Migrate your Oracle Forms to APEX with an expert team

Choose a company with 5 Oracle ACEs on board – including Oracle ACE Director Matt Mulvaney, based in London – and a proven track record of enterprise-grade migrations.

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Learn about Pretius UK

Led by Oracle ACE Director Matt Mulvaney

Every Forms-to-APEX project is supervised by Matt – one of only 17 Oracle ACE Directors in the world – based in London. For British enterprises, this means local strategic oversight, direct access to Oracle's product roadmap, and project governance under English Law.

Matt Mulvaney

Pretius Ltd CEO / London-based leadership

♠ Oracle ACE Director — 1 of 17 worldwide

Top-level Oracle APEX and migration expertise

01 Enterprise-grade low-code applications

We build and maintain mission-critical, high-performance APEX applications for industry leaders. This includes powerful dashboards, BPM tools, sales commission systems, and extensions to existing core systems (ERP, HCM, CRM, etc.).

Our low-code solutions are designed with scalability and security in mind — essential for UK corporate environments operating under FCA, DORA, and UK GDPR requirements. We focus on delivering applications that integrate seamlessly with existing IT infrastructure, guaranteeing business continuity and minimising risk. Thanks to a rapid development methodology, we are able to deliver functional prototypes and finished systems in record time, significantly reducing TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

02 Oracle Forms to APEX migration

We are specialists in modernising legacy Oracle Forms applications, preserving your core business logic while transitioning you to a modern, web-native architecture. We accelerate this process further with our proprietary AI Forms to APEX Assistant.

The migration process is more than a technical code transfer — it is a strategic transformation that frees your systems from archaic technology. We retain all the business nuances and complex PL/SQL logic from Oracle Forms while simultaneously transforming them into flexible, browser-accessible APEX applications. Our AI migration assistant automates routine tasks and helps with accurate cost estimation, allowing our team to focus on optimising and adapting the user interface to modern standards.

03 Legacy modernisation

We specialise in migrating outdated platforms — Oracle Forms, Discoverer, OBIEE — to modern, cost-effective alternatives, including Oracle APEX and Java-based frameworks.

We begin with a full legacy system assessment to define the most effective modernisation path: re-platforming, re-hosting, or full re-engineering. Our goal is not just to change the platform, but to increase performance, improve security, and reduce maintenance costs. By transitioning to future-proof technologies, we ensure your investment serves the organisation for many years to come.

04 Data & application re-engineering

Beyond migration, we re-engineer and refactor your applications — breaking down monolithic structures, optimising database performance, and building modern data pipelines to ensure your systems are agile, scalable, and future-proof.

We decompose large, monolithic systems into smaller, independent microservices, simplifying change management, testing, and deployment. Simultaneously, we focus on advanced database optimisation to speed up application performance and enable real-time strategic business decisions.

05 Cloud migration, strategy and optimisation

As an official Oracle partner, we have deep expertise in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), including UK Sovereign Cloud solutions, with experience spanning AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.

We design cloud migration strategies, optimise costs and performance, and execute both "lift and shift" re-hosting and full application re-architecture — ensuring alignment with UK regulatory requirements throughout.

Pretius AI Forms to APEX Assistant

To make your migration faster and more predictable, we leverage our proprietary AI Forms to APEX Assistant. This custom-built tool uses AI to accelerate every phase of your project, reducing risk and saving developer-hours.

AI-powered project estimation: Our AI analyses your FMB and XML files to provide a highly accurate estimation of the migration effort, with a proven 90% accuracy rate. This eliminates guesswork and enables precise budgeting and resource planning from day one — critical for UK procurement and governance processes.
Semi-automated conversion: The assistant automatically converts vast amounts of your core logic — intelligently transforming Forms PL/SQL into optimised database packages and utility modules — freeing up developers to focus on high-value modernisation tasks rather than tedious manual copying.
Ongoing developer assistance: Our AI tool acts as an expert co-pilot throughout the project, providing guidance, identifying troublesome areas, and suggesting modern APEX-native solutions for legacy processes. This boosts developer productivity and ensures best practices are followed at every stage.

