Introduction

When we started to develop Ultimate Forms, we did not position it to be an InfoPath competitor or replacement. We aimed to create a platform that helps our customers use SharePoint better. We wanted to close the gap between their needs and what SharePoint can do. This way, they wouldn't have to spend money on expensive custom development. We did not plan to copy InfoPath's features exactly. Instead, we aimed to meet the real business needs we saw. Many customers have used Ultimate Forms as a replacement for InfoPath. They have been doing this for years. In my opinion, it is a natural choice.

With the announcement of InfoPath's demise and the frantic search for a suitable successor that followed, we felt obligated to present our own comparison as well. I believe it will speak for itself. It will show you that InfoPath had a strong alternative while it was active. It also has a better successor, in my opinion, after it ended.

So, without any further ado, let us start.

Why Forms in SharePoint?

So why do we actually need forms in SharePoint? Well, SharePoint is a great platform for storing and managing business data. It's easy to use, extensible, has a robust UI and permission system and the price is usually right. The only place where SharePoint is lacking is forms, the interface for adding, displaying and editing individual data items. They are pretty basic, for the lack of a better word, not something you can base your business solution on.

InfoPath was at one point presented as the right technology to replace the default SharePoint forms when the need comes for something a bit more advanced. And many companies around the world went all in with the InfoPath development, creating in some cases thousands of forms.

InfoPath

You can actually use InfoPath in two distinct ways, each with its own pros and cons:

• Replacing built-in forms - an InfoPath form will replace the built-in form, so whenever you click on Add new item or view/edit an existing item, you will actually see the InfoPath form. SharePoint will use InfoPath Forms Services to generate browser-based representations for InfoPath forms and integrate them into SharePoint UI. I would like to use the word "seamless", unfortunately, it is not so.
• Using form libraries - here the form, although hosted within SharePoint, is not actually integrated into SharePoint. You are basically working with InfoPath as an XML editor, that saves the resulting XML data structure into a specialized document library. Although some XML fields can be promoted to library columns, this is only a partial integration and cannot be considered a true SharePoint solution.

The first approach, although offering higher levels of integration, is actually the weaker one. Beyond the eye candy of being able to modify the layout of the form, it offers little in terms of functionality. There is just not enough power to serve as a real business process building block. So in our comparison, we are going to be focusing on the form libraries, occasionally mentioning InfoPath forms, where relevant.

Ultimate Forms

So what is Infowise Ultimate Forms anyways? Basically, it's a platform that extends SharePoint to make it easier to build business solutions. When I say "extend", I mean preserving the way SharePoint works out-of-the-box. It seamlessly integrates directly into the SharePoint user interface. So you never lose any existing functionality and the way things look and feel.

We add new functionality, tons of it. And you only need your browser, no external designers or tools required. And, despite its name, Utimate Forms is much more than just forms. It will take care of your business logic (including data import and export) and reporting (including KPIs, charts and much more).

And here we start the actual comparison. Look for a link to a separate page with a full summary table at the end of the article.

Design And Integration

Here we discuss what design tools we use and how well each platform is integrated into SharePoint.

Design Environment

Ultimate Forms deeply integrates into your SharePoint, you design your forms directly in your browser by simply clicking the Design button on the list toolbar. Given necessary permissions, any user can design forms, from anywhere, no tools required.

InfoPath is actually a client application, you must purchase and install on your own computer, without it you can modify any forms (although the end users don't need the application, InfoPath Forms Services will convert the InfoPath form into a browser-based form on the fly).

Integration

Ultimate Forms extends your existing SharePoint forms without replacing them. So 100% native functionality is preserved, plus the many additional features that Ultimate Forms adds.

InfoPath replaces SharePoint forms with custom pages. Most SharePoint column types can be mapped to corresponding InfoPath controls (text, number, date and so on). But some, such as Managed Metadata, are not supported. 3rd party components? You can forget about those. Even supported controls look and work differently, your users will notice the difference.

Layout

The first thing users want to change in SharePoint forms is the layout. Moving the columns around, adding custom colors and fonts is always high up on their list. Let's see what Ultimate Forms and InfoPath can offer in that department.

Form Layout

Ultimate Forms allows you to subdivide your form into tabs (with tab permissions), add sections or groups and arrange the list columns in multiple vertical columns. You can also control the location and appearance of labels and descriptions. Note that all of these are accomplished through configuration and not drag-and-drop, making it easier and faster to design a form.

