Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
Isn't it simplier to just do like when you purchase something? You also need a prove then that you have paid and are expecting the merchandise to be shipped. That is simply solved with mailing a copy plus a registration number for future reference. Should be more than enough. -- Maxim Maletsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote... : Hi I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. So, I'm not sure what the best way is to tackle this situation. My gutt says it would need some kind of client stand alone app, but I wouldn't want to go there unless I am proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only way. The users are mostly in computer limbo, and if they had their way, they would want to use Word or Excel to complete the forms, save it to their hard drive and click to send it away... Help!, Please?! -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
[PHP] best way to save form data on user side
Hi I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. So, I'm not sure what the best way is to tackle this situation. My gutt says it would need some kind of client stand alone app, but I wouldn't want to go there unless I am proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only way. The users are mostly in computer limbo, and if they had their way, they would want to use Word or Excel to complete the forms, save it to their hard drive and click to send it away... Help!, Please?! -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
Hi Bryan Thanks for the suggestions. Can you elaborate on the pdf option? Wouldn't that mean the users would need a copy of adobe acrobat writer? On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 21:53, Bryan Brannigan wrote: 3 choices as I see it.. a) create a PDF for download b) let the users create the form in Excel and then figure out a way to import that into your database using a webapp c) client side app :( -Original Message- From: Petre Agenbag [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 2:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side Hi I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. So, I'm not sure what the best way is to tackle this situation. My gutt says it would need some kind of client stand alone app, but I wouldn't want to go there unless I am proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only way. The users are mostly in computer limbo, and if they had their way, they would want to use Word or Excel to complete the forms, save it to their hard drive and click to send it away... Help!, Please?! -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Saving the form would be useless because how would you ever know if they really submitted it or not? It seems like the easiest thing to do would be to show them a confirmation page that says your claim has been accepted and here is the data you submitted. Save or print this page for your records like you see on many other systems. Would that work? I guess it wouldn't do anything for option C above, but that option is always present unless you're using some kind of timeout feature? ---John Holmes... -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
--- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Well, this sounds like a bad idea in general, but if you have no choice in the matter, I suppose cookies can fulfill the need. Anything you implement like this is going to lessen the security of the data, because rather than the client sending it to you once, you are going to expose it over the Internet several times. If this risk is acceptable for whatever reason, then cookies are probably no less secure for this data than anything else. Normally, I would highly recommend *not* storing client data on cookies, because that opens you up to several types of attacks, but you can accomplish what you want to do with this method. Only punish those who want this feature by setting these cookies only for those who choose to save this data locally. You could help the situation by encrypting the data in your cookies, so that only presentation attacks are a concern, but your users wouldn't be able to easily look at their data as verification of anything. My recommendation is to leverage your position as the technical expert to advise a more proper solution, one that you agree to, not them. They should not be consulted regarding application design unless they have experience with it. Rather, they should be describing their needs and let you (or the technical lead / project manager) do the technical design. Good luck to you. Chris -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
Hi Chris On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 22:09, Chris Shiflett wrote: --- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Well, this sounds like a bad idea in general, but if you have no choice in the matter, I suppose cookies can fulfill the need. Anything you implement like this is going to lessen the security of the data, because rather than the client sending it to you once, you are going to expose it over the Internet several times. If this risk is acceptable for whatever reason, then cookies are probably no less secure for this data than anything else. Normally, I would highly recommend *not* storing client data on cookies, because that opens you up to several types of attacks, but you can accomplish what you want to do with this method. Only punish those who want this feature by setting these cookies only for those who choose to save this data locally. You could help the situation by encrypting the data in your cookies, so that only presentation attacks are a concern, but your users wouldn't be able to easily look at their data as verification of anything. My recommendation is to leverage your position as the technical expert to advise a more proper solution, one that you agree to, not them. They should not be consulted regarding application design unless they have experience with it. Rather, they should be describing their needs and let you (or the technical lead / project manager) do the technical design. This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... Any ideas? PS, I don't think cookies are going to do this. Remember, the user needs to be able to access and re-submit the form at any stage. Good luck to you. Chris -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
--- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. In this case, it sounds like you need to just keep this data on the server in your database like you are already doing, then you simply provide another Web application that uses the same database and allows them to search, modify (?), and display the data for printing. You can generate reports, graphs, and all sorts of things that they will appreciate. Don't restrict yourself to their line of thinking. :-) It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... The solution is for the users to do the forms in a Web application that you build, and your Web application stores the data in the database. Forget about data entry personnel. Chris -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 22:09, Chris Shiflett wrote: --- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Well, this sounds like a bad idea in general, but if you have no choice in the matter, I suppose cookies can fulfill the need. Anything you implement like this is going to lessen the security of the data, because rather than the client sending it to you once, you are going to expose it over the Internet several times. If this risk is acceptable for whatever reason, then cookies are probably no less secure for this data than anything else. Normally, I would highly recommend *not* storing client data on cookies, because that opens you up to several types of attacks, but you can accomplish what you want to do with this method. Only punish those who want this feature by setting these cookies only for those who choose to save this data locally. You could help the situation by encrypting the data in your cookies, so that only presentation attacks are a concern, but your users wouldn't be able to easily look at their data as verification of anything. My recommendation is to leverage your position as the technical expert to advise a more proper solution, one that you agree to, not them. They should not be consulted regarding application design unless they have experience with it. Rather, they should be describing their needs and let you (or the technical lead / project manager) do the technical design. This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... Any ideas? Do they really have to be able to do this offline? You've got the data in the database, why not just program a feature that lets you go in and edit data? Or copy one report to submit as a new one? Wouldn't that be a better solution than some system where you copy everything to the user's computer? ---John Holmes... -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
RE: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
Hi Why don't you take the form in many smaller parts, save them away as each part is completed, allowing the user to go back and forth between the parts. This would give the advantage of securing the data which as already been submitted. You can then give other functions to review in one page (for printing off) or copying to another form which could be used for next years data Regards Adam White -Original Message- From: Petre Agenbag [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 28 January 2003 20:17 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side Hi Chris On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 22:09, Chris Shiflett wrote: --- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Well, this sounds like a bad idea in general, but if you have no choice in the matter, I suppose cookies can fulfill the need. Anything you implement like this is going to lessen the security of the data, because rather than the client sending it to you once, you are going to expose it over the Internet several times. If this risk is acceptable for whatever reason, then cookies are probably no less secure for this data than anything else. Normally, I would highly recommend *not* storing client data on cookies, because that opens you up to several types of attacks, but you can accomplish what you want to do with this method. Only punish those who want this feature by setting these cookies only for those who choose to save this data locally. You could help the situation by encrypting the data in your cookies, so that only presentation attacks are a concern, but your users wouldn't be able to easily look at their data as verification of anything. My recommendation is to leverage your position as the technical expert to advise a more proper solution, one that you agree to, not them. They should not be consulted regarding application design unless they have experience with it. Rather, they should be describing their needs and let you (or the technical lead / project manager) do the technical design. This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... Any ideas? PS, I don't think cookies are going to do this. Remember, the user needs to be able to access and re-submit the form at any stage. Good luck to you. Chris -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
On Wednesday 29 January 2003 04:17, Petre Agenbag wrote: save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... Any ideas? PS, I don't think cookies are going to do this. Remember, the user needs to be able to access and re-submit the form at any stage. As has already been pointed out, saving the form data on the user's computer is a _bad_ idea and provides no assurance to either party. There is no way to prove that the data saved is what the user submitted. So to satisfy (a), you can do this: after the user has submitted the data, write them out to a textfile and GPG/PGP sign it, then let the user download that signed file. You can do something similar using md5() as well (don't forget to add a secret). -- Jason Wong - Gremlins Associates - www.gremlins.biz Open Source Software Systems Integrators * Web Design Hosting * Internet Intranet Applications Development * /* Riches cover a multitude of woes. -- Menander */ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