Note:

The Pretius AI Forms to APEX Assistant is an internal tool used as part of our migration service — not a product we sell. It makes your project faster, smarter, more predictable, and more cost-effective.

Real-life experience: Van Group case study

Digitally transforming Van Group's logistics with a custom Freight Management System

Modernising the system with new features including route planning, cargo tracking, and automatic freight cost calculation. The system reduced human errors, assisted drivers with navigation, and enabled a faster response to lucrative orders.

Who should migrate – and when?

Who should migrate?

Migration is the optimal path for organisations with extensive systems based on Oracle Forms technology — particularly those wanting to preserve valuable PL/SQL business logic built over the years, while opening the system to modern innovations, cloud solutions, and native mobility. Key sectors include:

Financial and banking institutions

Banks, credit unions, leasing companies, and financial intermediaries are among the heaviest historical users of Oracle Forms. Their back-office systems — managing loan origination, interest calculations, repayment schedules, currency reconciliation, and general ledger entries — were often built directly in Oracle Forms and have been running unchanged for 15–20 years.

The urgency to migrate is particularly acute in the UK financial sector. Frameworks like DORA (the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act, in force since January 2025), MiFID II, PSD2, and FCA guidelines all require demonstrable ICT risk management — which is nearly impossible to satisfy on a platform with no active vendor support or security patches.

Oracle APEX offers native database-level security, row-level access control, and detailed audit logging — all out of the box. For a sector where data integrity and traceability are non-negotiable, this is a critical advantage over the ageing Forms client-server model. APEX also supports REST-native integration with core banking systems, credit scoring APIs, and regulatory reporting platforms, eliminating the data silos that Forms-based workflows inevitably create.

Regulatory warning:
Operating Oracle Forms 12c beyond December 2026 without Premier Support means no new CVE patches. For any institution subject to PCI-DSS, GDPR, or banking supervision audits, this is not merely a technical debt issue — it is a direct compliance violation waiting to be discovered.

Logistics and supply chain

Freight forwarders, road haulage operators, warehouse managers, and distribution network coordinators often rely on Oracle Forms for the core operational screens that underpin every shipment, route, and delivery: order entry, cargo tracking, driver dispatch, cost calculation, and customs documentation management.

The fundamental incompatibility between Oracle Forms and modern logistics is mobility. Drivers, warehouse staff, port agents, and field coordinators cannot access a Forms-based system from a tablet or smartphone — they are chained to a desktop terminal. In an industry where real-time visibility and rapid response to exceptions are competitive differentiators, this is a crippling limitation.

Logistics businesses operating internationally also benefit from APEX's multi-language support and REST-native customs and EDI integrations — two areas where legacy Forms systems consistently create manual workarounds.

Pretius has direct, validated experience here: the Van Group project delivered route planning, cargo tracking, and automatic cost calculation in a web and mobile-native environment, eliminating human errors and enabling faster responses to high-value orders.

Agriculture and food processing

Agricultural processing companies, dairy cooperatives, grain merchants, sugar refineries, and large food manufacturers frequently operate Oracle Forms-based systems to manage their supplier networks — handling raw material intake, quality testing results, payment calculations per delivered weight and grade, and regulatory traceability records.

EU Farm to Fork legislation, FSMA, and international HACCP and ISO 22000 standards all require end-to-end traceability from farm to shelf — something that is extremely difficult to implement on a system built in the 1990s.

Migrating to Oracle APEX transforms these systems into web-accessible platforms. Cooperative representatives can submit delivery schedules and view payment statements from a browser or smartphone. Quality inspectors can record test results at the intake point on a tablet. Management dashboards can aggregate real-time volumes, payments, and quality trends — something previously only visible through end-of-day batch reports.

Note: Seasonal peak processing — harvest windows in particular — demands systems that can scale and remain stable under concentrated load. APEX, backed by Oracle Database, handles this reliably and without the Java WebLogic middleware complexity that Forms requires.

