The Forms Roadmap in 2021

There have been minimal changes to Oracle Forms since I released my last blog in September 2020; therefore, here is a quick update on the current position. For ease of reference, you can view my last blog here.

Lifetime Support Policy Changes

Even though there have been no new releases of Oracle Forms since 12.2.1.4 in September 2019, there has been a small change to the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy. The Premier Support end date for Fusion Middleware 12c (12.2.x) has been extended from Aug 2022 to Dec 2023.

Image is taken from Oracle Lifetime Support Policy for Oracle Fusion Middleware Guide (https://www.oracle.com/us/assets/lifetime-support-middleware-069163.pdf) – June 2021

This is because the error correction period for Oracle Fusion Middleware 12.2.1.3 has been extended by 15 months, so this has been reflected in the Premier Support.

Future Releases

According to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Statement of Direction from March 2021, the next release (14.1.2) will include Forms and Reports. In addition, Oracle also released a Statement of Direction document for Oracle Forms to state potential improvements in upcoming releases. Some of which are listed below:

• REST support for accessing data
• New user interface (UI) improvements
• Design-time productivity and performance improvements
• New and enhanced object properties
• Forms Standalone Launcher improvements
• New and improved integration with various Oracle products and technologies
• Enhanced security features
• New configuration options
• Support for new Java versions and new operating systems
• Improved provisioning options of Forms in Oracle Cloud

There is no date scheduled for the release of the next Fusion Middleware, and there is nothing that explicitly states whether it will be a new version of Oracle Forms included in the next Fusion Middleware release. So we will have to wait and see when and if these will be announced.

IE 11 Retiring – So what does this mean for Forms?

As you may be aware, Microsoft is retiring Internet Explorer from June 2022 and support for IE 11 will be withdrawn for Microsoft’s online services such as Office 365, OneDrive and Outlook on 17^th August 2021. But what does this mean for Forms?

The answer to this is dependant on if you rely on IE to run your Forms. If you do, you may want to consider an alternative solution because once IE is out of support, this will decrease the security of your Forms applications. In addition, using an alternative solution will raise some issues that may need to be addressed, such as if your Forms applications use browser dependant functions like WEB_SHOW_DOCUMENT or if you use Single Sign-On/Single Sign-Off.

There are many alternatives, but the most prominent ones seem to be the Forms Standalone Launcher (FSAL). My colleague, Colin Archer, has a great blog for those looking for more info on it.

Author: Gavin Bell

Job Title: Development Consultant

Bio: Gavin is a Development Consultant at DSP-Explorer. Having attained a BSc in Computing, he embarked on a career working with Oracle technologies and specialising in SQL and PL/SQL programming. In previous roles, he has worked with Oracle Forms and Reports (v9-12), Oracle Retail (v13) and APEX (v4.2-18.2). Here at DSP-Explorer, he is part of a highly skilled development team providing APEX development solutions and training to the UK and international businesses.