Formatta Server is the primary integration point with an organization's systems. It allows automatic processing along with server-side integration of electronic form data with existing databases and applications. Forms may be distributed by posting them on an Internet or intranet site, so that users may download and save them, fill them out using Formatta Filler, and submit them to an application environment that runs Formatta Server for processing.

The Formatta Server APIs

Formatta Server consists of a set of easy-to-use Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow programmatic access to the functionality and data contained in Formatta forms. These robust APIs allow the automation of every facet of form processing. They are available as COM components to allow integration of Formatta Server with ASP pages or other scripting languages, as C++ libraries, or as Java APIs, allowing easy integration with many servlet engines, application servers, and web portals such as BEA, IBM WebSphere, BroadVision, etc.

Database and Application Integration

With the employment of JDBC, ODBC, ADO, XML and other standards, connectivity between a Formatta Server environment and numerous types of data sources and repositories is enabled. This allows easy integration between Formatta forms and information systems such as Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, and many more. Form data, extracted by the server into XML, can be transformed into any custom format using XSLT, and easily made available to web services and other application interfaces that utilize XML technology.

Formatta Server, in addition to allowing the extraction and processing data from forms it receives, always makes available a copy of the form itself, so that it can be stored on a file system or placed into a database. This is very useful in cases where an exact copy of a form filled out by a user is required.

The most common means of Formatta forms integration with applications and databases involves the use of a Formatta Server configuration whereby it receives a form that has been submitted to an HTTP server hosting a web application or portal, extracts the data from the form into an XML document, processes the data, and updates a database.

Security

In any scenario in which a form is submitted over the Internet or an intranet to Formatta Server, the form data is automatically encrypted using 128-bit encryption when it is passed between the Formatta Filler client and the server. Once received and authenticated by Server, it can be decrypted for processing. Formatta Server may be easily integrated with any custom or standard user database or security system (such as LDAP) in order to enforce user authentication upon form submission.

Platform Support

Formatta Server runs on multiple operating systems. Supported platforms include: (1) Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003, .NET, (2) Solaris, AIX, and other UNIX variants, (3) Linux.