Engineering and asset management

Engineering firms, municipal utilities, infrastructure operators, and facility management companies rely on Oracle Forms for asset lifecycle management — tracking the entire lifespan of physical infrastructure: creation, inspection, maintenance, repair, replacement, and decommissioning.

These organisations face a specific modernisation challenge: their asset data is irreplaceable. Decades of maintenance history, inspection records, and failure analyses are locked inside Oracle Database tables managed by Forms-based front ends. The data itself is valuable; only the front end needs to be replaced. This makes a Forms-to-APEX migration particularly well-suited — all PL/SQL business logic and database schemas can be preserved and extended rather than rebuilt from scratch.

For municipal and public-sector asset managers, Oracle APEX's robust role-based access control is particularly important: different roles (inspector, engineer, manager, auditor) each see precisely the data they need, with full audit trails required by public procurement and infrastructure regulations.

Pretius demonstrated this in practice with the Sweco case study: modernisation of a core asset management system delivering improved performance, better UX, and significantly reduced maintenance costs — all while preserving the underlying Oracle data model.

Insurance

Insurance companies, brokerage networks, and reinsurance firms have long relied on Oracle Forms for the administrative backbone of their operations: policy underwriting, client risk assessment, claims intake, premium calculation, agent commission management, and regulatory reporting.

The insurance sector has two particularly acute Oracle Forms pain points. First, consultant experience: insurance agents working in client-facing capacities need to run policy calculations and produce proposals quickly — often while in a meeting or on the road. A desktop-only Oracle Forms system makes this impossible. Second, Solvency II and related FCA supervision frameworks impose strict requirements on data governance, auditability, and ICT risk management — requirements increasingly difficult to meet on unsupported legacy platforms.

APEX enables a single application to serve both back-office staff managing complex policy administration and front-office consultants who need a fast, intuitive interface on any device. Insurance companies also benefit from APEX's built-in REST API framework for connecting to telematics providers, credit scoring bureaus, and national insurance registers — integrations that Forms-based systems handle only through expensive custom middleware.

Pretius has direct experience here: a client assessment system built for an insurance organisation now supports over 300 consultants simultaneously, delivering both reliability and modern UX.

Pharmaceutical and life sciences

Validation note: Oracle APEX's declarative development model simplifies the validation process compared to custom-coded applications. Oracle's own GAMP 5 Category 4 classification of APEX supports a streamlined validation approach accepted by FDA and EMA inspectors.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers, CROs, medical device companies, and biotech firms are among the most demanding Oracle Forms users still in production. Their systems manage regulated processes: batch manufacturing records, LIMS, quality control testing, deviation and CAPA workflows, and regulatory submission data preparation. These applications were not just built in Oracle Forms — they were validated in Oracle Forms.

This is the sector's defining tension: the same regulatory frameworks that make migrating feel risky also make staying an increasingly indefensible position. FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and the EU's Annex 11 to the GMP guidelines require that electronic records and electronic signature systems remain under active vendor support, with documented evidence of security patch management. Running a validated system on software that Oracle no longer patches does not satisfy these requirements.

The GxP validation concern is real, but it is not a blocker — it is a project parameter. Pretius migrates validated systems by treating the APEX application as a new validated system: we produce the full IQ/OQ/PQ validation documentation package as part of the delivery.

When should the decision be made?

The main motivator for immediate action is the approaching end of vendor support. For the widely used Forms 12c version, Premier Support ends December 2026, with Extended Support ending December 2027. The most recent 14.1.x version has support until December 2029 (Premier) and December 2032 (Extended).

The migration should be planned right now — especially for regulated UK entities in finance, insurance, and pharma, for whom operating on unsupported software poses a massive cybersecurity risk and threatens to violate strict regulations.

The challenge: A legacy system that holds back your business

Oracle Forms was a reliable workhorse for decades, but today's business world demands more. If you're still running critical operations on Forms, you are likely facing:

High and rising costs: Expensive licensing (Forms, WebLogic, etc.), disappearing developer talent, and complex client-server maintenance drain your IT budget.
Lack of mobility: Your applications are chained to the desktop, making remote work inefficient and fieldwork impossible.
Shrinking talent pool: Forms specialists are retiring. Finding someone who knows Forms and Java is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive — particularly in the UK market.

