What are headless forms?

As a service, Formcentric is platform-independent and makes use of an integrated headless server. This makes it easy to integrate your Formcentric forms into new channels at any time. Read on to find out about the other benefits you enjoy with a headless server.

What are headless forms?

Formcentric focuses on what is important: your content. For this reason, Formcentric includes an integrated headless server. Communication between the server and a digital endpoint (such as a browser, for example) is handled using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Since JSON is data-driven and not presentation-driven, like HTML, a wide range of presentation formats can be created for the forms that you need from the data that is served. Accordingly, the headless server acts as a central source that supplies your content. Content is delivered to the required channels via a REST API, which facilitates interaction with RESTful web services.

Our Formcentric form manager can therefore be integrated as part of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), which makes it able to communicate and exchange data across multiple channels with other services. This makes Formcentric independent, flexible, scalable and future-proof.

Benefits of headless forms:

1. Greater flexibility
   Headless forms can be integrated into any type of platform and modified to suit individual requirements. Content for new channels does not need to be duplicated or reformatted.

1. Improved UX
   Headless forms load more quickly and respond immediately to input. With Formcentric, forms are equipped with functions like real-time data validation, for example, or fields that can run calculations on user input. This improves the user experience, regardless of the specific channel being used.

1. Better security
   Headless forms improve security by separating the frontend (form) from the backend (data). This is particularly important if sensitive information such as personal or financial data is being processed.

1. Easier to customise
   With the frontend and backend separate from one another, headless forms also make it easier to extend and modify the backend to suit any new requirements – without your team needing to redevelop the entire application. Updates can also be rolled out faster and more reliably.

Whether you’re using Formcentric Cloud, Formcentric for CoreMedia or Formcentric for FirstSpirit, our form manager delivers your forms tailored precisely to your platform and the corresponding channel.