I agree on leveraging your position to guide this thing. Here you've added the requirement of being able to revisit the data in a year. Why not simply have them fill out the form, put it in the database and then use another page with queries to draw the data into a similar template and change it as needed? Simple forms should handle this just fine, and you can require passwords to the data. As far as filling it out online, let them pull up the form, fill it out and reconnect, then press submit. Wouldn't this cover what you want? Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] za cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side 01/28/2003 03:17 PM Hi Chris On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 22:09, Chris Shiflett wrote: --- Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. Well, this sounds like a bad idea in general, but if you have no choice in the matter, I suppose cookies can fulfill the need. Anything you implement like this is going to lessen the security of the data, because rather than the client sending it to you once, you are going to expose it over the Internet several times. If this risk is acceptable for whatever reason, then cookies are probably no less secure for this data than anything else. Normally, I would highly recommend *not* storing client data on cookies, because that opens you up to several types of attacks, but you can accomplish what you want to do with this method. Only punish those who want this feature by setting these cookies only for those who choose to save this data locally. You could help the situation by encrypting the data in your cookies, so that only presentation attacks are a concern, but your users wouldn't be able to easily look at their data as verification of anything. My recommendation is to leverage your position as the technical expert to advise a more proper solution, one that you agree to, not them. They should not be consulted regarding application design unless they have experience with it. Rather, they should be describing their needs and let you (or the technical lead / project manager) do the technical design. This is exactly what I'm looking to do; but my problem remains: I don't know what the best solution is. The problem is clear: the users actually need an electronic copy of the data they submit; they must revisit certain issues annually, and would need to access the data they submitted the previous year; either for review purposes, or to make the new submission a speedy matter of simply changing the details that are different from last year. It's much like a normal office scenario: each person works on Word docs that need to be shared with others, yet needs to be editable and must be saved etc, BUT the difference here is that the data of all the collective sources must be entered into a central db. So the non technical solution would be for the users to do the forms in word, then fax it to the central office, where you have a temp type the data into the db... we can't have that now... Any ideas? PS, I don't think cookies are going to do this. Remember, the user needs to be able to access and re-submit the form at any stage. Good luck to you. Chris -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
on 29/01/03 6:35 AM, Petre Agenbag ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hi I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. So, I'm not sure what the best way is to tackle this situation. My gutt says it would need some kind of client stand alone app, but I wouldn't want to go there unless I am proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only way. There are different issues here If they want to save a half-completed form, you *could* save that data server side in either a table, temporary table, or file, and have them log-in to continue using it. I have done this many times. You could also save the data client-side with cookies, but there's no guarantee that cookies will work on a specific client. If they want back-up/proof of doing it, then they can print the browser screen as they fill it in, AND, you can give them a confirmation page which prints all the form values back to the browser as a printable HTML page which they can either print or save as TEXT or HTML. Writing something that works offline for completion online later sounds like you're trying to make the web do something it wasn't designed for. The only solution I can think of is client-side javascript saving the form information as a browser cookie, but there's no way I'd bother, because it would require the user to have both javascript and cookies enabled, and I think there's also issues with the issuing domain of the cookie. The users are mostly in computer limbo, and if they had their way, they would want to use Word or Excel to complete the forms, save it to their hard drive and click to send it away... You can create a form inside a PDF document, and it can POST the completed data to a URL. So they could complete the form offline, print it, whatever, then connect, and hit submit. It would open a browser window with a URL like http://yourdomain.com/parseThePDFForm.php and then you would have your submitted data. Whilst not as a elegant, they COULD fill in an excel file, and upload it via a browser. Same with word. I'm not sure if wither excel or word has any method of POSTing data. With all these client-side options, there's zero hope of getting them to correct missing fields though :) Decide if this is something you want to achieve on the web, or offline. If on the web, keep it basic, with perhaps a save to server option and a printable thankyou/proof page. If offline, I think PDF forms are the best of a bad bunch. Justin French -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side
You could use the mail() function to automatically send an email to your user. In the email could be an html page with the same form they'd filled out plus some hidden input fields which would tell you that they are updating their stored information. With this, your user gets confirmation of what was submitted, a way to edit their initial input and a record which they can keep on their own computer. Hope this helps, Hugh - Original Message - From: Petre Agenbag [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 11:35 AM Subject: [PHP] best way to save form data on user side Hi I have a rather annoying problem regarding forms. I have built an app that allows the users to fill in a rather large form (much like a claim form) and then have the data pumped into a mysql db. The problem is: the users want to be able to save their forms on their systems as a) backup/proof that they have filled it in and b) for their records for future use and c) the hope is that it would also allow for a reliable method to complete the form off-line and then submit it when online again. So, I'm not sure what the best way is to tackle this situation. My gutt says it would need some kind of client stand alone app, but I wouldn't want to go there unless I am proven beyond reasonable doubt that it is the only way. The users are mostly in computer limbo, and if they had their way, they would want to use Word or Excel to complete the forms, save it to their hard drive and click to send it away... Help!, Please?! -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