Security & compliance risks: Older systems are difficult to patch and secure, exposing you to modern threats and compliance violations under FCA, DORA, and UK GDPR.
Integration difficulties: Connecting to modern cloud services, APIs, and SaaS applications creates data silos and manual workarounds.
Poor user experience: Outdated, non-intuitive interfaces frustrate users, slow onboarding, and lead to costly errors — especially for younger employees accustomed to modern tooling.

The clock is ticking: Oracle Forms end of support

Beyond daily frustrations, there is a critical, time-sensitive business risk: the impending end of support for Oracle Forms.

Version

Premier Support ends

Extended Support ends

Fusion Middleware 12c

December 2026

December 2027

Version 14.1.x

December 2029

December 2032

What this means for your business

No new security patches: Oracle will no longer release security updates, leaving critical data and applications vulnerable to new threats.
No new bug fixes: Any newly discovered bugs will go unresolved, leading to potential instability and operational disruptions.

Major compliance failures: Operating on unsupported software is a major red flag for auditors and can put you in breach of PCI-DSS, HIPAA, UK GDPR, FCA, and DORA requirements.
Extreme "Sustaining Support" costs: Your only option becomes Oracle's Sustaining Support: no new patches or fixes, at premium price for minimal support.

The question is no longer if you should migrate, but when. Running your business on an unsupported platform is not a viable strategy – it's a critical liability waiting to happen.

The solution: The Oracle APEX business advantage

All of these challenges can be answered by a move to Oracle APEX. This is not just an update — it is a complete business transformation. As a no-cost feature of your Oracle Database, APEX is the clear, low-risk path forward.

Key business advantages of migrating to Oracle APEX

Drastically reduce TCO:
APEX is a fully supported, no-cost feature of the Oracle Database. You eliminate Oracle Forms and Reports licensing and runtime fees forever. Less infrastructure and simplified maintenance means your budget goes to innovation, not just keeping the lights on.
Accelerate business agility:
Go from idea to enterprise-grade application 10–20× faster. APEX's low-code, declarative framework empowers developers to build and deploy rich, functional applications with minimal hand-coding. New reports, dashboards, and data entry forms can be delivered in hours or days, not months.
Enable a true mobile & remote workforce:
APEX apps are web apps (with PWA support), meaning the platform is mobile-ready out of the box. A single APEX application is 100% responsive, working flawlessly across any desktop, tablet, or smartphone — essential for UK teams with field workers, remote employees, or client-facing consultants.

Enhance security & simplify compliance:
Leverage the world-class built-in security of your Oracle Database. APEX provides powerful, pre-built features for authentication, authorisation, and session management — making it far easier to secure data and pass FCA, DORA, and UK GDPR audits than with legacy client-server systems.
Boost productivity & user satisfaction:
Replace clunky, grey screens with modern, intuitive interfaces that employees will actually want to use. Better UX means faster onboarding, fewer data-entry errors, and increased productivity.
Seamlessly integrate your entire ecosystem:
APEX's native support for REST APIs allows effortless connection to any cloud service, third-party application, or microservice — breaking down data silos and automating workflows.

Potential migration challenges – and our answers

Challenge 1: System complexity and "dead" code

The challenge

Systems developed over decades often contain thousands of screens and reports, a significant portion of which is "dead" code. A traditional attempt to rewrite everything one-to-one ("Big Bang" approach) is doomed to fail due to the overwhelming scope and risk of disrupting business continuity.

Our answer

Instead of a risky revolution, we implement a methodical "Data-Driven Scoping" approach. We first log user activity in the old system to precisely identify actually used functionalities — the critical path — and eliminate dead code from the migration scope. We use our proprietary Pretius AI Forms to APEX Assistant to estimate time and costs accurately and semi-automatically transfer core business logic to the database, saving hundreds of development hours. The new and old systems can run in parallel throughout.

