Wolf Paulus' Web Journal

Collecting even simple responses on your Web site still requires some programming skills, like

An HTML form needs to be generated [HTML and CSS]
user input has to be validated, best on client and server side [JavaScript and JSP or PHP]
and eventually the collected data needs to be aggregated, sliced and diced. [SQL]

I recently discovered formassembly, a service offered by Veer West LLC, based in Indiana, which claims to help with all the required tasks. Let's walk through them ...

Form Design

Form Builder

To test the Web application, Tom and I created a simple feedback form for his PodCast: The Tech Weekly PodCast

An easy to use but still powerful all web based form builder makes form generation easy and fun. First, one has to write the text that makes up a question and subsequently select an answer-type, like text, options, radio-buttons, checkboxes, even file upload is among the choices. Secondly, one can setup triggers, conditional questions, calculations, and advanced presentation styles.
At any time, a preview of the form can be displayed, which makes the design and setup process less of a guessing game.

Publishing

Formassembly offers several different ways to put the form on the Web:

Formassembly hosts the form on their server.
Our test form for instance is available on their servers here: http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/5850
The HTML for the form can be downloaded and integrated into a web page.
This link for instance can be used to download the HTML code that makes up the form: http://app.formassembly.com/forms/export/html/5850
Server-side script can be used to retrieve the form via a REST URI.
This link can be used to retrieve the form markup via an REST call: http://app.formassembly.com/rest/forms/view/5850
Server-side script can be used to retrieve the form via an XML URI.
This link can be used to retrieve the form markup via an XML API call: http://app.formassembly.com/xml/forms/view/5850

Getting to the form markup via REST allows merging the form's HTML code into a regular web page on the hosting server, which is significantly different and better than letting the consuming browser perform the merge, which happens for instance with Google and Amazon ads.
In case the form needs some modification later, Formassembly amazingly offers simple but effective revision management.

Notifications

Formassembly offers several different ways to confirm the form submission to a user, who filled out the form:

A static response text, e.g. a thank you note can be defined.
A URL to a page can be defined that Formassembly will be redirecting to after form submission.
In case the form also collected an email address, a response can be sent to that address right away.

Connectors

With a payed subscription, (see details below) comes another cool feature, which allows to integrate a forms with 3rd-party applications like PayPal or Salesforce.

Data Collection

The collection of the submitted form data, again - I guess you get the idea - can happen in several different ways:

Submitted data can be either received by email or via RSS feed.
Moreover, the submitted data is automatically aggregated and displayed in charts.
A payed subscription, (see details below) allows on demand export to Excel, Access, and XML.

I have just touched on some of the features and a more complete list is available here: http://beta.formassembly.com/feature-list.php

Pricing

The basic service, which covers all the features I have described above, is free.
A Pay-As-You-Go plan is available for 5 cents per form submission comes with the following additional features:

On demand export into Excel, Access, and XML.
captcha
SSL
Auto Responders

The same is also available with a $9 monthly subscription.
The most expensive plan costs $34 per months and includes the aforementioned integration with 3rd-party applications like PayPal or Salesforce.

Over all, this looks like a very useful service and the feature set seems well rounded and thought through. Again, here is link to our very simple test form: http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/5850 - but don't stop there, go and try it yourself.