There are a few features we've found very valuable in Oracle Forms. First, it's a very flexible solution. It also gives us the ability to provide a front end for the customer to access their data. Additionally, we can update our database through the application.
We've automated a lot of the daily administrative tasks through our applications. I go back to the old COBOL days as I originally programmed in COBOL. Forms is kind of like that in that it provides a standard method for us to provide those solutions to the customer again.
In other words, we can tailor the interface, the GUI, so that when users go from one application to another application and to yet another application, it gives us the capability to standardize that front end for the customer so it isn't something totally new when they go in there. It gives them a comfort.
For our bosses, it's a good thing that they aren't getting hammered by functional users saying, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" It's basically good customer service to have a product like Forms.
In the form itself building it, you can set up selected update functions in the properties. There are times where that gets disconnected. Essentially, what it's doing is it's pointing to a package in the database to go do its work. The functionality of that piece, occasionally, doesn't know what it is. The form no longer compiles, and you have to go back and redo those. That's the biggest shortcoming that I've come across.
It's been able to deploy without any huge issues.
Everything's been solid. We've had no big stability issues.
It's been scaleable for our needs.
We were using COBOL when I got there, then we migrated to Oracle. Forms provided a much better, higher-quality GUI for the customer.
I think the initial setup was fairly easy. Coming from the display-accept world in COBOL on a VAX-11/780, the biggest challenge was learning the tool. Aside from that, it was fairly simple to use. We had some training, and we took off and ran with it.
We implemented it ourselves with our in-house team.
Every Oracle product is expensive. Forms is no exception.
I would recommend training for your developers on the tool.
