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To ensure scalability and versatility for different usage scenarios, Forsta Plus has been designed from the ground up as a scalable, module-based application. Different application modules can run on dedicated hardware, and can scale both upwards and outwards with more powerful and/or additional servers, load balancing, load controlling and clustering up to theoretically any setup size.
Professional Authoring
The Professional Authoring system is a session-based web application running under Microsoft Internet Information Server and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Clients can use a range of modern Internet browsers for connecting to the application via the Internet or intranet.
The Authoring module can be extended onto multiple web servers using a load balancing-capable network device that supports sticky user sessions.
The Authoring module uses Internet Information Services with WWW/.NET Framework features configured for content delivery and SMTP for dispatching error notifications from the system to system administrators. FTP services are an optional add-on for uploading files for importing into the system.
Survey Designer
Survey Designer is the next generation of survey creation software. The application will eventually encompass all Professional Authoring functionality, and will then supersede Professional Authoring. It is a session-less web application running under Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) on the node.js framework.
The role can be extended onto multiple web servers using a load balancer-capable network device.
Survey Designer is intended to be a complete replacement to Professional Authoring, though some functionality has yet been implemented.
MetaData
With the removal of FastObjects (removed in version 18), a new Rest API was introduced to manage project definitions.
Data that was previously stored in FastObjects is now stored in the MetaDataDocumentStore, items that are currently being worked on will be loaded to the MetaDataNodeStore, and checked back to MetaDataDocumentStore when changes are committed. Both MetaDataDocumentStore and MetaDataNodeStore are stored in Microsoft SQL Server databases.
A front end server role MetaDataRestApi manages communication between servers and the database layer. This provides a scalable solution regarding performance and resilience. The MetaDataRestApi role can be load-balanced across several servers.
Deployment
The Deployment module consists of the Survey Engine, which loads interview pages requested by respondents and renders them for display in the respondents' browser.
Generated surveys are binary application packages served by Internet Information Services and the .NET Framework. Client scripts and HTML are session less; i.e. all necessary user states are preserved in the rendered HTML and relevant survey databases and are submitted between pages as hidden form values. This makes the Deployment module suitable for hardware or software load balancing. Load balancing also provides redundancy, which is strongly recommended for minimizing the risk of system unavailability in most setups.
The SMTP service is used for dispatching emails via web surveys. Scripts can be added to Forsta Plus surveys using Jscript.NET for sending emails directly from survey interview pages.
A standard Forsta Plus survey complies with the HTML v3.2 specification, which should make it viewable in most browsers in the field today. Project managers can deviate from the HTML v3.2 standard by designing Web Interview templates, survey layouts or using custom HTML code or scripts calling active content that might require extra functionality from the respondent's browser. The Forsta Plus user should keep this in mind when designing surveys.
Digital Feedback
Digital Feedback is part of the next generation of survey creation software from Forsta. The application enables you to define multiple intercept scenarios in a single program, using a modern and intuitive interface.
The application provides you with the ability to demonstrate intercept targeting, for example surveys in overlays, without having to continually deploy script links to the website. The application provides a single script hook for one-time integration with the website, and all scenario management is performed via Forsta Plus. You have full control over the triggering criteria, and complete customization of the look-and-feel of the invitations and the surveys.
Studio
Forsta’s Studio™ is a platform for designing research solutions for different types of stakeholders, either in the form of full end-to-end work-flows from survey creation to reporting and taking action, or in the form of engaging dashboards that help bring the right insights to the right people. Studio helps users to design programs to collect, interact with, explore, visualize and take action based on data collected from research programs, in conjunction with other business systems’ data to help businesses answer the burning question “why” and find out what undiscovered issues may be present.
Studio™ is an easy-to-use tool that facilitates deep exploratory analysis using innovative analytical techniques.
It enables users to:
- Build work-flows that users can follow to create and deploy surveys.
- Build dashboards that enable users to analyze data combined from multiple sources across businesses, and conduct ad-hoc analysis of all data sets from SmartHub.
- Perform automated exploratory analysis and visualization on research programs, in conjunction with other data from internal and external sources.
- Use built-in analysis views that illustrate insights.
The benefits of Studio™ include:
- Identifying the deeper insights that impact the business – those that are often hidden beneath the surface.
- Eliminating data silos that hide the most important insights.
- Saving time and effort by employing automated analysis.
- Improving business collaboration and communication and taking action based on insights.
- Displaying analytical findings in a format that is easy for non-analysts to understand.
Reportal
Reportal provides a dynamic interface for designing and publishing real-time reports based on data gathered in the Deployment module. Reports are created and generated in a GUI similar to the Authoring module. Reports can also be ordered via email in different formats for offline viewing.
In order to preserve SQL server performance, recently viewed report pages are cached by a dedicated system service (Caching Service) for faster repeated views. The caching interval can be customized on a report level. For faster report generation, much of the strain has also been lifted from SQL with the introduction of the BitStream service. The service makes a periodical pull of data from the SQL database into BitStream files, which are used by the web servers for extracting data. This assures greatly improved performance in report delivery.
Implicit HUB as a BitStream replacement was introduced with V18. This requires Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (Enterprise edition required) which utilizes Columnstore index to improve performance over BitStream and to introduce the ability to use report on Open Text data.
Reportal uses Internet Information Services and the .NET Framework for content delivery, and attaches to the Forsta SmartHub, BitStream and Caching Services for accelerated report content delivery. Reportal is normally run in parallel with surveys on the deployment servers, but can also be configured to run on dedicated servers. Reportal supports sticky-free load balancing, and user session persistence can be achieved via SQL or Redis. The session state control can be configured via Octopus variables.
Task System
Project managers wishing to deploy a survey into production, order data exports or send out email invitations, will do so by initiating a task on the system. On this action, the task is queued, and later picked up and executed at the first available time spot by the Forsta Plus Task System, which runs as a system service on one or several servers. Different task types can be set to run on different servers for multiplying the number of possible concurrently running tasks in high-performance systems.
The task system requires some additional application components for enabling certain data export formats (Microsoft Office Open XML, Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services), and uses SMTP for dispatching emails. Exports can be encrypted via PGP before delivery, and (secure) FTP services can be optionally installed for downloading exported contents directly from the server instead of getting data via email.
Response Data Storage
Respondent answers are stored in Microsoft SQL Server databases. Each survey has its separate database and multiple servers/instances can be utilized to distribute survey database access. Some common system databases need to reside on a common database instance, while Forsta Plus supports a virtually unlimited number of dedicated survey database instances/servers. For high availability systems, SQL server can also be set up in a failover cluster.
Important
The SQL Server databases are critical components of any Forsta Plus installation and regular backup routines should always be implemented in a production environment. Backup recommendations are given here.
Important
The SQL software must run on equipment dedicated to Forsta Plus. The sharing of SQL Server with other applications is not supported.