Writing a .NET web service to interact with InfoPath and Oracle should not take long if you already have the InfoPath form template and Oracle database in place.

Depending on the complexity of the form, an experienced .NET developer who’s familiar with InfoPath and Oracle should easily be able to build a custom web service within 2 days. A less experienced developer could easily take 1-2 weeks, depending on their level of experience and knowledge.

If you go the ASP.NET route, please remember that it takes more time to build an ASP.NET form than it would to build an InfoPath form. But again, this depends on how complex the form is.

SharePoint, InfoPath Forms Services, and InfoPath are meant to save organizations time when trying to build collaborative solutions, because much of the plumbing that you would have to write yourself if you used ASP.NET has already been taken care of for you. This includes time to test and resolve defects.

I guess you’ll have to look whether you have people with the right skills in house and then weigh the cost/benefit of a custom ASP.NET solution against that of an InfoPath/SharePoint solution.

The decision for going with one or the other is not always clearcut…

Thank you so much. Your response was extremely helpful. Thank you also for the recommendation regarding ASP.NET. My organization does not use SharePoint, so ASP.NET might be a very favorable option. When you say “you’d have to write a custom web service,” is this a very involved and costly process? How many hours of develpment work should we anticipate for this project?

Thanks again for your kind help. I was very re-assured when I received your response, and I appreciated you taking the time to make it simple to understand for a non-technical person like myslef.

Best regards

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