Challenge 2: User habits and keyboard-driven workflows

The challenge

Back-office employees are often highly accustomed to the specifics of desktop Oracle Forms — including keyboard-only navigation using function keys (F8, F10, etc.), high data density screens, and working in multiple windows simultaneously with independent sessions. Standard APEX applications work differently, and forcing a change meets with resistance and frustration from business teams.

Our answer

We do not forcefully impose a "modern" design that lowers productivity. Instead, we create a hybrid UI that preserves the high data density layout and supports key keyboard shortcuts from the old system. We have also developed a custom mechanism in Oracle APEX that fully isolates the state of individual browser tabs — so users can safely work on multiple processes simultaneously, which quickly builds system acceptance among the most demanding employees.

Interested in a Forms to APEX migration?

Contact us at hello@pretius.com or book a discovery call to capitalise on our extensive experience with Forms migrations for UK enterprises.

Book a Discovery Call

Our proven, low-risk migration path

We don't just "lift and shift." We use a strategic methodology that mitigates risk, delivers fast wins, and modernises your application for the future.

01

Proof of Concept

If you're not sure whether a Forms-to-APEX migration is even possible in your case, we can create a PoC to demonstrate it. With a small amount of resources and 4–8 weeks, we take the most complex or most business-critical module and rewrite it. If it's a success — and it usually is — it's a clear signal that the rest of your system can be migrated as well.

02

Discover & assess

We perform a deep analysis of your existing Forms applications, database, and PL/SQL business logic. We identify the scope of the project and evaluate what can be automated, what needs to be refactored, and what can be retired. Our proprietary AI-powered Forms to APEX Assistant provides a precise estimate of time and cost.

03

Plan & prioritise

We work with you to determine whether you want a 1:1 migration or wish to use this opportunity to modernise, then build a strategic migration roadmap. We prioritise modules based on business impact, enabling a phased rollout that provides tangible wins quickly without disrupting your operations.

04

Migrate & modernise

Our experts use a combination of automated conversion tools and hands-on refactoring. We don't just copy old screens — we redesign workflows to be intuitive and efficient, leveraging modern APEX components like interactive reports, charts, and faceted search. We can also make the system resemble Oracle Forms as closely as possible (including mirroring keyboard shortcuts) to ensure a smooth transition for existing users.

05

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Users test the new system and verify it works as well as — or better than — the old one. Employees are trained and shown that the new application is not worse, just different. Where necessary, we negotiate minor changes in the flow to reassure end users.

06

Deployment & support

We manage a seamless go-live process with intensive support for the first 2–3 months. We ensure 100% data integrity and functional parity, identifying and resolving edge cases as they emerge.

After deployment, we provide training and support to ensure your team is successful and your new application grows with your business. Alternatively, we can adopt our co-creation approach and train your in-house team throughout the entire project, so your employees are ready for future maintenance and further development of the APEX-based system.

A partnership, not a hand-off: Our co-creation model

We offer a more flexible and empowering alternative to the traditional "black box" migration. With our co-creation model, this is not a project we do for you — it is one we do with you. We integrate our APEX migration experts directly with your in-house IT and business teams, becoming a single, unified unit focused on a shared goal.

Long-term business advantages of co-creation

Build exactly what you need:
Your business experts are involved from day one, ensuring the new APEX application is perfectly aligned with your real-world processes. No surprise reveals — just a system that works the way your business works.
Create lasting internal expertise:
Through daily collaboration and knowledge transfer, your team learns APEX development best practices during the migration itself.
Empower your team for the future:
When the project is complete, your team has the deep, hands-on knowledge to confidently maintain, troubleshoot, and extend the new APEX application themselves — dramatically reducing long-term reliance on external support.

The Pretius UK advantage

Local governance. European scale. Zero risk.

We combine London-based strategic leadership with the engineering power of Europe's largest APEX hub — delivering results that purely local UK firms cannot match.

Sovereign ACE leadership

Pretius Ltd is a fully registered UK entity (Company No: 147557660) headquartered in London. All operations governed by English Law. Oracle ACE Director Matt Mulvaney oversees all UK project architectures directly.

