or vNext++).
Actually I think they've been pretty clear this time. They've even shared the entire roadmap and timeframes (see in the post) about then they expect to release the new features.
InfoPath is supported for another 9 years until 2023, so if you're on-premises you shouldn't have to worry, you can still use InfoPath forms until there is a clear alternative for you to move forward with. Deprecating the development of new features in InfoPath doesn't mean it will all stop working :-)
So if you're on InfoPath forms today and not sure what to choose for your next forms adventure, just hang tight with those forms until more information is available when they release it for on-prem or the cloud.
In my eyes, this is the first time we've gotten a pretty clear message to be honest, but not all information is available yet - and InfoPath still works.
I've been bitten in the past. I don't consider things like "Between summer 2014 and October 2015" and "Current plans target the end of 2014" very solid statements. And it are just plans, they can easily alter them. And it's a combination of things, instead of a single, powerful solution. I like clarity :-)
For most of my projects we'll just wait and see what the future brings...
I understand, but with that - InfoPath still exist and works just as it did previous to their statements. So until there's a solid way to move forward, you've still got InfoPath.
I too like clarity, and even if there could've been more details in some of the announcements, this is one of the announcements where they've actually made the information public very early in the cycle. Kudos to Microsoft for that, in my book.
The problem is that even working with InfoPath, Microsoft has announced the discontinuation of the product. So can we justify to our customers to use of InfoPath? What alternatives do we have? Code? InfoPath is transparent to SharePoint! Much more than customizations via code. So I said what I thought too hasty attitude Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the product without having a maturing of the product that will replace it. While the new product is not mature enough to be offered in the market, we will have a gap. We would have its hands tied because we can not offer InfoPath and we will not have another similar solution to offer (because even the third Apps do not have stocky features like InfoPath).
I believe that in this sense the Microsoft screwed up!
Hi Douglas,
If you can justify using it or not, depends on a range of variables. What version are you on, when is your next planned potential upgrade, what need is there for a forms solution, what requirements on that forms solution exist etc.
It's not a question that can be answered with a yes/no answer, but rather discussions about pros and cons.
You could for example use Access 2013 (See http://zimmergren.net/techn... which is a simple (very simple) way for people to quickly create forms, data containers and what not and present it as an app. It's pretty straight forward and offers you a great way to present the data with little effort.
You can use code, you can use third party solutions (as I mention there's the Forms 7 solution on codeplex), you can use Access 2013 or something else.
I agree that the guidance on moving forward isn't 100% clear yet, and as a customer you probably have to think twice before making a decision, but with that said I wouldn't ditch InfoPath straight off the bat just because they've discontinued the development of the product (it's still supported for another 9 years...) - so again, it all breaks down to variables of your implementations.
I don't see this move as a screw up, rather a move to better and more modern technologies. InfoPath still works - and will work for a while more. Once you get to the point that it doesn't work anymore, there's going to be plenty of new offerings both from Microsoft and elsewhere.
:-)
Douglas and Leon... MVPs are always going to be reluctant to criticize MS strategy. Give it up. Whether we publically admit it or not, we all know that announcing a product deprecation without a replacement is bad...and has caused tons of bewilderment in companies across the globe. If the message was clear, there would not be blog postings like this one in the first place. Just relax, and wait for *real* clarity. It will come. Right now, just research your options, keep the vendor vultures at bay, and wait for the light to shine.
Hey Jason,
Thanks for your comment.
I don't necessarily feel that I'm reluctant in criticizing Microsoft. Actually I've done that on many occasions. I write what suits me and my clients best - the way I see it and call it. This has proven to be a good thing both for me, the clients and for Microsoft so there's really no point in arguing about MVP's saying this or that. We're not all the same you know :-)
As for the points you make part from that, I agree that you should wait and see what happens. You are correct that posts like these wouldn't be needed if there would be clearer guidance - but there isn't at this point, which means we can at least do something to help the decisions. Most of my clients that are actually using InfoPath are hanging in there to see where the train takes them. There's no need to replace it while running SharePoint Server 2013 anyway, since there's full comparability there.
We'll just have to wait and see what the future brings in terms of alternatives and replacement technologies.
In short:
You're correct, better guidance would make things easier.
Unfortunately there isn't any such guidance today, which means we'll have to make as informed decisions as we can based on the information that is out there.
