This was the big missing link for us when we started with XOOPS. It could do just about everything we needed, expect this. So we built a module to do this (on top of Fomulaire).
It has a lot of the features listed here, plus has a reporting system built in which you can use to publish reports to groups of users.
It's a really big, huge, and somewhat ugly (code-wise) hack of Formulaire.
It's true that there are more powerful data analysis tools out there than we could ever build in PHP/XOOPS, but the convenience of being able to do rudimentary reporting inside XOOPS, and to be able to use XOOPS as a report publishing platform to groups of users in your organization, is very significant. For the right audience, ie: a non-technical one that doesn't have access or familiarity with data analysis tools, built in reporting features can be a real godsend. And the ability to push data to users through publishing reports inside XOOPS adds a lot of value to the XOOPS platform within an organization, if you're trying to make a one-stop portal for all business transactions.
Some of the more advanced features in our module....
--Form creation interface the same as Formulaire
--Forms can be single submission or multiple submission, enforced through DB flags, though the assumption is that only registered users are filling in forms. Anonymous users can fill in forms too, but don't have access to some of the more advanced features.
--Registered users returning to a single submission form get their one entry displayed for editing. Multiple submission entries can be edited by selecting them from the "View Entries" page.
--Viewing of entries can either be limited to your own entries only, or all entries by other users in the same groups as you (a per form, not per user, setting)
--Full reporting features:
* search with =, LIKE, NOT, NOT LIKE, <, <=, >, >= operators
* AND/OR search options, both within a field and between fields
* calculations: sum, average, count, min, max, percentage breakdown
* sorting by any field
* "scope" control over the report results, so admins can generate reports based on data from entries in multiple groups, not just their own groups
* Report publishing controls so users can view information that admins want them to be able to see easily (users can make their own private, unpublished reports too).
--Full admin interface, so users can be admins over specific forms, without having admin access to the entire Forms module.
--"Proxy" entry system so admins can submit data on behalf of others, and can edit other people's entries if necessary. This allows for situations like where someone faxes in a paper copy of a form to the office and someone in the office needs to enter that data into the system, but have the data flagged as if it were entered by the person who faxed the paper copy in the first place.
--Capability to link/join forms, so entries in a field in one form become the list of options in a selectbox in another form. This is one of my favs.
--Notifications so you can get a message when someone fills in a form. Also very cool.
Unfortunately, it's pretty much complete spaghetti code right now, thanks to the way it was built incrementally, and way too fast, starting as a simple hack of Formulaire. But it works pretty well I would say. We have not released it yet, and for various business planning reasons, hadn't planned to do so until it was in a more polished and professional state.
But of course, help from the XOOPS open-source community could help it get there faster, though in truth, it's such a complicated module that significant contributions to deal with some of the underlying architectural issues on the to do list would be very difficult for anyone but us to do; that's just to say that I'm not sure that releasing would in fact help get the module to a more professional state faster, but it would of course enrich the community.
One of the biggest issues for users right now is that the reporting system is really slow once you have a few hundred entries in a form (still quite usable, but noticably slow).
There are also structural issues with how the data is stored arising from the way the module was built on top of other modules, so to properly add in new features and improvements, some of those deep issues need to be addressed.
The interface is also a little clunky. Functional, but not polished. And you get into a lot of horizontal scrolling when you start viewing lots of fields in a form, which can be rather annoying.
Anyway, you can view a demo of the module if you go to:
http://demo.freeformsolutions.caThe "Activity Log" in the "Form Menu" is the one demo form available there. That will give you a basic idea of what the module does. There is no demo of the backend admin side.
I would of course be happy to get feedback on this. Desperate pleas for a release will be considered.
--Julian
