Formatta (eForms) by Cranel for Access Software

Author: Eric Vasbinder

Support Status: APPROVED

Integration Method: ODBC Direct Database AND IMPORT Files

Hosted: NO

• NOTE: This application WAS approved to be hosted until 31 July 2021. After this time, new installations should be hosted externally to Viewpoint's cloud.

Hosting Location: EXTERNALLY - in either customer on-premise network or vendor cloud

Additional Charge: NO (VPN add-on included in every cloud contract by default - if not on your contract additional charge will be required to add VPNs)

Product Use Case:

This product provides electronic forms display and capture for Vista, displaying custom forms on native mobile apps and web clients, allowing for the normalized data and PDF renderings of forms to be sent back to Vista over ODBC and Import files.

Similar Products:

This product is similar in functionality to Trimble Viewpoint's forms functionality in Team Project Management, as well as Trimble Viewpoint's FieldView product.

ERP Connection Overview:

As per many other server-side integrations to third-party products, this product is designed to talk to Vista's database directly using ODBC and Import files. This connection requires that the Vista server be "visible" to the third party system. To ensure that the two systems can communicate, we set up a server to server IPSEC VPN between our cloud and the vendor's multi-tenant cloud.

Deployment Methodology:

We do not support hosting of this product in our cloud. As such, the customer must continue to host the actual program (i.e. "bits") in either their on-premise environment or in another cloud. As a result, since this product and Vista will be on separate networks, a VPN is needed to bridge the gap between the two networks. This solution uses a data connector ("shim") between the Vista server and other third-party products. In addition, this product provides a web-based UI for interacting with and displaying custom forms for end users; a web UI that requires a full web server be set up and hosted externally to our cloud as well.

Detailed Instructions:

• 1. 1. Stand up remote connectivity to our cloud:

        1. IPSEC VPN between hosting location of third party product and customer's Vista environment in our cloud: How do I set up an IPSEC VPN to access my Vista database directly?

     2. Create SQL account to allow third-party to authenticate to Vista: I need a dedicated SQL account for my integration to Vista in your cloud. How do I set that up?

     3. Configure the third-party solution to talk to the IP address of the new Vista server in our cloud.

tl;dr: All programmatic components of this solution must be hosted externally to Viewpoint's cloud environment. Customers who need to integrate this solution with Vista in our cloud need to use an IPSEC VPN. Once the VPN is configured and in place, we stand up a SQL account to allow communication with Vista. The customer and/or partner then configures this solution to point to the new IP address of Vista in the cloud.