Cheers,
Tobias.
Hello Tobias ,
I believe that Microsoft could have matured over the solutions that it is proposing to replace the InfoPath before announcing the discontinuation of the product. I was at SharePoint Conference and attended the lecture where they showed Excel Surveys, FOSL, Forms App and Structutured Documments. In my opinion the solutions are still too weak to assert that they will be able to replace the time developments of the resources provided by InfoPath. Honestly really like InfoPath, because it is very good for processes small/medium size. Perhaps many developers criticize negatively InfoPath for not understanding how far it can go and wanting that it meets all the requirements a .Net can meet. People who want to use InfoPath to develop an ERP in SharePoint. In my view, this is nonsense, InfoPath is not for that!
Anyway, hope that Microsoft shipped a product, at least better than InfoPath, especially since I saw the Conference in Vegas is still a long way to convince us that we will have a product height .
This is just a private opinion!
Thanks for your post!
Hi Guillaume,
Good points. Indeed there's a lot of options for building forms. For me, there's a lot of options as a developer - however for customers who want simplicity (who will not be able to build them themselves using BCS/JS etc) it's another story.
I like the idea you mention above for SharePoint Online, please let me know how it turns out :-)
Cheers,
Tobias.
Tobias, what do you think of this
http://absolute-sharepoint....
Hi Roumen,
I don't have much input in the area yet since Microsoft haven't provided any clear guidance on the topic of forms. Most of the clients I work with are using Nintex or other third party solutions like Forms7 (for simpler things) and don't need to rely on InfoPath or any other Microsoft-driven forms technology (because really, there isn't one) :-)
With that said, I really hope that they manage to get a good strategy for all existing forms users and find a good roadmap for the future of forms - until then, I'll still be using third party products when the requirement for form solutions arise.
Cheers,
Tobias.
In your article you write "I never really liked InfoPath and it wasn’t very widely adopted in any organization I’ve ever worked with." Well, in our company InfoPath is HEAVILY used. Our top 2 affiliates alone have more than 300+ InfoPath forms on their SharePoint sites. All in all our company today has about 1000+ InfoPath forms in use because it is a really simple to create and technically strong possibility to accomplish literally every spleen, businesses have when it comes to some sort of approval.
For me as a developer it even integrates into Visual Studio (finally), so I can design forms nicely in InfoPath Designer with an easy to use WYSIWYG editor and can create the form code in the IDE I know and love. And by the way: If you are in a company that has Office Professional licensed, InfoPath is included. No additional license needed. So why not use what you have?
Long stroy short: To me, InfoPath currently is without any suitable replacement an I am looking anxiously at Microsoft's plans...
Hi Alexander,
Thank you very much for your comment.
You highlight some good points with InfoPath and I know there's a lot of people relying on the technology and using it throughout their entire organizations and business processes.
I agree with your points of using something that already exist, however for most of the organizations I've worked with the forms have required customizations outside the boundraries of InfoPath and SharePoint alone.
That said, I really do hope there's going to be a clear story for forms moving forward. The lack of proper replacements (or at least the lack of communicating any replacement) is troubling both for us (implementing solutions) and the customers (who doesn't know what to do next).
Let's hope the fog clears up soon and that there will be some announcements around this area. A lot of people and organizations are depending on it.
Cheers,
Tobias.
Hi Tobias, thanks for the article.
You may want to take a look to ngSharePoint (https://github.com/Kaldeera....
It's a young open-source project developed in AngularJS to "play" with SharePoint from the client side. And, of course, you can also create and manipulate SharePoint forms without, apparently, any limitation due to its modularity and expansibility.
Thanks and cheers.
I am working with a Office 365 client who needs a forms + workflow based solution to streamline a help desk . Now as of last week we have Flows coming down stream as a way construct basic workflows but these aren't here yet as far as I know. Nintex now offer a 5 Worflow/form/action license options for both Standard and Enterprise. If my client doesn't ;go for this then the only options I see are InfoPath + SPD Workflows.
Hi Daniel,
It's been more than two years since this post was written, so indeed things have happened. The Flow seems to be pretty interesting, but like you mention it's in a preview at the moment and not fully released yet.
As for what you advice your client to do, is up to you. I don't want to meddle in a discussion I don't have the variables for.
Cheers,
Tobias.