Universal forms engine

Abstract

A forms engine allows data sharing between customizable on-line forms, such as college admissions applications. Before applying, an applicant opens an account with a third party application servicer. After the applicant completes an application for one institution, the data is saved in a data base and automatically populates fields in subsequent application forms. The form for each institution is created from a form description file. Each form is branded for its institution and forms for different institutions differ in appearance and content so that the presence of the third party servicer is transparent to the applicant. The system is extensible without programming, allowing new applicant attributes to be readily incorporated into the system and allowing the content and appearance of the application to be readily changed by changing the description file. The use of aliases for applicant attributes permits data to be readily shared between forms even though labeled and arranged differently on different forms. Information stored about each attribute allows the specification of data validation rules and data sharing and grouping rules, as well as dependency rules that permit application, page content to depend on applicant's responses on a previous page.

1 . A method of creating and processing over a computer network forms representing applications for admission to different institutions, comprising:
 creating in response to a request from an applicant for an application to a first institution a first application form customized in accordance with the preferences of the first institution, the first application form including data fields for entering applicant information;   providing to the applicant over a computer network the first application form;   entering the applicant information in the data fields;   posting the first application form to a server;   storing the applicant information in a data storage;   creating in response to a request from the applicant for an application to a second institution a second application form customized in accordance with the preferences of the second institution, the second application form including data fields for entering applicant information;   inserting into some of the data fields of the second application applicant information from the data storage;   providing to the applicant over a computer network the second application form;   entering applicant information into the data fields for entering applicant data into which information was not inserted from the data storage or into which the data inserted from the data storage is to be changed;   posting the second application form to the server, whereby customized applications to different institutions share data through common data storage.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  in which creating a first application form customized in accordance with the preferences of the first institution includes generating a first application in accordance with stored application description information and in which the first application can be modified by modifying the application description information without rewriting the computer program that creates the application. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1  in which posting the first application includes verifying that pre-specified application information is present and meets pre-specified criteria. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1  in which posting the first application and posting the second application each includes the steps of posting a single page of the application and of posting the completed application, and in which posting a single page includes verifying that some specific information is present and meets pre-specified criteria and in which posting the complete application includes verifying that the information meets criteria specified by the corresponding institution. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1  in which creating an application to a first institution includes creating an application identified with the brand of the first institution and in which creating an application to a second institution a second application includes creating an application identified with the brand of the second. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising transmitting the applicant information to the first institution in a format specified by the first institution and transmitting the applicant information to the second institution in a format specified by the second institution. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6  further comprising making multiple applications to the first institution from different applicants available on line to the first institution for analysis after transmitting the applicant information to the first institution. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7  in which making multiple applications available to the first institution includes making application information selectively available to various personnel at the institution. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1  in which storing the applicant information is performed by a third party application servicer. 
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 9  in which posting the first application and posting the second application includes paying application fees for the applications and in which the third party servicer processes the application fee. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 1  in which storing the information includes parsing the information into elements, the data elements being separately stored and identified, thereby allowing the elements to be separately retrieved and rearranged in subsequent applications. 
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 11  in which inserting information from the data storage includes inserting information representing combined elements into a single field. 
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 1  in which the fields for entering applicant information include labels and in which at least some of the fields in the second application use different labels different from those in the corresponding fields in the first application, and in which storing the applicant information and inserting applicant information from the data storage is independent of the labels used in the application, thereby allowing each institution to customize the appearance of its corresponding application, while still permitting information to be shared across applications. 
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 1  in which the fields for entering applicant information are formatted and in which at least some of the fields in the second application are formatted differently from those in the corresponding fields in the first application, and in which storing the applicant information and inserting applicant information from the data storage is independent of the format used in the application, thereby allowing each institution to customize the appearance of its corresponding application, while still permitting information to be shared across applications. 
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 1  in which providing the first application form comprises providing multiple pages and in which posting the first application to a server includes posting multiple pages to the server. 
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 15  in which the content of a page of the provided application depends upon information posted in a previous page. 
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 1  in which the data storage includes a relational database or XML files. 
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 1  in which the data storage includes stores metadata describing the data. 
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 17  in which the metadata includes validation rules for the data. 
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 17  in which the metadata specifies the sharing between applications or the accessibility of the data. 
   
   
       21 - 55 . (canceled)