Ask HN: Modern framework to create forms and store its results

[alfageme]

After a few years of working as a physio for others, my partner is finally starting her clinic soon. The question for the software she needs to run the whole thing arises. /me wanting to help as much as I can, I've looking for the best options for accounting, CMS, payroll...

But for the "initial interview" she conducts with all incoming patients to gather information for a diagnostic. I haven't found any candidates that fit her needs. I'm thinking of building a small tool with her tailor-made questions easy to use and maintain.

Across the different projects I've worked for, I've seen lots of basic CRUD/form web apps being built with different stacks and general-purpose frameworks, but all ended up being hard to maintain and bloated in features. Maybe Django forms were the exception to that rule. I also took a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/8ghoy1/looking_for_self_hosted_form_builders and tried a few of the options outlined there but none convinced me.

Do you guys know some modern and OSS form-builder I can use for this?

TL;DR: I'm looking for something like MS Access but modern, self-hosted and -hopefully- better looking to build custom forms, store and consume results.

[mxek]

Hi, co-founder of DETA(deta.sh) here; we have a horse in this race, nonetheless are trying to make creating and hosting micro-backends super simple. Currently DETA ships with a micro-crud app based on a Flask-like router.

Auto-generated UI forms and data inspection are on our radar--we'd be more happy to give you access!

[alfageme]

Saw your overview video, very interesting indeed. Are you guys planning to release a self-hosted option? Low code & auto-gen forms are key for my use-case.

[abdelhai]

Hey Samuel, Mustafa (other co-founder) here.

> ...self-hosted option.

Yes. We can run the platform (data and code) in your AWS account. Let me know if you would like to talk. (We are based in Germany)

> low-code

With DETA you only write business logic.

> auto-gen form

We had a POC but weren't happy with it – we'll be using a different approach and hopefully launch in a few weeks.

Drop me a line and I'm sure we can help: mustafa ät deta.sh

[onion2k]

The tech you use to build it matters a lot less than whether or not your partner likes to use it. The user experience is more important than the developer experience (both matter, but the user one is more important). Show your partner examples and ask them which one they like more, and use that data to drive the choice of tech.

[alfageme]

Oh yes, the main reason not to choose any of the existing solutions I've been able to check is UX. That's why I'm thinking on building something tailor-made starting by capturing the most details of her process.

[matijash]

Once you store the survey results, what happens next? If you just used typeform (https://www.typeform.com/) (they have a really nice UX), what would you be missing?

[picsoung]

(disclaimer: I work for Typeform)

Typeform is the perfect tool for this, people have used it to create "user profile" and present recommendations depending on what they answered. (check BeardBand example: https://www.typeform.com/blog/inspiration/beardbrand-persona...)

You can also accept Payments directly on the typeform using Stripe, no need to code that part. There are plenty of salons, freelancers and businesses that use this feature to power their business. (https://help.typeform.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029570591-Pay...)

You can connect your Typeform to many other tools to automate other tasks like adding customers to a mailing list, a loyalty program, or create a calendar event. (you can get an overview over here: https://typeform.com/connect, we also integrate with connectors like Zapier, Integromat, Parabola...)

Hope it helps! Good luck kickstarting this business!

[pettycashstash2]

Flask is great. Simple and zero bloat.