ProductsAuthenticAuthentic e-Forms

Authentic® 2008 electronic forms offer an intutitive, user-friendly interface that supports advanced functions such as business logic validation, rich input formatting, date control, and much more.

In order to be a true knowledge asset and not just a random collection of facts, information must be organized and structured according to clear conventions . Today, XML applications and relational databases are the two most prevalent mechanisms for structuring, managing, and storing data – yet they generally require users to have substantial technical know-how. This poses a significant challenge for non-technical workers who need to access and/or enter content in XML and/or database formats.

Authentic solves this issue by allowing business users to contribute to the publishing workflow via word processor-style e-Forms that create valid code behind-the-scenes.

Authentic is available in Desktop and Browser editions and is provided under a free software license. This means you can deploy Authentic electronic forms across entire workgroups without incurring the expense of purchasing software for each end user workstation.

The Desktop Edition is an independently managed client application, while the Browser Edition provides similar viewing and editing capabilities in a lightweight plug-in component that runs inside the Internet Explorer browser. Both versions support all of the features of Authentic e-Forms.

The appearance of each Authentic electronic form is fully customizable and the content structure is defined according to the rules of an XML or database schema. When Authentic loads a form it also opens the associated XML file or database where the content is kept.

Authentic ships with a set of ready-to-use forms or ‘templates’ that comply with various industry standard XML vocabularies defined and adopted by forward thinking trade associations or similar groups. By employing the supplied templates, end-users in enterprises that must conform to these vocabularies can get right down to work creating and editing XML-structured content with little or no up-front development effort.

For custom applications, templates are created or modified through the visual design interface of Altova StyleVision® 2008. Drawing on StyleVision, developers no longer need to spend countless hours hand writing and testing intricate code to achieve richly-formatted output. StyleVision and Authentic e-Forms empower developers to rapidly build applications that let business users easily and accurately enter and edit structured data without being intimidated or distracted by technical details.

Input from Authentic can be saved to any content management system, database, or XML repository, where the information can be made instantly available to management applications across the organization. In this way, Authentic effectively unlocks valuable knowledge assets enterprise-wide.

Authentic makes it easy to create or maintain documents that conform to an XML Schema or DTD. Authentic users authoring a document does not need a deep understanding of XML transformation technologies, stylesheets, or the schema describing the document at hand, and does not even need access to the StyleVision application. Through Authentic’s straightforward interface, users are free to focus directly on the content of his or her document.

Depending on each specific XML Schema element, an Authentic e-Form might include rich input features such as text input boxes, pull-down menus for enumerated lists, radio buttons, and check boxes. A date picker icon can even be placed in the document to prompt the user to select a date from a graphical calendar, and a range of special table editing tools are available as toolbar icons.

An Authentic electronic form can be designed to connect to a relational database, find and display information in the database, and accept changes to the data. This permits business users to view and/or edit the database in a controlled manner through user-friendly e-Forms.

Authentic connects to all prevalent relational databases:

• IBM® DB2®
• Oracle®
• Microsoft® SQL Server
• Microsoft® Access®
• MySQL®
• Any ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) database

You can even combine views of multiple database tables in a single Authentic form. Each table will have its own set of control buttons to advance through records.

Authentic e-Forms are based on a XML Schema, DTD, or database, and Authentic formats user input to ensure content is valid according to the rules of the schema or database. Authentic features an incremental validating parser that automatically highlights any errors on the screen as the user is typing and also provides error messages. Document validation is done on the client side prior to posting the document back to a server, simplifying server-side validation.

Authentic implements the Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) client interface, a standardized set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote Web servers. Through WebDAV, Authentic provides integration with any relational database, native XML database, or content management system. Additional support for Delta-V enables check-in/check-out capabilities for user collaboration and version control in conjunction with any WebDAV-compliant server. Integration kits are available for popular server repositories including Oracle's XML DB, Microsoft SQL Server, and many other XML servers.

Authentic includes an integrated spelling checker with support for 12 languages. Also, separate legal and medical dictionaries ensure that business users can effectively and consistently contribute their content to the enterprise knowledge base. You can modify the supplied dictionaries, or even create your own custom dictionary to support a specialized subject.

Global standards consortiums drive the development, convergence, and adoption of common XML content models for business processes and data utilization across various vertical industries. Authentic includes built-in templates for industry XML standards, including DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architiecture), DocBook, NITF (News Industry Text Format), NewsML (News Markup Language), and many others. In addition, users can customize or create Authentic forms for any XML content model using Altova StyleVision® 2008.

Experience the power of Authentic for XML and database content editing in your organization – and start realizing the benefits and cost-savings associated with reusing information assets.

Learn more about creating Authentic forms with Altova StyleVision® 2008.

Download the FREE Authentic® 2008 Desktop Edition.

Download the FREE Authentic® 2008 Browser Edition.