Local UK contracts, jurisdictional security
FCA / DORA architecture expertise
UK GDPR and Data Protection compliant
100% IR35-compliant B2B engagement

Instant enterprise scale

In a market where agencies struggle to find senior APEX and Forms developers, we provide immediate access to battle-hardened specialists.

300+ in-house salaried specialists
Squads deployable within 2 weeks
No recruitment, no IR35 exposure
ACE-level standards across the entire team

London–Warsaw hybrid model

Strategic consulting and governance from our London office, combined with the cost efficiency and scale of our Warsaw Centre of Excellence — Europe's premier Oracle APEX and Forms engineering hub.

Matt Mulvaney-led UK strategy and delivery
Time-zone aligned collaboration
Oracle UK Sovereign Cloud expertise
24/7 managed services with SLA backing

By the Numbers

+ years

Powering market leaders

In-house specialists available

+ projects

Successfully delivered

Of clients become long-term partners

Accuracy rate on AI-powered migration estimates

Oracle ACEs

On board, including 1 ACE Director

What our clients say

Adam Kasperowicz

CIO – VAN group

The new e-VAN system has become an innovative tool and work environment. The development team allows us to use the potential of the latest trends and technological solutions: web & mobile development, responsiveness, integrations, low-code, and cloud computing.

Stop maintaining. Start innovating.

Your core business logic is valuable. Your legacy interface is a liability.

Unlock the full potential of your data and empower your teams with a modern, secure, and flexible application platform. Contact us today at hello@pretius.com or book a discovery call to see how quickly you can leave Oracle Forms behind.

Book a discovery call

Learn about Pretius UK

No commitment required · We often build a basic PoC live during the first meeting

FAQ

Oracle APEX is a modern platform for building web applications. It runs in the browser (no installation required) and uses the Oracle database. It's low-code — easier and cheaper to develop than traditional programming.

Yes. With an Oracle Database licence, you can use APEX at no additional cost.

Unfortunately no. The automated process is limited by several factors:

A Forms Program Unit is a combination of conditions, authentications, processes, and validations. APEX requires these to be split out into clearly defined logical areas.
A Forms Program Unit contains Forms-specific PL/SQL (e.g. the SYNCHRONIZE command) with no APEX equivalents.
Applications rebuilt in APEX will inherently look and function differently, requiring manual adjustment.

However, our developers use the AI Forms to APEX Assistant to speed up the conversion of the above, making the whole process semi-automated and significantly faster than purely manual approaches.

It depends on your particular circumstances:

A small system (10–20 Forms): a few months
A medium system (50–100 Forms): 6–12 months
A large system (several hundred Forms): multiple years

We work module by module, so you do not have to wait until the end to start using new components. We will provide you with an accurate estimate based on a combination of statistical analysis, our AI assistant, and extensive experience with past projects.

You can, and you will gain some new features and an extended support window. However, even the latest version of Oracle Forms is not as modern and future-proof as Oracle APEX, and you will still need to pay licensing fees — whereas APEX is included with your Oracle Database licence at no additional cost. Moving to APEX makes more sense strategically, especially since upgrading older Forms versions also requires time and resources.

Clients often ask for a one-to-one UI conversion of Forms to APEX, believing it is quicker. In practice, it is much faster for APEX developers to utilise the modern, responsive design of the Universal Theme using native APEX components. Getting APEX to mimic the nuances of Oracle Forms is time-consuming and yields inferior outcomes. We also find that this is the ideal opportunity for a fresh redesign — the Forms-era layouts were fine 20 years ago, but many more web components can now be leveraged within the APEX framework.

A Forms to APEX migration fits well because:

The Oracle Database can be totally reused, including all server-side code
PL/SQL is at the heart of both applications
Forms developers can be reskilled in APEX following Oracle's Learning Paths

When deciding on an alternative to APEX, consider:

The existing skillset of your development team
The investment already made in the Oracle Database
Long-term technology strategy of your organisation
Integration requirements with other systems
Performance and scalability needs
Budget constraints and total cost of ownership
Desired level of vendor independence