InfoPath provide a visual design interface allowing you to place fields in a custom layout table. Section are easy to implement. Tabs are harder, requiring your to create multiple views and provide a mechanism for switching between views.

Look and Feel

Ultimate Forms offers you configuration options for setting common look and feel parameters, such as background images or borders. For more advanced customization, you can provide your own CSS styling. Each one of the 3 list forms (new, display and edit) can be given its own distinct look.

InfoPath uses a visual designer to modify the look, which can, in many cases, be more time-consuming to configure.

SharePoint UI Integration

Ultimate Forms fully integrates its forms into the SharePoint user interface, your site-wide branding is preserved intact, while giving you the ability to override as much as you need.

InfoPath is a distinct product, with its own look. Although it can forced to visually appear similarly to the rest of your site, it's not a natural process and can be quite time-consuming.

Permissions

Here we will focus on the common need of being able to control writability and/or visibility of columns, depending on the current user, column values and form type.

Tabs and Accordions

Ultimate Forms allows you to group your columns into tabs/groups with subsections.

InfoPath makes it easy to create groups/sections. Tabs are much trickier, as you have to use multiple views (time-consuming, especially when you need to achieve a certain look).

Container Permissions

Ultimate Forms allows you to assign permissions to whole containers/tabs/groups, making the contained column writable, read-only or completely hidden. The permissions can be applied based on the user (for example, depending on whether or not the user is a member of a certain group), column values (e.g. Status = Completed) and form type (New or Edit form).

InfoPath can use rules to hide/disable specific columns only, not groups/sections. That will be very time-consuming when you have a lot of columns on your form.

Column Permission

Ultimate Forms can apply permissions to a specific column, overriding tab or container permissions. As with tab permissions, user, conditions and form type are used to determine the permission level.

InfoPath can hide/disable columns based on conditions. User or form type do not come into play.

Data Structure

Let's talk about how the data is stored and what relationships between entities we can implement.

Storage

Ultimate Forms extends regular SharePoint lists, so data is stored in lists (or document libraries).

InfoPath, when replacing forms, also stores data in the list. But in most cases the data will be stored as XML files in forms libraries. This is not a native SharePoint format, rendering many SharePoint feature incompatible.

Repeating Sections

Ultimate Forms allows you to link any item to multiple related items, found in other lists. These can be tasks, general purpose items or even documents. Each related item is a full SharePoint item, with its own version history, permissions and workflows and can be viewed and edited separately. You can even drill down into related items from any list view of the parent items.

InfoPath only supports repeating section when working from a forms library. The repeating section are stored within the XML and do no map to SharePoint items. You must open the parent item to view the repeating sections and they do not exist separately. As such, they are not visible in views.

Related Items Summary

Ultimate Forms includes the ability to count or summarize related items automatically, without having to edit the parent item. You can even count/summarize just the items that pass a certain filter.

InfoPath can count or summarize repeating section values inside the form, while you are editing it.

Column Types

Let's examine which column types are supported by each platform.

Support For Built-in Column Types

Ultimate Forms supports all column types.

InfoPath does not support some column types, such as Managed Metadata.

Support For Custom Column Types

Ultimate Forms supports all custom column types, including from other vendors.

InfoPath does not support custom column types.

Custom Column Types Provided

Ultimate Forms provides a set of additional column types, such as associated items, cascading lookups, electronic signatures, color choice, document link, voting, etc.

InfoPath provides none.

Validations and Defaults

Default Values

Ultimate Forms allows you to specify distinct default values for different users/group. Additionally, you can pass default value though the URL.

InfoPath allows you to specify a single set of default values.

Validation Rules

Ultimate Forms can validate column values based on regular expressions (such as email or phone number, but you can create your own), length and compared to other column values or expressions. The validation rules can be applied based on conditions and based on the current user.

InfoPath can check basic patterns, based on conditions.

Validating Related Items

Ultimate Forms can validated based on related items, e.g. preventing a support ticket from being closed when there are still open tasks assigned to it.

InfoPath does not supported this.

Actions

Let's see how business logic can be implemented.

