Business Problem

Moving to an electronic forms system is a big improvement over paper based forms.  However, once all forms are electronic, the next logical step is to be able to search on the form data.  One common approach is to leverage Documentum.  Form data is stored as property values, and then you can search on the Documentum fields as you would any other document.  An alternative to this solution is to search directly on the XML itself using an XML database management system.  This approach works well when the form changes often.

Active Wizard Solution

Active Wizard integrates with eXist, an open source XML database management system.  TSG’s Open Migrate application is used to periodically push new and updated forms to eXist.  A search portal interface is then used to access the XML data in eXist, as shown in the diagram below:

Business Impact

• Form search abstracted away from content management system, which provides business continuity
• Searching on the XML provides for more agile approach for often-changing forms.  There is no need to update database columns when form fields change.
• Search portal gives non-technical users the ability to easily search the XML database without knowledge of the XML data structures.