Types of Actions

Ultimate Forms offers 24 different actions types, ranging from updating/creating/deleting list items in any list, managing permissions and creating lists/sites to managing Active Directory, calling web services and executing stored procedures in any database.

InfoPath can only set field values of the current form.

Execution

Ultimate Forms can execute actions when item is added/update/deleted, on timer or manually, via buttons

InfoPath executes actions when a field value changes.

Lookups

Cascading lookups are the most common requirements in any business solution. Being able to filter a list of cities based on a state is one example.

Cascading Lookups

Ultimate Forms supports unlimited number of levels of cascading lookup, including multiple parent values.

InfoPath only provides support when working with forms libraries.

Adding New Values

Ultimate Forms allows you to add new values on the fly.

InfoPath requires the values to be present when the form loads.

Filter Values

Ultimate Forms allows you to add additional filter to make selecting values easier and faster, especially when working with large number of values.

InfoPath has no such capability.

Signatures

Being able to sign your data is an important part of many business processes.

Signature Type

Ultimate Forms uses an electronic signature, where the validation is performed against your Active Directory or using hand-written signatures.

InfoPath allows you to sign using a digital signature.

Signature Providers

Ultimate Forms can use Active Directory, hand-written or declarative.

InfoPath requires you to have a digital certificate (either issued internally by your organization or purchased from a provider).

Displayed In

Ultimate Forms allows you to view signatures in forms, views and even in print-outs, including PDFs.

InfoPath's signatures are visible in forms only.

Printing

Despite our efforts to go paperless, printed copies are still inevitable, as well as read-only PDF versions.

Print Templates

Ultimate Forms allows you to create multiple custom print templates, for single items, lists and even calendars. Templates can be shared with other users and the most suitable template can even be selected automatically.

InfoPath prints the screen as-is.

Export/Email

Ultimate Forms allows you to save the print out as PDF and/or email it to any recipients, both internal and external.

InfoPath allows you only to print (unless opening the form in the client application).

UI Integration

Ultimate Forms allows you to print from forms, context menu and ribbon buttons, including the ability to print multiple items at once.

InfoPath only has the ability to print from forms, one item at a time.

External Data

Being able to work with data found in external applications is essential in today's integrated business.

Data Sources

Ultimate Forms can work with any database type, REST APIs and a variety of 3rd party applications.

InfoPath can only work with MS SQL and web services.

Filter External Data

Ultimate Forms can filter external data based on column values.

InfoPath can filter external data based on column values.

Automatic Import/Export

Ultimate Forms can import and export from email, any database and web services.

InfoPath does not have automatic import/export capability.

Color-coding

Color-coding allows you to identify data at a glance, without having to read.

Type

Ultimate Forms allows you to set background colors, font colors or use icons.

InfoPath allows you to set background colors, font-colors, boldness and underlines.

Displayed In

Ultimate Forms color-codes forms, views, calendars and print-outs.

InfoPath displays color-coding in forms only.

Item IDs

Assigning automatic item IDs in your own format is essential in many applications, such as support tickets, invoices, etc.

Templates

Ultimate Forms allows you to create multiple templates and select the most suitable one automatically.

InfoPath does not support item IDs.

Format

Ultimate Forms uses a combination of text, column values, functions and numerators.

InfoPath does not support item IDs.

Applied In

Ultimate Forms applies item IDs automatically in new and/or edit forms.

InfoPath does not support item IDs.

This concludes our feature-by-feature comparison. I will let you decide which platform works better for you, just keep in mind that I just covered some of the features of Ultimate Forms, those that map to the corresponding InfoPath features. There are tons of other features you can leverage:

• Actions - although partially covered above, actions are an extremely powerful feature covered in a variety of past webinars.
• Alerts - a replacement for the built-in alerts, we offer multiple internal and external recipients, timer-based notifications, conditions and custom email template.
• Color-coded calendars - view data from multiple sources, such as lists, databases and Exchange calendars.
• Charts and graphs - visualize your data with over 30 chart types and filter using charts.
• Color-coded views - apply color-coding to any list view, without having to modify it using SharePoint Designer.
• Indicators - add KPIs, progress bars and countdown to any form/view.
• List search - find items in list, print and export to PDF/Excel/Word directly from the search results.
• Voting - let users vote on items/documents and leave comments.
• Much more...

For your convenience, here is the full comparison article: